If you represent a church or nonprofit, you know all to well that financial resources are limited. You have real technology needs, but the strain on capital makes the investment in server hardware and software a real challenge. Even if your organization is large or well funded and can afford the investment, it means precious capital is tied up in technology rather than in your direct mission.
Today, these challenges can be easily overcome by moving your organization's technology to the cloud. This simply means that the servers reside in third-party data center and you access your data, applications, etc. via the web or a local application that syncs. If you use gmail, you're emailing in the cloud, so it's not as unfamiliar as you might think.
Most nonprofits need the following core technology to further their mission: email, calendar, address book, document creation/management, contact/task/donation management and a web site.
You can do all of this for free, with some limitations, using the two cloud solutions below:
Step 1 - Google Apps: For email, address book, document creation/management and a web site, you can sign-up for the Google Apps nonprofit edition (technically the education edition now). You'll get access to an enterprise class cloud platform to manage your email, create/store documents, spreadsheets and presentations, share calendars and contacts and host websites. You can do all of this using your own domain name and for free for up to three thousand users. Learn more here.
Step 2 - Salesforce: When you're ready to start managing contacts (volunteers, donors, etc.), tasks, workflow, donations, build customs apps and integrated websites, you can setup Salesforce's nonprofit edition. Salesforce, like Google Apps, is an enterprise class cloud platform. You can customize the platform for your organization and most of it is free, or very inexpensive, for up to ten internal users. The sky's the limit with Salesforce in terms of using it to host sites and custom applications, so the solution scales well as your organization grows and its needs evolve. And, since Salesforce and Google Apps integrate nicely together, you'll end up with one integrated solution, which will make life easier on everyone. Learn more here.
You may also find the tech toolbox presentation I've put together helpful.
Comments