Making the Move: Offline to Online

Photo by photosteve101

This month, several of our posts will be tackling one of the challenges many organizations face: moving programs from offline to online.

Tight budgets and resources force nonprofits to find more efficient ways to run their programs, and that includes cutting costs whenever possible.

Online fundraising is one of the ways organizations can cut costs (you save on postage and printing), and it’s increasingly becoming a bigger source of additional revenue, and exposure to new supporters. It also gives others accessible ways to fundraise for your organization, and you the ability to coordinate teams.

But fundraising isn’t the only thing nonprofits can move to the Interwebs. Here are a few ideas your nonprofit can explore:

Email

I am a big fan of GMail. Not only does it provide email, but it also has GChat—a great way for me to connect with colleagues and peers through instant messaging without having to log onto another provider. And best of all, it’s compatible with the Android and iPhone, so I don’t have trouble reading and writing emails when I’m away from my desk.

Document Sharing

One thing that comes with GMail is the ability to share documents. I’m sure you’ve experience the headaches (or even scares) when there has been a lot of back and forth on a document and you didn’t know which one was the latest version? Well, with Google Docs, you can upload any Word, Excel, and PowerPoint file and share it with anyone who has an email. And if you’re considering going paperless, Google Docs is a great place for you to store those documents. You can also check out Dropbox.

Meetings

Instead of calling people. I prefer to do a Skype call with them if I can. I’ve met a lot of people on Twitter and through blogs, so it’s great to put a face to the name with a Skype conference call. In fact, that’s how I was able to talk to Regina Yau in Malaysia when I was writing last week’s blog post on The Pixel Project! Skype can also do group conference calls, though I use GoToMeeting for those because of it has good connectivity and makes meeting coordination easier.

What other online tools have you used to make your nonprofit more online than offline?

4 thoughts on “Making the Move: Offline to Online”

  1. I have found facebook to be a great way to connect with people who are interested our non-profit. it is a way to share all kinds of information and to connect with a wider audience.

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