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Resources for Nonprofit Techies

The following examples are especially useful for smaller, voluntary organizations working with a limited budget.


DESKTOP PUBLISHING/ OUTREACH LITERATURE

Make your own outreach postcards. Paying the designer is the most expensive part. If you design it yourself, the printing is cheap -- only $250 for 5,000 postcards (min. order is 5,000)! See the great prices at 1-800-Postcards. 

Only want 1,000 postcards? Check out the great prices for smaller orders at www.overnightprints.com. They have the option to get lovely, rounded corners! Cheap business cards and more. Careful, if you get it overnight it is not very cheap; if you can wait a week it is. Also cheap, but similarly slow, is PSprint.com.

Make Condom Packets. The ones that are that cute shape cost a lot to print. Here's how to make them on the cheap:
(1) Create an agency postcard or business card listing services and referals;
(2) Get bulk cheap baggies (1,000 @$15) online or at plastic stores at Broadway and Canal;
(3) Add free condoms and lube from the NYC Dept. of Health and, save lives in your community!

WEB HOSTING & DESIGN

Want beginning-level, cheap web hosting? If you only have a relatively simple website like this one (only HTML -- no databases; no movies; no CGI scripts; only email-based tech support), go with DirectNic.com.  They charge only $15/year to reserve a domain name. Hosting is free, but includes ads.  Ad-free hosting is only an additional $15/year.  (Also, cool "Site Builder" service for only $25/year; or learn to hand code a site here) Yes, for only $30 PER YEAR you get a very professional web presence at an unbeatable price!  Main disadvantage: at this price you only get e-mail tech support so your web person has to be a self-starter. But, the email support is quite good for the price.

Want decent free web hosting? There are ads -- all free web hosting includes ads -- but not really obnoxious ones.  Check out FreeServers.com. Angelfire.com is free, ad-supported web hosting that support video files! MySpace.com has obnoxious ads, but interactive features that young people love (as well as video/audio). Limited email support only.

Want professional-level, cheap web hosting? Outgrown free and cheap web hosting? Want faster web hosting, phone support, a lot of space and just plain old good service? I personally love and use LunarPages.com. They have CGI scripting, support lots of audio and video formats, have great e-mail and web statistics, unlimited MySQL databases and much more for $7.95/month. Also, they allow "adult" graphics so you can show people how to use a condom and make safer sex messages a lot more useful ("use a condom" is not saving the lives of the many young people who don't know how to properly use a condom). Best of all, astonishingly professional, phone-based technical support (at this price you'll have to be on hold a bit to get through the queues). Also great, you can have 10 free add-on accounts, that is host 10 other websites (with their own domain names) on your website for free!! If you host several websites, combine them and save a lot of money!
- Need good quality hosting for only one website, OneandOne.com. Not as much space as Lunarpages.com, but a lot cheaper ($2.99/month) and better support than others at this price.

Get your website organization's website to show up near the top on search engines (search engine "optimization"). Lots of useful how-to articles and a free newsletter.

Check out the fabulous Web tutorials on this site!

ADDED FUNCTIONALITY FOR YOUR WEBSITE

Add forms to your website, free and with no programming. Many inexpensive web hosts (like DirectNic) only host, but not process, forms. And forms are hard to program anyways. Check out Response-O-Matic, the free forms creator and processor!

Accept Online donations. A very popular and reputable service that does the work for you (you need a 501c3) is Network for Good. Another good one is NYCharities.org; their service offers the option of dedicating ones donation "In Honor Of" or "In Memory Of" a loved one. A GREAT article listing many new options for online fundraising (both with 501c3 status and not and including individuals) is posted on First-Of-Its-Kind.org.

Hook up a free online store through CafePress. It's easy, fun and free! You upload your cute design to any number of products and people buy it and they ship it. You can't lose money, this is a great program activity for young people. See an example at BRGny.org.

Add HIV "Edutainment" Quizes to your website. Many people won't read straight facts. But they will learn while playing.  Check out the easy-to-make HTML game at Imani House.  An easy way to make online quizes is with the free extension, CourseBuilder, that integrates with Dreamweaver (our favorite software for building websites).

Add free polls to your website.  People love to be able to give their opinion. And we all learn from them.  Check out the free poll generator at FreePolls.com. 

Standard Release Forms are good to get signed before using someone's picture, artwork or interview on your website. We're not lawyers and can't say these are foolproof, but one I've used is ABC.

