Who doesn’t love a good discount?
Nonprofits often have limited budget and bandwidth, which makes discounted digital tools all that much more important.
Software and technology can be a huge capacity builder for nonprofits of all sizes. Used correctly, digital transformation can be a multiplier of your mission’s impact.
At Rootid, we’re passionate about the intersection of mission and technology. However, the cost of digital tools can be prohibitive.
For that reason, we put together this list of free and discounted technology offers for nonprofits broken into helpful categories.
Project Management & Internal Communications
Asana is an easy way for teams to track their work. From tasks and projects to conversations and dashboards. In fact, Asana is the project management system that we use here at Rootid. We love Asana, and many of our clients do too. Some clients have adopted Asana internally at their organizations after using it with us. Asana is extremely flexible and therefore can adapt to almost any use case. There are free and paid versions of the system.
The deal: Qualified nonprofits get it free for up to 15 people and a 50% discount on any plans above that.
Basecamp is another popular project management system. It allows you to organize everything in one place. Your team will be working together (even though they’re apart), you’ll be on top of things, and a sense of calm will set in.
The deal: free for students & teachers, 10% discount for nonprofits
Trello is yet another popular project management system. Trello helps teams work more collaboratively and get more done. Trello’s boards, lists, and cards enable teams to organize and prioritize projects in a fun, flexible, and rewarding way.
The deal: 75% discount for all nonprofits. To get the deal, your team will need to contact the support team to receive it.
Email Service Provider & Chat Platforms
MailChimp is one of the most prolific email service platforms out there today. It’s probably one of the better known providers out there, and can provide some good basic functionality for organizations. Organizations looking for more complex functions and features may want to look at other options.
The deal: Nonprofits can use Mailchimp for free for up to 2,000 subscribers. There’s also a 15% discount for any paid plan for nonprofits which would come to the starter price of $8.50 a month.
Campaign Monitor is the quick and easy way for nonprofits to send impactful email campaigns. With our powerful, yet easy-to-use platform, creating emails that help deepen donor relationships and hit new fundraising goals is simpler than ever before.
The deal: Nonprofits save 15% on all plans.
Constant Contact calls itself a powerful email platform that allows you to get your email campaigns right. In addition to email, their platform allows you to build websites and landing pages.
The deal: Nonprofits can receive a 30% discount on all plans.
Aweber email marketing software offers email newsletters, autoresponders, RSS to Email, website sign-up forms, email web analytics tools, and a good reputation for deliverability. Pricing from $19/month.
The deal: New nonprofit accounts get 3 months free service, followed by a 25% discount on invoices.
LiveChat – Looking for a way to connect with your clients, donors and partner through chat on your website? LiveChat allows you to install a chat interface quickly and easily so your constituents can get their questions answered quickly.
The deal: For nonprofits, Livechat offers free Business Plans.
Accounting
QuickBooks is one of the most popular and commonly used accounting software system in the United States. It’s quick to setup and easy to use. When you use it you will be able to find a lot of accounting professionals to help with your books.
The deal: Check out TechSoup’s offer for the QuickBooks Online subscription.
Communications
Zoom is one of the leading providers of video conferencing and has become one of the most common places to hold meetings with the COVID 19 pandemic. It has an intuitive interface and seems to “just work” as their motto goes.
The deal: TechSoup offers 50% discount on some plans. And, with TechSoup’s COVID relief fund setup, you may qualify for up to $2,000 in grant funding.
Online Advertising
Google Ads Grants is one of the best ways for nonprofits to build awareness about their work. As part of the Google for Nonprofits program, all 501c3’s are eligible to receive $10,000 a month in free PPC advertising on the Google search platform.
The deal: Free after you are accepted into their grant program, which just requires you to prove you are a 501c3
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) & Grants Management
SalesForce Success Pack is a great way to get your nonprofit started with SalesForce. Although this offer provides free licenses to use SalesForce, we frequently hear organizations recommend that you consult a SalesForce consultant to make sure that your instance is setup correctly. We like that SalesForce has a robust community and the platform integrates with tons of other cloud software offerings.
The deal: SalesForce Success Pack is free for all nonprofits. Organizations also receive a 50% discount on all training.
DonorPerfect Online is an online fundraising and donor management software. DonorPerfect has an all-in-one database that stores the types of information nonprofits use for fundraising and reporting.
The deal: through TechSoup you can get packages starting at $35 per year.
GrantStation is a web-based service for nonprofit organizations, charities, and public libraries with profiles on current grantmakers and step-by-step tutorials on how to secure available funding. Use it to find and contact grantmakers, save common grant searches, plan grant projects and much more.
The deal: through TechSoup you can get packages starting at $199 per year.
HubSpot offers a range of free marketing tools that include a CRM, free automated emails, a marketing analytics dashboard, a contact database and more. Whether your organization is looking to build your donor base, recruit volunteers, engage members or drive storytelling engagement, HubSpot can help.
The deal: HubSpot’s CRM and email marketing features are free. As your organization grows and you’re looking for more features, it will eventually cost money. Check with their team for the latest prices.
Events
EventBrite is one of the most popular tools on the web to sell event tickets. If you are selling tickets, the Eventbrite for Causes program allows nonprofits to pay 2% of the event ticket price plus 99 cents per ticket sold (the normal rate is 2.5% of the ticket price plus 99 cents per ticket sold). You can also ask guests to make donations to your events, cover processing fees and more.
The deal: Free if you are not selling tickets. Discounted processing fees if you are.
