Technology for Nonprofits

I spent 10 years working at technology companies (Adobe, Verizon, Silicon Valley startups to name a few) while volunteering for nonprofits large and small. In doing so, I witnessed first hand the disparity that exists in the way technology is used in the two industries. It sometimes felt like the brightest minds and the best technology was being used to optimize the ads we see on Facebook while local organizations working on more dire social issues like helping single parents secure affordable childcare options lacked access to the same technology.

This experience motivated me to bring the technology and the know-how from Silicon Valley to the nonprofit world. In my observations,  there are two main places where nonprofits, particularly small nonprofits, get stuck when it comes to leveraging technology to achieve their mission:

1. Lack of awareness. The world of software changes so quickly that nonprofit executives understandably lack awareness of the full breadth of technical solutions available on the market at any given time. There is sometimes an assumption that doing something that seems technically complex will be cost prohibitive. Often, organizations are shocked to learn that a lot of tech companies have very generous discounts that they offer to nonprofits (from x% off to completely free) and that a lot of software is open source, meaning free.
2. Lack of technical talent. There is a sense that it is difficult to recruit top technical talent to work at a nonprofit when there is likely a large pay disparity in what the talent can earn at for profit technology companies. In my experience, this is mostly true. However, there are many creative ways to get access to the talent you need.
   

Below I share some lesser known discounts available for nonprofits that I've come across in my career. I'll also share some options for finding the human talent you'll need to unlock the full value of these tools.  

Cloud Storage/ Data Warehouse/ Data Visualization

• Tableau

Tableau is a data visualization tool that offers free licenses to nonprofits whose annual budget is $5M USD or less . That’s right- FREE! You can sign up through TechSoup. If you are a larger nonprofit, they offer generous discounts. Reach out and talk to a rep here.

• Alteryx

Alteryx is a data preparation tool that can be used to blend, clean-up, conform and analyze data from multiple data sources.

Alteryx is a very powerful tool but has a steep learning curve and it can be difficult to find the human talent needed to unlock the tool’s full capability. In response, Alteryx has launched  Alteryx for Good Co-Lab. By signing up for the Co-Lab, nonprofits can get paired with a volunteer Alteryx expert who can help scope out the organization’s data analytics project and partner with a contact at the nonprofit to get it done.

• FiveTran

FiveTran is an ELT tool that can help you extract data from the SaaS tool your organization uses (Salesforce, HubSpot, NetSuite, PipeDrive, SugarCRM etc) so that the data can be stored to a data warehouse.

FiveTran and tools like it charge based on usage and volume of data, meaning it is affordable even for small organizations. In addition, FiveTran offers nonprofit pricing. Contact them here to get the details.

• Microsoft Azure

Microsoft provides a $3.5k Azure credit towards cloud storage solutions. This credit can be used to power your data consolidation, processing and warehousing fees.

• PowerBI

Microsoft provides free access to Power BI which is a data visualization tool similar to Tableau that can be built on top of your data warehouse to make the data accessible to nontechnical end users.

• Amazon Web Services

Amazon offers a $1k credit towards Amazon Web Service products that can be used for cloud storage for your data warehouse.

• GitHub

GitHub provides free GitHub Team for organizations with unlimited private repositories, unlimited collaborators, and a full feature set to nonprofits. You can request a discount for your organization on our nonprofit page.

CRM and Marketing Automation

• Salesforce.org

Salesforce offers 10 free licenses per organization through their Power of Us program. If you need additional licenses, Salesforce offers generous discounts. Learn more here.

Note: Salesforce offers various different clouds (sales, marketing etc) that are highly customizable. You’ll likely need to piece together the various clouds that they offer to create a system that will work for your organization. If this sounds intimidating, get in touch with a rep at salesforce or volunteer (see below)  to help you make sense of what options will best suit your needs.

• HubSpot

Similarly to Salesforce, HubSpot has a marketing automation and sales automation product. HubSpot offers a 40% discount on their premium product. HubSpot also offers onboarding support to nonprofits. You can sign up here.

Marketing

• Canva

Many nonprofits I work with have a vision for sprucing up their Social Media presence but struggle with actualizing that thought. Canva is a great tool to help  create Instagram/LinkedIn/Twitter ready eyepopping graphics.

Canva has a free version for everyone and will upgrade nonprofits to the premium version for free. Apply Here.

• SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is an easy to use survey tool that allows you to design questionnaires and poll your donors, members or customers. SurveyMonkey offers a 25% discount to nonprofits. Apply Here.

• Google Ad Grant

Google Provides a $10K credit for Google Ads to qualifying nonprofits. These credits can be used to run targeted paid ads for your target audience (think the ads that appear at the top when you search something on Google or the ads that appear to the right hand side of websites).

Note: Setting up your Adwords account, figuring out which keywords you want your ads to appear for, managing the bidding process etc. can be a complex process if you don’t have someone in-house to do it. Most nonprofits will need to hire someone or find a volunteer with this expertise to take advantage of this very powerful resource, but don’t let that dissuade you. I’ve seen very powerful results from Google Ads when executed strategically.

Other

• LinkedIn

LinkedIn offers a 50% discount on their core products that can help nonprofits recruit talent, fundraise, and market their organization. LinkedIn also has free resources that nonprofit employees can use to uplevel their skills.

• Stripe

For nonprofits that collect donations, consider using Stripe as your payment processing provider. Stripe offers a discounted processing fee of 2.2% (vs. 2.9%) for donations processed through its platform. Learn more here

Talent

Having the right tools is only part of the solution. Often the bigger challenge that nonprofits face is lack of access to the talent needed to turn these tools into solutions that advance the organization’s mission. Fortunately, there are organizations that pair nonprofits with volunteers that provide pro-bono consulting services. If you need a human to help you figure out how to leverage these tools, reach out to one of these organizations. You will often be paired with veterans in the for profit world who are looking to give back, students looking for a real world use case/ example to apply their knowledge, individuals who are in between jobs and looking to enhance their resume with volunteer work. Chances are good you’ll be able to get your questions answered.

• Catchafire

Catchafire is a phenomenal organization that allows nonprofits to signup and post a need that they have for volunteers to respond to. You can request things as broad as ‘need help creating a marketing strategy’ to as specific as ‘need help implementing <tool name>”. A volunteer with expertise in that area will respond and you can setup a time to talk to them.

I have volunteered with Catchafire for a number of years and have consulted nonprofits on everything from their Salesforce implementation to setting up their first Adwords campaign to creating a data warehouse.

• Taproot Foundation

The Taproot Foundation is a nonprofit that creates teams of design, marketing, IT, strategic management, and human resources professionals to complete pro bono consulting projects for nonprofit organizations

The Taproot Foundation has a more formal project structure than Catchafire where their staff will work with you to clearly define a project with specific objectives and milestones. Then, they will form a project team of volunteers needed to accomplish the project. This process is more formal and will require more thoughtfulness and commitment upfront to kick off. I’d recommend this approach for more complex, interdisciplinary projects that need expertise and collaboration from various disciplines rather than one individual.