Want a blog? Here's the easiest way to get started with Blogger.com (slightly easier) or WordPress.com (more functionality). Both offer stand-alone options or you can integrate into an existing website. Also, note that MySpace, FreeServers and other free/inexpensive webhosts offer integrated blogs.

Once you've mastered the easy blogs above and you want a blog with more cool features that is standards compliant and free? Check out the amazing WordPress.org (you need web hosting and the ability to host an MySQL database). You can have video, photo galleries, static pages, calendars and much more! Want a WordPress blog as your website and need cheap ($2.50/mth) hosting? Try SuperbHosting.com.

How do you get visitors to your website? How do you get visitors to interact with different edutainment and other lifesaving information once they are there? Key to answering these questions is analyzing how folks get to your site and what they do once they get there (visit front page for 15 seconds and leave or ?). There is a GREAT new service from Google that used to cost $199/month and is now FREE called Google analytics! Basically you open up a Gmail free e-mail account and then you can open this free Analytics (or website statistics on steroids) account. Then, head over to "Conversion University" and learn how to convert your casual visitors to fully engaged members of your website community!

Make free online, easily updatable maps with Google's new Frappr service. Perfect for advertizing different social services in a neighborhood, different safe places to hang out for a community, locations of free Internet access and much more. There is also a national maps service too.

Open up a MySpace page for your organization. Then the over 1 million MySpace users can add you to their page ("friend's list") and spread your organization's mission to their peers. Of course, cool graphics and multimedia helps.

Add a wiki: a web site that any authorized user can easily edit, where all previous versions are viewable and notification of changes can be subscribed to. Read the interview with Never Again International and then visit their website.

Want to host video and don't have the bandwidth? Want to put your video into the most widely accessible format and don't own Macromedia Flash? You can now use the most popular online video-hosting website, YouTube.com and embed the video into your own website. Yes, you get the hits and YouTube.com pays the bandwidth and gives you access to their huge audience! Follow the link to "post videos to your blog." This is a bit technical. For a great tutorial check out Practical Web Design tutorial (August 2006 issue); this isn't posted online yet, sorry no exact link.

Put up podcasts for free on your agency website! A great program activity for youth. Get free audio software that works on Macs and PCs, called Audacity; this software imports sound, allows you to edit it and then export it in the format you want for your website (MP3). To create an RSS feed try the free Podserve.

Be sure to have a form to (ask and then) get people's email's that visit your website. There are lots of tools that make it super easy to have people's email address taken from your website and automatically collected together (no more having to add to your own database), when you want to send out a newsletter it is super easy (and even if your list is large you don't get marked as a spammer)! Learn about a lot of different email list/newsletter tools. A cute slideshow specifically evaluating online newsletter tools.

Tools to manage content on your website- Depending on how large your website is (or you expect it to become in the near future) or what you need it to do (need, not want!), there are a range of tools to help you edit and update your website. If you do not have an experienced techie as a volunteer or staff member, you can safely update a properly set up website (with special editable areas set up in Dreamweaver) with the super-easy software Contribute. There are many other software solutions if you need to do more complicated tasks. Read about them all.

An Introduction to Integrating Constituent Data: 3 Approaches
www.idealware.org/articles/intro_data_integration.php
More detail about options for integrating data

Tool to See if Servers are on Blacklists
http://member.dnsstuff.com/pages/tools.php
Use the Spam Database Lookup at the top center.  You'll need the IP address of the mail server to do this effectively- you'll need to ask the vendor for the IP address of the mail server that you would be likely to use if you signed up for their service..

Tool to Get Spam Rating on an Email
http://spamcheck.sitesell.com/
Don't believe me that Microsoft Office clip art in an email is bad?! Tempted to use all those "oh-so-cute" blinky pictures?! This site gives instructions for sending an email to a particular email address, which will then send you back the spam rating for the email. Make sure the email you send out does not have a high spam rating, otherwise the people you send it to will never get it (their email service will block it).

There are great websites to learn new web tools to help nonprofits achieve our missions (only the .org's are nonprofits themselves):
www.netsquared.org
www.techsoup.org
www.sitepoint.com
www.practicalwebdesign.com

Stock Libraries

Photos, Templates, Flash files all to help make you look good
Istockphoto - Royalty free stock photography, videos, and illustrations for $1 - $5. Some good bargins and lots of crap, patient looking will find good stuff.
FlashDen - A resource selling stock Flash, audio, video and fonts for as little as 50 cents
Getty Images - When price is no object and quality is essential
Veer - Rights managed and royalty free photography, illutration, type, and motion
Stock.xchng - Completely Free stock photography
Ice Templates - Website templates in Flash and HTML
Arcsin Templates- High quality web and WordPress templates written in beautiful CSS. Not for beginners.
MyFonts - All the fonts you could ever want and a very handy font identification tool as well. Costs money.
1001 Free Fonts- Great free fonts collection, both Mac and PC fonts. Click on letters to see free fonts and avoid ads.
IconBuffet - Icons, more icons and even more icons
Free Clip Art- really free! this won't install spyware


