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Nonprofits of all sizes tend to be somewhat disorganized when it comes to information technology (IT). After all, they exist to serve the needs of others, not to innovate with technology (that’s our job). Whether you’re a small, low-budget nonprofit or simply facing the challenges of growth, Google Apps could be of huge value to you, potentially replacing expensive email, calendar, and desktop publishing solutions.

But first, I present the three commandments of Google Apps:

• Thou shalt not need an IT person
• Thou shalt not need a dedicated email server
• Thou shalt not need Microsoft Office products (Exchange/Outlook, Word, Excel, or Powerpoint)

So if you’re looking to save a few thousand dollars per year on staffing, hardware, and software costs, here’s how with Google Apps:

1. Visit Google for Nonprofits

Your first visit to Google for Non-Profits can feel like a surprise party with lots of free gifts--and for good reason.

You’ll notice that Google Apps covers all of the basics that you usually use in an office environment: Email, Shared and Private Calendaring, Documents (text, spreadsheets, presentations). Sign up and get 50 users for free, which covers over half of all US-based non-profits.

Google Apps covers the basics

2. Let Google Apps Handle Your Nonprofit's Email

More studies are showing that Google is going to be better than most enterprise solutions at keeping your email servers up and running, keeping spam away, and providing you with hi-tech features constantly. It just works, and you’ll rarely ask that age old question, “did you get that email I sent you?” The great part is you get to keep whatever email address you are already using. Gmail doesn’t force you to use an @gmail.com address. Here’s how to get your email hosting with Gmail set up.

Gmail has excellent Mobile, POP, IMAP and other forms of access on par with enterprise solutions. We use and recommend IMAP at HiDef because it keeps you synced across desktop and mobile. Here’s some great help directly from Google on setting up each platform.

3. Synchronize Your Calendars Once and for All

Ok, so now you have your email addresses set up, what do you do about calendaring and scheduling? If you’re familiar with Exchange and/or you just need some excellent shared calendar capability, then Google Calendar is the way to go. Since you have your Google Apps account now, Calendars is already ready to go for you. Here’s a simple presentation from Google on setup and basic usage. You’ll love having the ability to see your colleagues’ availability in real time and schedule around them. No more “when is everybody free for our next fundraising meeting?” emails.

Scheduling events with Google Calendar

4. Change Your Desktop Publishing Perspective

You have your organization set up with email and calendars, but you’re still going to have to fork over money for Microsoft Office for each of your staff members, right? Wrong. Google Docs handles most typical document types and does a fine job at word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. Here are three common needs many of our nonprofit friends have that Google Docs can meet:

Board Document Centralization and Collaboration
Get all of your shared and private board documents centralized on Google Docs and share/or remove permissions to any board member you wish. All parties receive an email notification with a link to the document.

You can also make any document read-only, so if it’s an Executive Director’s report and you don’t want any board members grubbing up your document, you can make it read-only for them. You can also share entire folders, import Word and Excel documents, and much more.

Polls and Surveys
Take a survey from your board, donors, or volunteers via a Google Docs form. You create a Google Spreadsheet and then attach a form to it with the questions you want answered. Then you share the form URL easily with whomever you want submitting responses. The data is logged right there into the spreadsheet you created and for your eyes only. Imagine taking a board vote or getting market feedback from your constituents this way. Here’s a nice walk-through on how you can leverage this feature. And here’s more on spreadsheets.

Create polls and surveys with Google Apps

Presentations to Donors
Do you need to send a big donor some numbers or an update? Just use Google presentations to create your multimedia presentation, send a URL to your Donor and wait for them to be impressed by the technological efficiency that their money is being used/or saved on. Here’s some info on Google Docs presentations.

Create donor presentations with Google Apps

With what you can do for free with Google Docs, you will be thinking hard about whether a staff member really needs the full Office suite or other expensive desktop software. You have world saving to do, no need wasting your money!

I know all that sounds like I’m trying to sell Google products, but we’re really not selling anything since Google gives it all out for free. We’ve just been using and recommending this setup for a while now and really believe in it as a solid solution.

We Can Help You

If you’re still left wondering how you will find time to take advantage of these solutions, HiDef can help you assess your situation and choose the right path. Set up a free consultation or call us to get your IT where it needs to be.