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Let’s face it—a lot of work is required to run your nonprofit. You’re juggling what seems like a million tasks on a limited staff and budget. We’ve compiled a list of either free or affordable resources to help alleviate your workload!
What’s cool about most of the resources on this list is the free trial they provide. No fear of being locked into a monthly contract if the program doesn’t suit your specific needs. Music to you and your Executive Director’s ears! We hope this list helps as you enter a new year of fundraising.
Links without asterisks next to them offer free accounts (you may have to pay for premium content).
Image and Video Tools
You can set up a free account with Canva. There’s a ton of free content already available, you can upload your own images, or you can choose to pay a small fee for premium content.
Videos and presentations can be created for free with Powtoons. They’re short, attention-grabbing pieces of content.
This is used to create animated videos that are studio-quality for free. Depending on the segment your nonprofit is in, this can be a great tool to use. Especially if you work with children or animals!
Photoshop allows you to edit photos whether you’re a beginner or professional. Edit with filters, color, tone and contrast. The higher-quality the picture, the better it is for your donation form, website and social pages. After your free trial expires, you can choose from a few different pricing plans. Photoshop is $33.99/month per license, or you have the ability to purchase all apps in Adobe Creative Cloud for $79.99/month per license.
If you’re looking for free, quality stock photos for your website or social media channels, Pexels is a great start.
Visme offers a full-line of visual creation tools for presentations, infographics, charts, maps, documents, flyers, and graphics! Use Visme to create interactive content to share with your supporters and drive more engagement!
Email Marketing and Management Tools
Create email campaigns, automate emails, and optimize them yourself. There is a free version, but if you want extra features, the paid plan starts at $10/month.
Constant Contact offers over 100 email templates and analytic tools to track open-rates. They offer a free trial with full access to all their tools for the first 60 days and NO contract. Plans start at $20/month. Nonprofits also receive a discount of up to 30% when they sign up.
Emma*
Starting at $89/month for their smaller business package, Emma allows you to test out their email services with a free trial first.
You get access to hundreds of email templates that are mobile-optimized, and you have the ability to create email newsletters. You receive a free trial and packages start at $9/month.
Users can use Delivra to see what emails drive engagement with A/B testing and track data. A little pricier starting at $100/month for 10,000 email contacts, this platform would work better for high profile organizations.
Social Media Tools
It’s important to note that this marketing platform is only for Instagram. You can schedule out all Instagram posts through the Later app for free, or pay for an account with more feature for up to $49/month. They offer discounts for nonprofits!
Schedule social posts for various channels with Zoho. Once placed on the calendar, best times for engagement will be listed for you to choose from. Insights for each channel is also tracked in Zoho Social so you can perfect your social strategy. After your free trial expires, you can sign up for as little as $8.33/month for 7 social channels and 2 users.
Buffer is similar to Zoho Social and offers a free account option. Schedule social posts for 3 channels at 10 posts per channel for free!
CoSchedule is an entire marketing strategy platform rolled into one. Schedule social posts, create team projects, and more. You can try it out for free, and plans start at $60/month.
Manages all social channels as well as monitors social trends. Free trial with packages starting at $99/month.
Content Creation Tools
This plug-in is a free writing assistant that helps out whether you’re publishing an article or messaging a coworker. What’s great about Grammarly is that not only does it edit your content, it tells you the grammatical error that was made.
Is your headline engaging? Use this free headline analyzer to ensure your article gains the traction it deserves.
BuzzSumo’s content curation tool is pretty neat for a few reasons. You can search for the most shared topic from the last 24 hours to 12 months or use it as a content tracker. It also integrates with Buffer, so you can schedule out your content. After your free trial expires, packages start at $79/month.
Looking to share third-party articles or simply gain ideas for content? This news aggregator is a great tool to use. It’s free, but if you’d like additional features like more in-depth search options, it’s an extra $5/month.
This app is a more in-depth writing editor. Hemingway has an integration with WordPress as well, so you can publish your article from either platform. There are different versions that are compatible for Mac and Windows users at $20/month.
Online Community Tools
Talk about all things nonprofit-related! NTEN has a great online community for everyone seeking advice and sharing knowledge. Seriously, sign up and be a part of this inclusive community. It’s so beneficial.
Look up this group if you have Facebook and request to join. Much like NTEN, tons of advice and answers are provided within this group (along with a few laughs).
Nonprofit Communication Professionals-Facebook
This Facebook group is great for communication professionals that work in social media and outreach efforts. I’ve personally benefited a lot from joining this group!
Did you know that there’s a subreddit for nonprofits? It’s extremely useful but be careful to not advertise your organization. It’s frowned upon unless you’re advised otherwise by moderators.
Project Management Tools
Organize team workflows and projects with this app. Visual project plans help you and your team complete tasks on time. They offer a free trial, or you can pay monthly starting at $9.99.
Zoho*
Zoho’s software suite is built to help you run multiple facets of your business with over 40 integrated apps! Use it for your sales and marketing team or even your finance division. It’s an all-in-one solution. Free trial included. Packages are priced by employee licenses. Unlimited licenses are $75/month.
Maintain all files through Google’s secure cloud service. If you have a Google account, the first 15 GB of storage is free.
Slack helps work teams collaborate, stay in touch, and store important information. You can create multiple threads to stay on topic for each department. Best part? It’s affordable. Use it for free for up to 10k messages or pay $6.67 per user for the standard package.
Evernote is an app that organizes all your notes. If you’re like us and love to take notes at conferences, the free plan is great. If you’d like to utilize it as a collaborative team organizer, plans start at $7.99/month.
Analytic and Website Tools (Website and Data)
Specializing in nonprofit web design, Elevation Web is a great place to start if you’re looking to build a beautiful custom website. Contact them for a quote.
Google Analytics measures your website’s traffic for free! Not only does it measure ROI, but it tracks all of your social networking sites’ data as well.
No more unsightly web links that are a mile long. Shorten them for free with Bit.ly. You can also customize links, track, and optimize them.
Google alerts is free and sends updates to your email when it finds new content based on your search term. This is a fantastic app to use to track any mention of your business. It doesn’t require you to have a Google account to sign up for the service.
Donor Surveys
With over 100 templates, this app allows you to create custom surveys so that you better understand your donors’ needs. They have a free basic account, and plans starting at $37/month. Paid plans include unlimited surveys with unlimited questions.
Create surveys and polls with a free 7-day trial period. SoGoSurvey also offers a free package with 15 surveys at 30 questions each.
A simple survey/questionnaire can be created for free. Share them on social and see real-time responses. If you have the entire Zoho suite, this integration will be included. If not, plans start at $20/month.
Typeform specializes in online form building and online surveys. Its main software creates dynamic forms based on user needs. Their free plan allows for 100 responses per month with 10 questions per form. Paid plans start at $30/mo.
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