CHEAP AND LEGAL SOFTWARE

Get cheap, new and legal software at the Tech Soup website. Different companies require different things, often a 501(c)3 (if you don't have yet, get your fiscal sponsor to order for you).  Microsoft products (Microsoft XP and Office) are plentiful and super cheap as well as Macromedia products (websites).  FileMaker Pro discounts of 50% off require a minimum purchase of 10 copies!  Adobe products (includes Photoshop).  Cheap Symantec (that's Norton Anti-Virus) programs; also, in NYC, get free installation on "Virus Vacination Day" Saturday, September 18, 2004, when volunteers will come and install onsite at your not-profit!  Can't wait and a PC user and only need a single user version? Protect your e-mail messages from being intercepted and read by someone else and other encryption programs. ScreenCorder is a cool free program that records on-screen actions and audio as video files --great for tutorials! Gutenprint is a free suite of printer drivers for high quality printing from a UNIX or Macintosh computer to a Windows-based computer; note: there are different versions of Gutenprint depending on what specific operation system you have.

Open Source is a type of software that is created by altruistic programmers and is free for noncommercial use. There is Open Office, the free equivelent to Microsoft Office; includes BASE, an open source database. These are often great programs, but the catch is their often aren't very easy-to-read instructions with them and they don't have some of the advanced features you might expect with a paid program.

Create the code needed to make quizzes and put them on your website. Only basic HTML knowledge required! Put up interactive, educational and FUN quizzes on your website!

Free Essential Security Software
You must have antivirus software that automatically updates itself for the latest viruses. Last week's antivirus software is little better than no antivirus software. If you have a PC and are a one-person shop, check out the free, excellent antivirus software AVG Anti-Virus.  Mac user? Also, download and install the free (for individuals) anti-spyware program, Ewido. Lastly, if you have broadband Internet (DSL or cable) you need protection from hackers; use the free version of the excellent Zone Alarm for nonprofits and individuals.
Mac User? Try ClamXav antivirus if you are a Mac User and really comfortable with advanced computer stuff. If not, try your luck (there are few Mac viruses), but if you do work where you get hate mail (i.e. bad folks might really send you a virus) you'd better play it safe with commercial antivirus software.

CHEAP SOFTWARE TRAINING

(1)  The largest provider of free computer training in NYC is the public library system.  The public library is divided into two parts:

 

(a) Manhattan/ Bronx/ Staten Island.  Here is the online database listing all the classes and where and when. Most classes are geared to beginners, like "Intro to the Internet," "Beginning Microsoft Word," "Excel 101," "Access 101" and "Health Resources of the Internet." http://www.nypl.org/classes/branchclasses.cfm

 

(b) Brooklyn/Queens parts of the NYC public library system is .  All there classes are listed together, from computers to crocheting, which makes it much harder to find just the computer classes you want, but the link listing all theses is: http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/events/classes.jsp

Hint, the branch library closest to your home may not have many classes, often they are at the main branch locations.  Many of these classes are geared towards early beginners.

(2) Data Link- Data Link is the technology and training division of Public Health Solutions (formerly MHRA).  Data Link has been offering reasonably priced computer software training to the New York not-for-profit community for nearly a decade.  They specialize in specializes in training for the Microsoft Office Suite (all programs and levels). They have a great computer lab and are really nice.  

(3) New Horizons- If your agency wants in-depth training more substantial than the library provides or in non-MS Office applications, try New Horizons.  Since it opened its doors in 1982, New Horizons Computer Learning Centers has grown to become the largest independent technology training company worldwide.  New Horizons offers discounted prices for NPower NY members and clients.  Application classes are @$150 per student per day.  Technical classes are @$300 per student per day.  To take advantage of this special pricing, you must register for classes through NPower NY (see http://www.npowerny.org/education/training/index.htm).   Send the name and date of the class along with your name, organization and phone number to Training@NPowerNY.org.  NPower NY will invoice your organization for the training fee and confirm your registration for the class.  Warning, they sometimes teach old software, for example, they are often a version behind what is current for the Adobe applications and Quark, this isn’t so bad.  But, they teach HTML 4, which is no longer the programming language of the internet having been replaced by XHTML 1.  I notice they have a Flash 8 class listed which is a VERY different application than the current Flash CS3!  If you had one person needing to know web standard, industry-current web design stuff I’d suggest a commercial school like Noble Desktop (great for linear learners and beginners; great instructors) NYU (most challenging, theory and practice; instructors are professionals first, teachers second, so not for total beginners; good digital design (web & print), marketing, web development, and other certificate programs). 

