Mary Austin Fuller

There is an increasing number of cheap or free resources online that allow you to do things unimaginable just 5 years ago.  Below is a list of a few I know about.  Just a disclaimer: by listing them, I don't neccessarily endorse them all.  This list is just for your info.  Please note that some of these resources are only free for folks with 501(c)3 tax status, and in many cases, the "free" accounts don't have all the bells and whistles, so be sure to do your homework. 

If you have a favorite tool that you think should be on the list, please use the contact form at the bottom of the page to send it to me and I'll add it to the list to share with the group. 

Thanks and good luck!
Mary

Here are some free or almost free resources you can use to build a website for your project.  

Weebly:     http://www.weebly.com       
Free website hosting/ web builder with easy drag and drop content system- This is a weebly site. 

Moonfruit:  http://www.moonfruit.com
"Moonfruit offers a free website builder that creates beautiful websites simply with no ads"

WordPress:    http://www.wordpress.com
Free online Blogging software that can be used to create a website

Squarespace:  http://www.squarespace.com/
Not free, but a pretty robust platform with flexible, easy to customize templates, and it is pretty affordable for a monthy fee (around $14) that includes webhosting.  Do a websearch to find discount coupons...

Wix:  http://www.wix.com/free/website
Allows you to create attractive flash sites for free.  They run a little slow for my taste, but an interesting option to explore if you have lots of images to showcase.

Grassroots.org:    http://www.grassroots.org/   
Domain Registration, Web Hosting, Web Building, Web Design, Graphic Design, Language Translation, SEO Consultation, Project Consulting, Phone Service

Wufoo:    http://wufoo.com/   
Online form builder- three forms for free

Google Analytics:   http://www.google.com/analytics/
Free, powerful webtraffic tracking.  See where your web audience is coming from, what they're clicking, when, etc.

Helpful tips on design, etc from Free Range Studios: http://www.freerangestudios.com/whitepapers/ws_simple_tips.pdf

Groundspring.org's DonateNow:  http://www.groundspring.org/services/donatenow.cfm

DonateNow is an online donation processing service allowing nonprofits to accept credit cards.  They take a fee, but also take care of tax requirements for donor acknowledgments, as well as offering exportable spreadsheets so you can track your donations.

Google Checkout:  http://www.google.com/nonprofits/checkouttutorial.html
Free donation processing until 2010 if you are a Google Grants recipient. 

Paypal:  http://www.paypal.com/
A safer, easy way to pay online and accept online payments for donations and goods.

There are a ton of places to post and host your multimedia.  Which or how many your choose to use depends on if you just need someplace to host your content, or if you want to use these sites as an inbound marketing strategy.  In other words, do you just want to be able to embed stuff on your site, or do you want people to find your content out in the internet ether and come to you?

Slideshare:  http://www.slideshare.net
A presentation sharing community.  Host your powerpoint presentations online.  A great way to put together an inexpensive informational or fundraising "video" and educate people about what you do.  Host the presentations here and embed them in your website.

280 Slides: http://280Slides.com
Another slide sharing option.

Issuu:  http://issuu.com/
A free magazine publishing platform allowing users to publish online magazines that are easy and fun to read and interact with.  You can also host your informational brochures here and link to them from your site for a sleeker way for people to view your pdf content.  That way, you don't have to ask them to download large files either.

Photobucket:  http://Photobucket.com
Image hosting and online photo albums. 

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/ 
Tag and browse photos, and upload pictures and short videos on this digital photography and media file sharing website. 

YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/Upload, tag, and share your videos.  Great for hosting videos which you can embed in your website or blog.

Revver:  http://www.revver.com/ 
Hosts user-uploaded videos with tags and offers ways for users to make money from their videos by attaching advertising to the videos.

Viddler:  http://viddler.com/ 
Unlimited video hosting.  You can post your content to iTunes and share with RSS.

blip.tv:  http://www.blip.tv/ 
Allows users to upload and tag their own videos onto a blog.  

Podfeed.net:  http://www.podfeed.net/  
Podcast directory that helps users find, subscribe, and listen to podcasts, or share their own podcasts and audio broadcasts online.

Add a widget to your website or blog to help your posts go viral:

Share This:  http://sharethis.com/ 
Use this widget to help your web audience share your content via just about any social networking site...

Add This:   http://www.addthis.com/
Use this widget to help your web audience share your content via just about any social networking site...

Facebook Causes:  http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about

Fundit Bar:  http://www.funditbenefitbar.com/
create and design a customized toolbar with your brand which also includes a search engine powered by YAHOO. You make money when a search for items of interest are initiated from your search engine located on your toolbar and a sponsored link is clicked on when the search result page appears.

Ning:   http://www.ning.com/ 
free Ad-supported or subscriber-based online service where users can create, customize, and share their own social network for free in seconds.

Nabble:  http://www.nabble.com/
Very simple and Free embeddable forum.  Other free services include mailing list, photo gallery, news and blog. 

There's a great article about Distributed Fundraising here with lots more indepth review of these and other resources: http://www.idealware.org/FGTOnlineDistributedFundraising.php

Causes on Facebook:  http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about 
Causes provides the tools so that any Facebook user can leverage their network to raise awareness and funds for their non-profit.

Chip In:  https://www.chipin.com/ 
Fundraising Badge

Social Vibe:  http://www.socialvibe.com   
Fundraising Badge

Six Degrees:  http://www.sixdegrees.org/
Fundraising Badge

Sprout Builder:  http://sproutbuilder.com/
Create a widget to promote your campaigns.

Change.org:  http://www.change.org
Change.org provides a social networking site geared toward nonprofit causes, which includes both online giving and distributed fundraising tools.

