No-Cost Tech Solutions for Non-Profits (teck-nawl-oh-gee)
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Many no-cost solutions exist to help a non-profit organization deliver on their mission without hitting the annual budget, but how do you choose. Presented at the 2014 Leadership Harrisburg Area Non-Profit Conference, this presentation presents solutions for scheduling meetings, sharing files, ticketing and event registration, and online surveys, all without spending one penny.
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No-Cost Tech Solutions for Non-Profits (teck-nawl-oh-gee)
- 1. teck - nawl - oh - gee Let Your Inner Geek Flag Fly With No-Cost Solutions
- 14. Doodle Free online scheduling via email Dead simple tool to schedule a meeting
- 23. Dropbox Simple, free tool to store a teamโs stuff in one place Access across devices, platforms
- 28. Google Drive Simple, free tool to store a teamโs stuff in one place Bonus: office suite functions to create, edit files
- 31. MailChimp Robust free email marketing tool Message, manage, magnify your reach
- 35. ReachMail A totally free alternative to MailChimp 5k addresses, 15k messages/month, committed to free
- 36. Eventbrite Free or paid event ticket solution
- 40. Brown Paper Tickets Additional alternative if Eventbrite doesnโt meet your needs More robust functions, used by some local professional venues
- 41. SurveyMonkey Free survey tool De facto standard for online surveys
- 42. KwikSurveys Free and robust tool to rival SurveyMonkey Several key differentiators
- 43. SurveyMonkey Pros โข Permits open-ended responses โข Allows users to collect unanticipated feedback from respondents โข Easily integrates with multiple online tools, including MailChimp, etc.
- 44. KwikSurvey Pros โข Unlimited questions & responses โข All data can be exported, printed, analyzed as needed โข Can create surveys, quizzes, polls, and embeddable web forms โข More fully featured than SurveyMonkey if response size is an issue
- 45. Google Forms โข Wonkier, less sexy alternative โข Available with any Google ID โข Build simple, utilitarian forms โข Capture as much data as you want for almost anything โข Mobile friendly โข Connects with spreadsheet in Google Drive for unlimited analysis, sharing โข New charts add-on extends further
- 47. Next Steps โข Jot down danchrist.com/npc โข Find your own geek => Incorporate a โtech savvyโ skill set into your board recruitment matrix โข Watch how young people use technology, ask them what is most helpful, most frustrating, new, old โข Cultivate news sources โข New York Timesโs & PennLiveโs tech column โข Lifehacker blog โข re/code with Walt Mossberg โข Use social media like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus โข Never stop learning
Editor's Notes
- Introduction Welcome to the second breakout session of the 2014 Non-Profit Conference We are not here to discuss communication or fundraising We are here to let our geek flags fly We are here to learn how to use no or low cost technology solutions to meet a non-profitโs needs
- You will not learn how to Take a Selfie Get your pictures from your phone to your computer Snapchat or surf the Dark Web
- Instead, at the end of this 60-minute session you learn about tools that will help you Herd the Cats Corral the Data Send the Message Fill the Seats Collect the Intelligence First though, Iโd like to learn from you What are your favorite technology-based tools that you currently use?
- For us this afternoon, itโs all about GOALS Not small goals Not middle school sized goals Because we donโt have middle school sized challenges
- We have Olympic sized challenges We need to operate a non-profit organization whoโs goal is either to improve the community to help people We are not here to mess around We are here to master technology and bend it to our wills Can we do it?
- Okay, can anybody give me a good reason why we need to change the way we do business? Because the world is changing around us We can either adapt, or be left behind Nobody wants to be left behind
- Western Union sent its final telegram in 2006 From the time the first telegram was sent by Samuel Morse in 1844, the telegram became a popular way to send messages In the 1920s and 30s, a telegram cost less than a long distance phone call People communicated births, the first transatlantic flight, the start of World War I, you name it The telegram meant business But now the telegram, and increasingly the first class letter, is being replaced by everybodyโs friend, e-mail
- From the time of its inception in 1971, email now rules many of our work days A study released last November, indicated workers spend almost one third of their day in their inbox That same study indicated 144.8 BILLION emails are sent every single day Email has changed the way we communicate with peers Email has changed our expectation for the time it will take to receive a response Email has changed our world Itโs just one example of why we need to continuously expose ourselves to new ideas and new solutions Itโs likely one reason youโre in this session today
- Does this scene look familiar to anybody in the room? The board meeting: the cradle of all good intentions This is a scene from a meeting held at the Cherry Hill, New Jersey Public Library For our purposes today, Ralph here has just had a stroke of genius We know this because he is leaning into the table, intent on what the person at the head of the group is saying Heโs smiling slightly, because he knows that the idea he has will help the library raise a boat load of money Heโs making eye contact so he can know exactly when the person leading the meeting takes a breath in order for him to leap in and share his idea.