(4) My favorite place to get free, high quality, online-based training in all things web is Adobe's training, www.adobe.com/training/. There are 3 types. First, go to www.adobe.com and sign up for free. Then go click on whatever training you want to see (online, often 45 min.). To get notified of the latest training webinars; these are often on the hottest, cutting edge topics! Lastly, there are live events, especially in NYC. These are often free and very exciting and a great way to rub elbows with leading industry professionals (don't worry if half of it is above your head, just enjoy what you can understand).

(5) The New York Personal Computer Users Group (NYPC) has interesting and relatively cheap classes.  For example they offer a Basics of Computer Repair with Intro to A+ Certification and a class to get your A+ Certification.  Plenty of nonprofit “computer schools” come and go and teach folks a hodgepodge of hardware and software skills, but rarely does the person get real, industry-standard skills.  A+ Certification is the same certification industry folks will have and thus ensures this is a real class.  Also, they have “Photoshop for Photographers” class and regular Dreamweaver classes and sometimes even programming classes!  Classes are between 100 - $200 dollars and multi-session.  The quality varies according to the instructor, who is often famous in their circles. http://www.nypc.org/classes.php

(6) The Apple Store in Soho often has interesting seminar classes, especially in areas like video and audio.  Even if you don’t have a Mac you can learn a lot.  Often famous filmmakers come demonstrate how they made their movies and bands their songs.  http://www.apple.com/retail/soho/ (the 14th Street store has a small training area that isn't so good, but it offers the unique four-part, eight-hour courses covering either Aperture, Final Cut Pro, or Logic Pro...free!)

(7) If you’ve had a class or a favorite program and want ongoing support, many areas of technology have ongoing “User Groups.”  For example there is a Macintosh Users Group (http://www.metromac.org/about.php), a Final Cut Pro Users Group (http://www.nycfcug.org/), a Photoshop Users Group (http://photoshop.meetup.com/205/?gj=sj10).  Many of these groups meet through the NYPC, see http://www.nypc.org/sigs.php, some lead by industry famous folks.  Yes, there is an Access Users Group! 

(8) Get cheap video training for your peer educators and staff, includes access to industry-standard equipment:

(9) NPowerNY offers some training themselves, nothing regular, check their website. Also, if you are a network, get them to teach their two seminars for your group: (1) Technology Strategies for Nonprofit Leaders: This workshop teaches nonprofit leaders how to plan for and make informed decisions about technology investments. (2) Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery: This workshop helps nonprofit leaders and technology professionals develop and implement the policies and procedures needed to protect their agencies' vital information in the event of disaster.

(10) Learn how to market/ brand/ publicize your organization. Take this free, high quality, fun, useful Workshop on Branding Strategies for Not-for-profits by Bemporad Baranowski Marketing Group (BBMG). They are a for-profit firm trying to sell their own technical assistance in marketing, and it is more than worth a listen to. They also give great free materials. Especially relevant to small to medium nonprofits; not so helpful to all-volunteer start-ups. If you want free web-based seminars on marketing, check out Kintera's (they sell constituent relationship management software, but webinars don't hard sell).

(11) Most people ask me for help finding Photoshop training in NYC. This program is immense and training helps. Good online resources at Peachpit Press.

FREE HIV/AIDS EDUCATION & PREVENTION MATERIALS

Lots of free literature and testing information and more at the NYC Dept. of Health website.

Free condoms from the NYC Dept. of Health; add lube -- they'll work a lot better and save lives in your community!

Materials on the NYS expanded syringe access demonatration project.

Help getting radio stations in NYC to publicize your HIV education, testing and services and events through Project WAVE.

Report about the increased health risks to gay, Latino men from homophobia.

HARDWARE

How can a nonprofit get a grip on it's technology? There are a great collection of free online tools at TechAtlas.org designed to help nonprofits:
manage their technology inventory
- figure out the costs of these resources
- do a tech assessment
- do staff skill assessments
- do a technology plan
and more!