ChangingthePresent.org:  http://www.changingthepresent.org
This site encourages donors to replace traditional gifts with donations to a cause. With the free package, organizations have a very basic home page where donors can make a simple donation of any amount and supporters can create fundraising page to raise money for the organization.

First Giving:  http://www.firstgiving.com
On-line donation processing services, including setting up personal fundraising pages for your volunteers.  Fee associated

The Point:  http://www.thepoint.com/
Set a goal and get people to make pledges.   Fee associated. 

MailChimp:   http://www.mailchimp.com/
Free up to 100 contacts, then very affordable thereafter.  Offer a non-profit discount.  Sometimes the email builder can be a little buggy and tends to freeze, so save often!  But they do have lots of cool features and can integrate with other free online services such as Wufoo and Salesforce (only one way for now, but two-way integration supposedly on the way!).  Message composition is very similar to most blogging software.

Constant Contact:     http://www.constantcontact.com
Easy drag-and-drop message composition.  Decent templates and customization only limited by your HTML and CSS knowledge.  Great tracking down to the person. 

iContact:    http://www.icontact.com/
Free trial and inexpensive monthly subscription.  The coolest thing about iContact is the automatic campaign option that allows you to set up a series of emails that will go out to new subscribers upon signing up... 

Vertical Response:    http://www.verticalresponse.com/
Integrates (sort of) with Salesforce for superior intelligence on your mailing list.  This allows you to track in your database what emails people open, what they click on, etc.  Free for 501c3's up to 10,000 emails a month.  The reviews in Salesforce AppExchange are worth reading before going with this option for some perspective.  Basically, it will probably work great for you if you are a small, one-marketer shop.

Nabble:  http://n2.nabble.com/free-mailing-list.html
Free, but fewer bells and whistles.  I haven't actually tried this one.

Boomerang: http://boomerang.com/Take-A-Tour
Haven't tried this subscription based system, but their BlastWizard App gets excellent ratings from Salesforce users for ease of use and integration with that database (4.8 out of 5!). 

Mad Mimi: http://www.madmimi.com/
Haven't tried this either, but found out about it from a blog of a woman who researched a bunch of options and went with this one.  Free under 100 contacts, pretty affordable thereafter.

Zazzle:  http://www.zazzle.com/
Create thousands of customizable products online. T-shirts, hoodies, business cards, mugs, real US postage, embroidery, and much more. Produced in 24 hours.

Cafe Press:  http://www.cafepress.com
Print-on-demand online retailer similar to zazzle

Flying Cart:  http://www.flyingcart.com/
free account allows you to create an online store with 5 items.

Box.net http://www.box.net/
Box simplifies online file storage, replaces FTP and connects teams in online workspaces.

Yahoo Groups:  http://groups.yahoo.com/
Allows you to create and manage online email communities- easy way to set up a list-serve, but also provides space for online calendars, profiles, contact lists, etc. 

Basecamp:  https://signup.37signals.com/basecamp/Free/signup/new?source=bcappfooter
Free version allows you to create an online location for your team to keep blog-style message board, a shared calendar that links to to-do lists, a chat room, and a collaborative writing space.  You have to have a paid subscription for other services such as uploading files.  Please enter MARYFULLER in the referrer code section.

Onehub:  http://onehub.com/
Similar to Basecamp, but more customizable and you can upload video and files.  The increased flexibility can also mean worse organization and not as elegant.
 

Evite:  http://www.evite.com/
You know and love/hate it.  Great for fundraising house parties.

Brown Paper Tickets:    http://www.brownpapertickets.com/
Fair-trade ticketing service offering reasonable service fees via their not-for-profit business model.

Eventbright:  http://www.eventbrite.com/
Eventbrite provides free online event management and self-service ticketing for all types of events. 

Google Apps:  http://www.google.com/a/cpanel/domain/new
You can get Gmail (at your own domain) for up to 100 people, plus Google Calendar, Google Docs, and Google Sites for free. 

Salesforce:  http://www.salesforce.com
10 licenses free for 501(c)(3) non-profits at an inkind value of $15K!  They've been collaborating with their non-profit community for years, resulting in a pretty good non-profit template that works out alot of kinks.  Tons of online training that is boring, but works.  I like to call it the iPhone of databases- they have an app exchange where independent developers create solutions to let you do more with it. Of particular inters, it integrates with Vertical Response (see bulk mail) and sort of integrates with Mail Chimp.

Freshbooks:  http://www.freshbooks.com/tour.php
Keep track of your invoices, expenses, and Time Sheets online for free!

Clickbook:  http://www.clickbook.net/
Free online scheduling software and appointment booking service.  Still in beta version, which is pretty good.  Still some kinks to work out.

BookFresh:  http://www.bookfresh.com/
Formerly HourTown, BookFresh is online scheduling software for small business owners.  There's a free account that isn't very robust, but worth putting out there for comparison.

Toodledo:  http://www.toodledo.com/
With a free account, Toodledo will help you keep all your to-do lists in one place using a dynamic interface that uses the "Getting Things Done" methodology.  It has a built in timer for keeping track of your hours, and has sharing capabilities.  It's web-based, so you can access it anywhere you have an internet connection.  You can also print it out or access it on your iPhone.  This has been a life-saver for me.

Box  http://www.box.net/
Box simplifies online file storage, replaces FTP and connects teams in online workspaces.  Haven't tried it but was referred to it by someone who liked it.

Dropbox  https://www.dropbox.com/
Dropbox is the easiest way to store, sync, and, share files online.  I use this all the time.  I keep all the files I use for work in the magic folder, and everytime I save and close the document, it automatically saves it to my online folders.  Then when I log on at home, it synchs all the changes to my home computer so I always have access to everything.  Genius.  Evil Genius.  Now I have no excuses.