Info Tech for Non-Profits

Canva.com free for non-profits

One of the non-profits I’ve worked with uses Canva and loves it. And it’s free for non-profits!

Canva for Non-Profits

Pixelmator Pro · Mac image editing app on sale for $28

Pixelmator and Pixelmator Pro are my top recommendations for image editing apps. Sadly they are Mac-only. But the good news is Pixelmator Pro is on sale this week for only $28 (it’s usually $40). Even at $40 for Pro and $30 for standard, these are amazing deals for the functionality you get. So if you were thinking about potentially buying, now is a great time.

Get Pixelmator Pro from the App Store

Cheap smartphones with prices too good to be true probably are; they steal money and data

This is sad, but not surprising. For any of my readers who work in the developing world, beware of cheap smartphones from brands like Tecno and Alcatel. They might have malware preinstalled that steal your data and sign you up for paid services you never agreed to.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/cheap-chinese-smartphones-malware

Donate 2x by MSCHF for doubling donations using large corporate matching programs

Very cool guerrilla fundraising idea for routing donations through sympathetic corporate employees to get their employer match, thus doubling the donation. I have to be honest—I only got serious about philanthropy when I realized how much money I was leaving on the table by not maxing out the employer match when I worked at Microsoft. There are a lot of companies that match in the range of $5–20k/year.

Donate 2x

Blackbaud data breach—yet another reason to use a different CRM for your nonprofit

Blackbaud was already pretty low on the list of nonprofit CRM services I would recommend to people 11 other better options on (there are this crowdsourced list). This data breach—and more to the point Blackbaud’s untrustworthy response of paying the ransom—puts them solidly in the “do not use” category. If you are on Blackbaud now, I recommend starting the process of transferring your data over to another option ASAP.

There are many other good options out there, but LiveImpact continues to be my top recommendation. I just talked with my contact over at LiveImpact, and they told me that the team there will absolutely help migrate data over from any current system you use, including Blackbaud.

Talk to LiveImpact about migrating to their platorm

Note: I have no financial or personal stake in LiveImpact. I’ve just evaluated a lot of different services in my years of IT for nonprofits, and I think they are great.

WeTransfer is my go-to service for sending large files (up to 2GB)

For anything more than a few MB (a few images, documents etc.), I’m now leaning on WeTransfer to send files. It prevents them from cluttering up my mail storage, and it allows sending larger files—up to 2 GB—which allows for videos and larger archives.

For sending to people who have spotty internet service, I still do prefer to use Resilio Sync or some other BitTorrent-based technology. But WeTransfer is so much simpler and easier to use.

WeTransfer—send large files up to 2 GB

FreeWill.com can help your nonprofit be a part of your donors’ estate plans

Any nonprofit that is no longer in the startup phase should absolutely be tapping its dedicated donor base to ask them to consider including a bequest in their estate planning. I just ran across the online service FreeWill.com which can help your donors set up a will and at the same time include a bequest in the will to your charity.

Full disclosure: I know nothing more about the service than what I read on their own site. I’ve never used it nor do I know anyone who has. So caveat emptor.

FreeWill—planned and major giving tools

Calendly is a great freemium tool for letting other people schedule events on your calendar

Finally! An elegant solution for sharing your free/busy calendar information with anyone in the world and allowing them to book events.

Calendly works with Google Calendar, Outlook, Exchange and iCloud. The premium version allows you to let people schedule different meeting lengths. But I find the free version works reasonably well. I use 60 minutes as my standard event duration, and then have a custom question on the form that allows people to indicate they want a shorter meeting.

Calendly—meeting scheduling tool

Super high-quality video calls using the Camo app to link your smartphone camera to your laptop

This is a brilliant concept, and even better it’s free! Webcams built into laptops are very low quality and it shows. If you really want to make a great impression on your next video call (and let’s face it, there’s going to be a lot of that for a while to come) then check out Camo. Get the app for your phone, the companion app for your laptop, connect the two and use it as your video source in your video conferencing app.

Camo app for high-quality conferencing video

Inspiration for emails sent to donors and supporters

Really Good Emails collects examples of noteworthy emails sent by other orgs. Look to it for inspiration.