Storage & Collaboration Package
GSuite is one of the most direct competitors to Microsoft Office. If you have used Gmail or Google Drive, you’re familiar with GSuite. Through the Google Grants program all 501c3’s are eligible to receive free access to this offering.
The deal: free for all 501c3 organizations.
Box allows organizations to store files and collaborate in the cloud. Speed up collaboration by allowing users to access, share, and review time-sensitive work in the cloud in real time from any device, instead of through traditional file-transfer applications and internal servers.
The deal: Packages start at $84 for 10 user licenses through TechSoup
Dropbox offers online file sharing services to nonprofits to collaborate on content with team members and volunteers and to distribute content to beneficiaries. Given that many organizations are working all remote right now, having a cloud-based solution for your file storage is huge.
The deal: through TechSoup you can receive 5TB of storage starting at $45 a year. Plans go up from there. Plans go up from there.
Slack helps unclog your email inbox by providing a chat platform that organizes your online chat conversations and allows you to share files and links. Your team will speed up communication and work more securely by inviting them to a channel in Slack.
The deal: Up to 250 members for free and 85% discount from there.
Social Media Management
Hootsuite allows organizations to easily manage all their social media through one platform. You can compose, edit and schedule all of your social media channels in one place. The platform also allows you to explore social platforms by following individuals, hashtags and conversations in one easy-to-use dashboard.
The deal: As a part of HootGiving program, Hootsuite provides a 50% discount and social media education for nonprofits. For the Professional plan, which is the most affordable, you’d end up paying $9.5 per month.
Buffer is another social media management platform, similar to Hootsuite. Buffer provides your team with one central location to compose, monitor and analyze your social media content.
The deal: 50% discount for nonprofits on all Buffer plans making the Basic plan $7.50 a month.
Analytics/Website Optimization
Google Analytics is one of the most widely used analytics platforms in the world. Track the activity on your website and run robust reports to make data-driven decisions.
The deal: Google Analytics is free for everyone to use.
HotJar is a platform that helps organizations improve their website through surveys, heatmaps, click maps and interface analysis. It is particularly useful if you are interested in understanding how your website visitors are using your site.
The deal: HotJar offers a free lifetime business plan.
Google Optimize is a testing platform that allows nonprofits to A/B test content and layouts on their websites. The platform will help you to continuously improve on your websites performance and optimize content, messaging and user experiences.
The deal: Google Optimize is free for everyone to use. We recommend taking a training or having someone with experience help you use it.
Graphics & Video Editing
Canva is quickly becoming one of the most popular ways to create amazing graphic designs. With Canva, anyone can create professional-quality designs. Pick from hundreds of templates that make social media graphics, print materials, reports and much more easy to build – even if you’re not a designer.
The deal: Nonprofits get the premium version of Canva for free.
Adobe CreativeCloud is the benchmark for creative and graphic design programs. It is a collection of creative design desktop applications, mobile apps, and services for designing, developing, and publishing graphical, video, audio, and interactive content for print, the web, and mobile devices. If you haven’t heard of CreativeCloud you may have heard of the software packages within it – Photoshop, Illustrator and more.
The deal: Get up to 60% off CreativeCloud prices the first year, and 40% off there after through TechSoup.
Crello is one of the easiest online design tools to create animations and graphics for social and web. Anyone can create like a pro. No design skills needed.
The deal: nonprofits can get free access to PRO subscription which includes more templates, images, and design tools.
Typito helps you easily create compelling and high-impact videos to spread your mission. Inform and inspire using videos with professional text effects, graphics overlays and more.
The deal: basic features are free. You can also apply for a 50% nonprofit discount on annual plans starting at $12.5 per month ($150 billed annually).
Animaker – Effortlessly create studio-quality animation videos with a simple drag & drop interface. It’s easy to do. No experience necessary. There are tons of free templates and a huge library of animated assets to choose from.
The deal: pricing starts at $12/month.
Security
LastPass helps your team manage and share passwords. No more spreadsheets being passed around the office in an insecure way. Rootid uses LastPass to manage all of our passwords, and our clients’ passwords. It’s easy to use and dramatically reduces risks.
The deal: LastPass has free features. Nonprofits can get up to 30% off of paid plans.
Stock Photos
Unsplash – provides free beautiful pictures crowdsourced from photographers around the globe. For the most part, image quality is great and you can find what you need. After using the same types of photos over and over you may run out of options, but it’s a great place to start.
The deal: Free for everyone. You’re encouraged to say “thank you” to photographers by making a donation when you download their images.
The deal: free for everyone
ShutterStock is a paid stock photo and video site. Unlike its free counterparts you will get what you pay for… meaning you get a lot more options by paying just a little more. If you are using stock photography alot, this will likely be worth it.
The deal: You can acquire a 35% nonprofit discount for Shutterstock images and 25% discount for footage (packs or monthly subscription) on Techsoup. This would mean a price range of $215 – $270 a month for Team plans.
Adobe Stock Photos is yet another free stock photography site that allows you to search for photos, illustrations, vectors videos and more. We just found out about this at Rootid and are looking forward to digging into it more.
The deal: free for everyone
Automation & Systems Integrations
Zapier lets you easily automate your daily workload—the organization, reminders, and sometimes even the work itself! This is a tool that we’re huge fans of at Rootid and use frequently. We use this for day-to-day operations of our company operations and with our clients.
The deal: You can use Zapier for free for up to 100 tasks a month. Nonprofits are eligible for a 15% discount on any paid plan which makes the cheapest plan $17 a month.