Cheaper Macs (esp. great for video and photoshop)

A little known secret -- Apple has a great Refurb store. Unlike most refurb stores, these have warrenties -- and you can pay a little extra for two year extended warrenties. Perfect machines for making that movie, engaging in Photoshop dreams, and all that office software stuff you have to do as well. The intel chip-based machines run Windows now! (Disclaimer: I love Macs!) Read more.

Good Cheap PCs

Every year PC World surveys tens of thousands of readers to determine what brands are the most reliable and service the most hassle-free. Dell desktops (not laptops) used to win for a long time, but now things are shaking out a bit. Read the last survey results and learn the best company to buy from for your needs.

TECH SUPPORT

Organization gotten too big for you to do tech support in your free time? No one qualified at your agency? Check out the qualified, very-clear-about-cost consultants at NPower. Note: they only do hardware installs if you also buy a maintenance contract -- $50/month per computer and $150/month per server.

Can't afford this? Send someone from your agency for hardware maintenance training. For example, A+ certification training at the New York Pesonal Computer Users Group (evenings). Or Per Scholas (full-time for 9-months, free, sorta Peace Corps like program).

DATABASE PLANNING

As service providers we always want to know "what are we doing that works" -- and just what the hell are we doing anyways! Databases to the rescue! Learn how databases can help solve your organization's information needs before you dive willy-nilly into a database solution (and the article pushes Microsoft Access, but here's a shout out for FileMaker Pro).

A free, open-source "Organizer's Database" (windows only, but new macs run windows) with basic contact and donor management functions. Great for newbie groups that are a little computer literate (say that could make a simple Excel spreadsheet). A plus is that you can pay (reasonable) for tech support/customization:
http://organizersdb.org/

Good new tool by NPower to help groups pick the best donor management database for their needs (includes "Organizer's Database"): www.npowerseattle.org/


NOT-FOR-PROFIT TECH RESOURCES

HIGHLY USEFUL WEBSITES

Have a computer or laptop and are worried about it being stolen? Buy cables and locks (look at Google.com for more options, and especially for laptops, buy tracing software that beams out the location of the laptop when the thief goes online (Computrace, higher end; PC Phone Home, cheaper, mac-friendly too).

Want to share photos & video over the web? Two great options are:
(1) Flickr- it's free, has no annoying ads, has web slide show wizzards and templates AND the ability to support RSS feeds, thus, instead of e-mailing everyone an attachment of new photos, they can subscribe to your news feed and see thumbnails of the new pictures! It also posts photos to blogs and websites. Yes, people can upload pictures to your account at Flickr.com and the pictures automatically show up on your website -- without giving them access to your website!

(2) PC World's Best Web Tools of 2006- There are so many great, and mostly free, tools and services available on the Internet to help your organization collaborate and community more effectively.Have a lot of video to share? Check out the world's largest video sharing site, YouTube.com. The best part, they will host your video (under 10 minutes) on their website and pay the hosting costs, while it shows up on your website! Also, they convert your video to the best format (Flash), you can submit it in a few different formats. Also, a lot of people browse this site so your videos/message can be seen widely. A nonprofit alternative, DoGooderTV has less pixelated/ compressed video than YouTube-- check it out!

(3) Want to see old versions of your company's website? Your competition? Check out all versions of webpages archived on the web at www.archive.org/web/web.php. Want to see tons of archived photos and video on the web? Check out www.archive.org.

(4) Slide.com and RockYou.com- Make great picture slideshows to display on your organization's website without having to mess with any code or know Photoshop. Lots of fab features for youth and other groups with a sense of style!

Free Advertizing for Nonprofits
Apply for free advertizing through the biggest and best search engine, Google. Learn more about Google Grants, 80% of all nonprofits that apply are awarded free Google Adwords allowing them to seriously increase online visitors.
There is a lot of buzz about Goodsearch, a search engine that distribute a small amount of money for every time a registered member of your organization uses it. Kinda cool except it is based on Yahoo Search, which isn't as good as Google...

Jobs, Free Invoicing/Management Software, Free/Cheap Photos and Lots of Freelance-specific Resources
http://freelanceswitch.com/general/101-essential-freelancing-resources/

How Do I Create Drop-Down Navigation Menus?
Yes, this is a real problem to make drop-down menus work in IE5, 6 and 7. But, here is a tutorial for both horizontal and vertical menus AND it is updated to include IE7! You need to know CSS to have this work. But, as far as CSS and IE goes it's not too difficult.

Survey of Databases Good for Nonprofits
My very talented co-worker, Ero, surveyed lots of databases (7-2007) . Here are his notes in an 8-page grid. Save yourself a lot of work and read this before choosing a database!