Helpful Resources
For supporting your mission
Not all nonprofits can or should pay high dollar for services and softwares. Sometimes the best or only option for a service based organization is to get creative with the limited funds available.
For how to's, most of the major named vendors have blogs or youtube channels with some best practices and free information. The more content they post that people engage with, the more Google indexes their page higher on the search list, so a lot of the nonprofit vendors share helpful tips and tricks via blogs as one way to compete for their page to list at the top of your search. Boomerang, for example has a full blog site just for nonprofits at https://bloomerang.co/blog/.
If you want to earn free certifications or learn from experts for free, NonprofitReady.org is a phenomenal website. There are an overwhelming amount of resources, so we definitely recommend using their filter tools and "playlists" to find just what you are looking for.
If your organization currently uses Microsoft Office, then you'll be able to easily take advantage of the free templates they have available. Either for budgeting or data analysis or email templates, Microsoft Office usually has some template to help you get started. Here's a site for searching through those templates, https://templates.office.com.
Google not only has their Google Drive and other services available (love a good Google Form!), they also have a suite of offerings for nonprofits specifically. Use the link, https://www.google.com/nonprofits/, for more information on Google's services for nonprofits.
Liberating Structures are perfect for facilitating sessions and complex conversations, or even just ice breakers. Choose one of many different liberating structures at https://www.liberatingstructures.com.
There are several other free and affordable resources out there for service organizations. The list of links below is by no means an exhaustive list of the existing resources, but overall is a good start. We will continue to add more as we find more!
https://www.silentpartnersoftware.com/blog/nonprofit-resources/free-services-for-non-profits/
https://www.idealist.org/en/fundraising-resources/free-or-low-cost-services
https://donorbox.org/nonprofit-blog/essentials-online-tools-for-nonprofits
https://www.searchinfluence.com/blog/top-10-tools-resources-that-are-truly-free-for-nonprofits/
https://www.nptechforgood.com/2021/06/29/74-free-or-low-cost-tools-and-resources-for-nonprofits/