- A gala fundraiser is what we need
- Ralph is now waiting for the executive director to acknowledge his brilliance and spell out the action items The director, though, is worth her salt She know that a board meeting is no place to plan a new fundraiser Instead, she needs to have a group of board members and volunteers meet to has out all the details Because sheโs attended the technology breakout session at the recent Leadership Harrisburg Areaโs Non-Profit Conference she knows she needs to take five deliberate steps to have a successful, low stress event using no-cost tech solutions No-cost => Your time is not free So, first stepโฆ
- PLAN THE WORK The director needs to gather all the key players together in one place at one time to start event planning Is a board meeting the best place to do this? Surely, everybody will have their planning calendars at the ready Right? There is a better way Or, actually, there are three better ways
- Doodle is a simple, free tool you can use to coordinate your busy groupโs insane schedules It doesnโt look like much But you just need it to work
- A free account is available via either a Google account, Facebook account or a unique username and password Once the account is set up, you can create your first event Fill in a few details Note here, that Doodle was smart enough to fill in the address for my meeting once I started typing in the name of the venue Select NEXT to step ahead
- You have complete control to select as many or as few potential meeting dates as you like Do not need to be sequential Click the date you want, and then select NEXT
- Choose as many or as few possible times for the meeting AM or PM Or enter no times to show it as an all-day event Select NEXT to step ahead
- Once your event poll has been created, the director needs to get it to the committee You can: Have Doodle email the committee by entering their emails online Send the email yourself using a participation link Doodle provides Then you have complete control Edit the poll to make live revisions See the history of your event, exactly when people participated Delete participants or comments Format for printing Export the data to Excel or a PDF Utility of the data is a factor that I weigh heavily when using one of these tools I want to use my data the way I want it. Doodle meets that need. So, what does this yield?
- A simple, clean way to see exactly when people are available Do not be surprised if all the planets donโt align. Thatโs likely far too much to expect It will show you the possible time to meet And youโll know who canโt make it, so you can get them plugged in after the meeting
- Two other choices for scheduling a meeting ScheduleOnce is a tool similar to Doodle One drawback The way you select the times for events is Flash based Cannot be done on an iPad or iPhone Doodle can be used on either. Also, Doodle has paid apps available, if that is helpful
- SurveyMonkey Provides tips for how to accomplish this Weโll touch on SurveyMonkey later
- With the meeting date selected, the committee is going to need to corral all its information Agendas Meeting Minutes Checklists Agreements Menus Invoices All the various and sundry information the team will use to pull off a successful event How do your groups typically accomplish this now?
- The recommended tool to simply keep all the material in one single place is DropBox A free, introductory accounts provides up to 2 GB of storage Additional storage is available by referring new people to open an account
- Dropbox is a home for all your photos, documents, videos, and files Anything you add to Dropbox will be available automatically everywhere you access the Internet More importantly, anything you place in Dropbox, is secure and protected regardless of what happens to your computer Last October, the hard drive on my work computer failed The drive was a total loss. No data could be recovered. No program resurrected I didnโt lose one file. Not one document. Not one spreadsheet. Iโve been saving everything in Dropbox for a couple years All my files were available in the cloud from Dropboxโs servers Once my work computer received a new hard drive, I downloaded all the files, and didnโt miss a beat. Getting started with Dropbox couldnโt be easier Provide your name, an email, and a password, agree to the terms, and youโre on your way
- You can do as much or as little with Dropbox as you want For our purposes, the director needs to create a share folder so the committee members can all keep track of their file Create the folder Select the Share icon Presented with a dialog box to invite people via email to join the folder You can allow folder members to invite other people, or not. Once people confirm their invitation, they have access to EVERYTHING that is in the share folder Be careful what you share
- Potential exists for people to make mistakes with the files, or event to delete files from the folder Dropbox allows you to drill in to see who made changes to the files by selecting Previous Versions
- If necessary, you can resurrect a previous version of the file and start over before the error was made
- Google Drive is one tool that some use both for file storage, as well as a free office suite solution Microsoft Office isnโt cheap, although Office 365 is an affordable alternative at $100 per year Google Drive, though, is free Google Drive is, increasingly, offering a lot of tools that increases its utility
- Two points of distinction between Dropbox and Google Drive When sharing a folder with either tool, the recipient will need to open an account to access the information For Dropbox, thatโs a very simple process For Google Drive, though, if a person doesnโt already have a Google account, the bar is set a bit higher No cash is required, but Google will get kind of personal with you Additionally, youโre going to be prompted to create a Google Plus account, which will likely be something youโre not going to use
- How the services use your data is also different Dropbox stores the data, and makes it available to you via its cloud servers Its Terms of Service spell that out explicitly When you create a Google account, you give Google the right to use your content to operate, promote, or improve its services Its Terms of Service spell that out explicitly Some people take issue with that use Others accept it as the price you pay for free, cool tools Just know before you go Now, the committee has done its work Itโs scheduled several meetings, and has planned a killer meeting Now itโs time to tell people about it MailChimp is the best tool to do that
- Your email list is worth its weight in gold Do not trust an email list to any one person or one computer That person will have the best of intentions That computer will be the most reliable piece of hardware every designed And it take no more than a minute to lose years of network building Donโt risk it Email marketing is almost as important in todayโs busy world as the ever present mailed invitation Remember, 144 billion email messages sent a day
