70+ free and low cost tools to help your nonprofit

There are many tools out there to manage information, and fortunately, many of them are free or low cost. Bear in mind, “free” isn’t always free. Marc Baizman of The Salesforce Foundation had said “free tools are not like free beer, more like free puppies” and the discovery phase, implementation, long-term support, and training costs should always be taken into consideration when deciding to use a new tool to manage your nonprofit’s information. As technology evolves, more and more new technology options will be available to your nonprofit. We were inspired by a recent Webinar from Idealware.org and a useful doc from NPtechforgood.com to generate a handy document to reference. TNB also presented a great Roundtable session on this topic “Free web tools for your nonprofit” last fall.

Here is a list of free or low cost tools that are handy for your organization’s security, productivity, communications, infrastructure, project management, and more compiled from the Idealware “25 Free and Low Cost Tools for your Nonprofit” webinar and other web resources.

All-In-One Tools

Softmaker’s FreeOffice - SoftMaker’s FreeOffice is a feature-rich office suite essentially functioning as a light version of the company’s more robust, commercial suite. The free download includes Textmaker, Planmaker, and Presentations as replacements for Microsoft’s big three, and each is comparable to its Microsoft counterpart.

Google Apps – Cloud based, include email, doc management, word processing, presentation software.

Microsoft Office 365 – Reliable cloud-based web services, including email, document collaboration, shared calendars, online meetings, and more.

Zoho Docs - It includes three cloud-based apps - the usual spread of word processing, spreadsheet and presentations - as well as document versioning and desktop syncing.

LibreOffice - LibreOffice is community-driven and developed software for packaged doc management, word processing, and presentation software.

Apache OpenOffice - OpenOffice offers a high degree of compatibility with commercial office software, but with none of the costs or license worries.

Want to see the rest? Download the full guide here: