Increase your capacity to serve and save money

I'd like to elaborate on one of the principles behind Buoya, which is efficiency. The non-profit sector is inherently charged to make a large impact on the world - with minimal resources.

Our donors expect their money to be used wisely. There are a lot of needs and desires which must be met in our world and each non-profit organization is - unfortunately - competing with one-another to serve those needs. Donors, likewise, have limited pools of money and will often donate to organizations that make the biggest impact per dollar.

Consider this scenario:

I recently learned of a food bank in a major city which will remain nameless. They employ almost 100 people and serve a geographically small area. The food-bank where I am employed consists of a staff of only 30 people (costing less) and serves a much more geographically dispersed population of about the same size. Which food bank would you donate to?

Volunteers don't want to waste their time. People lead very busy lives. Family, school, employment, hobbies, friends, pets and beyond all vie for our attention. Yet many of us are driven to feel connected to our community and make an impact beyond a monetary contribution. Volunteers look for rewarding experiences. The bigger the impact they make - the better off they are and the more likely they are to return and help again.

Most importantly, those we serve deserve our best effort. Either we need to reach out to more people - or deliver a better service overall. It's not satisfying enough to make a contribution to society and then call it quits because the money ran out.

So, in the spirit of capacity building, here are a few free resources that may easily serve as an alternative to other expensive programs and services. Aside from relieving your IT budget, some may help you in ways you didn't expect before...

DimDim - Host webconferences for up to 20 people for free.

GoogleSites – Create your own Intranet or collaborative site for free. This is also called a wiki site. It can also be used as a regular website and is the program we primarily use a Buoya!

Free Malicious Software Removal Tool - from Microsoft. If you think your computer may be infected with malicious software, this tool might help.

Free Bulk Mailer Programs – for your email blasts. Many to consider.

CutePDF - this is a free alternative to Adobe's version.

Photoshop Lite - If you need to use a photo editor but just can't justify expense of buying Photoshop, use this free online version. It doesn't have all the features of the purchased version but it seems to have enough and you can store your images online too.

Google Analytics - this is Google's free web stats package and it is among the best you can find. It's not too complicated really, though you likely need someone who is somewhat web savvy to use it – just like you would with other stats packages.

GOOG-411 – This is Google's free 411 service. Why pay up to $1.50 for this service when you don't have to?

BlogSpot and WordPress – These are the two premier free blogging platforms. (Infact this is a Blogspot blog) The content manager and the hosting is free. If you have never blogged you might need some training.

Google Docs- this is a free online competitor to Microsoft Office. You can do word processing, presentations, and spreadsheets – and all are compatible wtih Microsoft Office. Also you can build forms and automatically store the data in a spreadsheet. What is even better is you can collaborate with others in preparing or presenting. Great alternative for small organizations. We provide training in Google Docs.

AVG Anti-Virus - While not for a network, if you have stand alone computers in need of good protection, this free anti-virus software will do the trick.

Open Office – Want a robust alternative to Microsoft Office and know your files can be opened by Microsoft users? This is a longstanding free productivity suite. More powerful that Google Docs. You download it to your computer. Another great feature is that it is open-source. Not that that will change anything functionally for those of us who aren't programmers - but it's nice to know you're using software that was built for you in mind - and not someone's wallet.

FreeMind - free mind mapping software. Helps you organize your ideas and the relationships between them

Picassa - also by Google is a free photo organizer, which automatically organizes your image files into its own library of images. All this is stored on your computer. You can edit photos too and create web albums.

Flickr (by Yahoo) is a storage site for photos, but this is an online application. You can link your photos to your websites or blogs rather easily.

There is so much more out there... and I will occasionally post more here and at Buoya.org. But that'll get you started. Also - if you're a client of Buoya! we can explore these programs together.