- Opening an account is dead simple No credit card is required, and you likely will never need it for this account MailChimpโs free accounts allow you to manage up to 2,000 email addresses and send up to 12,000 messages per month for absolutely no charge Most non-profits will be hard pressed to find the manpower available to send one e-newsletter once or twice a year, let along worrying about exceeding the 12,000 message per month cap
- What you get for with free account, though, is amazingly robust You can easily send campaigns that are professional and mobile friendly So much of email activity happens on mobile devices today, that this should not be overlooked 56 percent of messages sent for a local fire company are read on a mobile device You have access to a host of free templates You can customize an email template to include your logo and website color scheme You can see useful statistics on how your campaigns performed How many people opened the message How many links were clicked on in the message How the message performed over time Create signup forms to capture new email addresses to your list Capture as much or as little information as you want The less required to join the list, the more likely people will be to join Embed the forms on your website or on a Facebook Page FYI, the MonkeyRewards logo will appear on all free account messages sent
- MailChimp words of advice MailChimp cares more about its reputation with Internet Service Providers than about your free email account When attempting to upload a list of email addresses, you will need to consent to having explicit permission to send messages to those addresses MailChimp will monitor your account If it detects bounce or complaint levels that are too high over several emails, it will Suspend your account Require you to tell it how you will mediate the issue If you have an old list of email addresses you found in a file folder in the bottom of a desk drawer, do not use that as your seed list Be deliberate and thoughtful about your email campaigns I HATE THE TEAM EMAIL BLAST Anybody can blast. You want to market your events and cultivate leads to plan for future success Have clear goals, craft your messages well, and donโt send messages for which there is not at least one or several clear calls to action Attend an event Buy a ticket Make a donation Connect with us on social media, etc. We all get a lot of email Donโt get lost in the clutter
- Another choice for free email marketing is ReachMail Tools appear comparable with MailChimp Offer free accounts for up to 5,000 addresses and up to 15,000 messages in a month Phone support One of the key bits of information youโre going to be sharing is a link to online ticket fulfillment Anybody use online tickets for your events? Why Why not? Solution Iโve used extensively is Eventbrite
- A no cost solution for any non-profit organization Extendable to be able to produce almost any size or type of event that involves a ticket
- Account creation take a path similar to many of the solutions weโve discussed already Provide an email address and a password, and you are on your way From that sign on, youโll be guided through creating event pages like this for a recent event the Harrisburg Social Media Club produced From this page, people learned about the event, saw a map of the location, and were able to buy tickets online with a credit card
- That event page is driven by a management tool that looks like this Creating an event is guided by a simple, step-by-step approach in which users establish the name of the event, details, location, ticket quantity, cost for the tickets (if any), and what information the attendee needs to provide This event was a paid event, so attendees needed to pay for the lunch in advance Eventbrite collects a fee for each of those tickets sold If you like, the organization can elect to absorb the ticket fees or pass them along to the ticket buyer Most people buying a ticket online expect to incur some kind of fee for processing their credit card We were leery about this at first, too, but once you jump in, youโre fine. The payments are collected by Eventbrite, and the remaining fees passed to the organization as you direct Can connect individual events to credit cards or bank accounts Funds can be batched and sent at the end of the event, or incrementally Management portal also lets you communicate directly with your registrants via email Additionally, you could export the email addresses and add them to your MailChimp account later Also, MailChimp integrates with Eventbrite to send campaigns with your event details
- Getting ready for the day of the event, you may need some additional information to prepare Eventbrite can print an attendee list You an use it to print name badges This functionality is a bit clunky Donโt try to do it when you have 15 minutes to get out the door for the event Trust me And then, at the event, you can either use the website to check in people, or use the free app available to check in attendees One additional feature is the Waitlist If you sell out an event, allows people, on a first come, first served basis to go on a wait list As tickets become available, you release waitlist tickets to the next people in line Works well
- Brown Paper Tickets also offers a very comprehensive package Comparable in many ways to Eventbrite So robust that many large non-profits and some professional organizations use the site to handle their events Okay, the committee has held a successful event Itโs met and planned the perfect evening It kept all of its materials in perfect sync by sharing documents digitally It communicated the benefits of the event to potential guests with a clear, concise, professional looking email And it sold through all of its tickets by contacting one couple on the waitlist on the very afternoon of the event As we all know, the worst thing about ending an event, is realizing weโll need to do it all over again for the next event. Luckily, though, Ralphโs committee wonโt need to start out from scratch next time, because it surveyed everybody who attended the gala
- SurveyMonkey is what most people use Itโs a good, solid tool
- Another option you should consider is KwikSurvey Free account, and some very nice features
- List the pros Open ended - Unanticipated feedback - integration
- Speak to the differentiators unlimited - exported - multiple - fully featured
- Explain Google Forms wonky - Google - simple - capture - mobile - spreadsheet - add ons
- At which point, you, as the non-profit volunteer, are now in information overload How are you supposed to make sense of all the options? Here are some tips