Ten Free (or almost free) Web Tools and Ideas

1. MySpace.com If you’re looking for free web page hosting, with blog tools, room for photos, email, and a newsletter service, why not get one that comes with about 100 million other users who are online 24 hours a day? So what if they’re mostly teenage girls. Have you seen the purchasing power of teenage girls lately?
2. Paypal It’s free to set up. It costs about as much per transaction as most donation processing services (less than many), and it’s the tool of choice for 67 million people whose sole purpose in having it is to transfer money online.
3. Text Messaging Even last October, cell service was working in the lower Ninth Ward. (When FEMA failed to provide street maps and the forms we needed to run our search operations, we surfed to GoogleEarth and back to the Virginia Dept. of Emergency Mgmt. web site from a laptop with wireless broadband, perched on an overturned crate in the middle of a deserted street.) Text messaging provides a way for staffers to stay in touch, and for constituents to ask questions and provide updates on what’s happening.

   
   searching through the rubble for victims of Hurricane Katrina in the lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans

4. IM (instant messaging) IM is another free way to be “open” for business. You can field messages from constituents and donors, government officials and utility executives, in real time. (Someday, MySpace will fix their instant messaging, but until then, there’s AOL, Yahoo and MSN.)
5. ThePetitionSite.com (online advocacy) If advocacy is your thing, there are dozens of sites where you can post a petition and drive advocacy efforts back to governments, utilities, or other targets. This one, run by Care2, is also a database building tool (but that’s not free).
6. e-Tapestry There are several free or low-cost email, fundraising, web services available to small nonprofits. Many of these charge based on the size of your email database, so if you only have a few hundred names, the services are free or close to it.
7. Yahoo Groups If you need to organize volunteer groups or staff, especially if they work in remote locations or at odd hours, Yahoo! groups provides file sharing, group email, calendars and a host of other features.
8. Search Marketing If you have a web site and want to draw traffic to it, search is the way to do it. Search is how people find you on the web. The two key elements of search marketing are:
   o Page optimization – where you edit your page copy and format so that each page shows up high on Google’s list for the keyword phrases that represent your mission;
   o Keyword bids – where you actually place an ad at the search engine that will show up when people enter those keyword phrases. Normally you pay $.10 or more per click, but Google has been generous with its grants program. Rumor has it the service is free to Gulf Coast nonprofits.
9. Blogs There are several free services that will let you host and edit a web log. You can have several blogs, one for each key issue you’re working on (or link them together).
10. Meetup.com This is what put Howard Dean on the map (for better or worse). It’s a tool that lets users pick events that matter to them and attend them (for real).
11. N-TEN is the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network. This is a professional association of techies, nerds and geeks that are using the tools above, and lots more, to move their nonprofit groups further. The conferences are gold, but the technical discussion groups online are always open and free.

(Note that brand names shown here are metaphors for any such similar services that are available to you online, and are not meant to exclude other worthy companies, nor are they an endorsement by npadvisors.com.)

This is part of the recommendations made to New Orleans area nonprofits in August of 2006 by Rick Christ, a managing partner in NPAdvisors.com. Rick also volunteers as a Search and Rescue Field Team Leader and instructor with the Virginia Department of Emergency Management.

See also:

"Observations on New Orleans Nonprofits"

"Order is Overrated"

"Basic Web Recommendations to Small Nonprofits"

October 2006

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