60+ Popular apps, tools and resources for non-profits

Non-profits can definitely put their best foot forward by using these marketing tools, apps and resources. From time-saving scheduling or even free apps, creative tools and analytics I have found many teams benefit from checking out these popular marketing tools, apps and resources.

Social Media

Buffer is a San Francisco-based company offering free essential social media tools (max. 3 channels) to help NFPs improve their reach.  YouTube Tutorial  They also offer up to 50% off for nonprofits.

HootSuite Is a Canadian alternative, but no longer offers free basic accounts as of March 2023. They do offer discounted (75% off when last checked) professional plans for non-profits.

Other popular alternatives can include platforms like Loomly or Sprout Social.

Canva – An Australian-based tool that allows staff to quickly create graphics for social media sites without needing design software (pre-determined templates, photos, fonts, illustrations, etc.). Canva makes it easy for non-designers to create visually appealing graphics for your website or social media platforms.  Most non-profits find there are ample templates, photos etc. within their free accounts and they can download them to post.  Paid accounts again offer more services such as posting directly to social media platforms. YouTube Tutorial.

Vista Create (formerly Crello) is another alternative / similar to Canva.

Grammerly – allows users to upload a document to check for common grammatical mistakes.

Unsplash – The app provides wallpapers and the full site provides a diversity of free images and tips on how to give photographers attribution (Under “About Us”).  Browse images to see both paid options via iStock and fully free images.

Once your team has selected the social media platform that best meets your needs, then also ensure you leverage the platform’s social media tools, training and resources.  Facebook continues to be the largest social media platform in Canada and here is a link to their NFP resource site: https://socialimpact.facebook.com/

Your team may also have questions about how to best leverage social media platforms and set clear goals. Tech Impact is a nonprofit on a mission to empower communities and nonprofits to use technology to better serve the world.  They first released a guide on social media in 2010 and as a lot has changed since then, publish new editions of their Social Media Decision Guide.

New to social media advertising?  Here’s a link to a quick reference for social media costs in 2023

Accessible Social is a free resource hub for digital marketers to discover how to make social media content accessible but also leverage built-in tools (e.g. Word Accessibility) to ensure your content is accessible.

 

Website & Analytics

Google Analytics (GA4) – A free tool that allows staff to measure website and social media platforms. Enhanced tracking is possible with tracking links which insert a piece of code that can track specific emails, social media posts or website links to demonstrate exactly where our website traffic is coming from. Google has a number of other non-profit discounts or programs – Google Ads, Google Business Profile, etc. https://www.google.com/nonprofits/eligibility/

Google Drive, for example, enables users to store up to 15GB for free and makes file sharing easy. Alternative Drop Box allows users to store up to 2GB for free.

Other popular Google tools to help manage / improve how your website appears in Google search engine results are included via Google Search Console.   They offer specific tools e.g. if your page is mobile friendly or to investigate how long a webpage takes to load / appear.

For Microsoft Bing alternatives check out bing.com/webmasters.  Don’t be intimidated by the “webmasters” link, as this term can help you locate a number of business tools that are easy to navigate vs. consumer-facing tools.

WordPress.org – One of the most popular open-sourced software for building blogs or websites, WordPress allows smaller non-profits to easily develop an online presence and connect to their community. WordPress themes allow staff to easily set up and manage a website with little or no HTML training. For helpful HTML tutorials basics check out w3schools.com.  WordPress also offers a range of helpful plugins like LearnPress or WooCommerce to start you off.  Tutorial – We’d recommend you begin with wpbeginner as a guide for using WordPress.

Popular alternatives can include Squarespace, Wix, etc.  There are a number of helpful online resources to aid NFPs in developing a website needs assessment and RFP process to identify the best options.

SurveyMonkey – A key part of engaging a community of followers is ensuring they have a voice and that you understand their needs and interests. SurveyMonkey is an easy-to-use market research tool that allows non-profits to set up online surveys, share them via emails, website or social media accounts and see real-time results and easy-to-understand reporting.  An alternate is Alchemer (was Surveygizmo).

HotJar isn’t an app but as an often-asked question about website UX, it does enable users to develop heat maps for their website to help communicate insights on user behaviours. Another example that’s free is Microsoft’s Clarity

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot that allows users such as writers to entire prompts to generate ideas for blog posts, social media messages, website content, emails and more.  Another alternative in the emerging chatbot field is tools like manychat.com

LiveAgent – offers a limited free account for a real-time chat service.

Otter.ai – Each free account gets 600 minutes of transcription each month to generate a transcript of your videos (to be A.O.D.A. compliant).  YouTube’s machine-generated sub-titles may also be a great option.  You can also leverage tools like Otter.ai voice meeting notes – OtterPilot™

 

Email

Mail Chimp – If you are just starting out to send marketing emails MailChimp is a popular platform that can help. To access the nonprofit discount, first set up a free plan and contact the billing team to register your organization. Teams can set up trigger welcome emails or personalize emails based on specific audiences/interests. You can easily collect subscribers from Facebook, Twitter and WordPress. If you have less than 250 contacts, Cyberimpact is a Canadian alternative.  Constant Contact is also another popular alternative that offers nonprofit discounts.

Tools like https://www.mail-tester.com/ allow you to check to see if have spam issues.

 

General / Admin.

Padlet – is a helpful tool for co-creating an inspiration board because it’s flexible.  Similar to Pinterest, it allows users to brainstorm using photos, videos or text posts.  You can also embed Padlet boards into other tools for sharing.

PiktoChart –another helpful non-app link –  This is an easy-to-use infographic chart maker that offers free access as well as a discounted fee for its PRO package for non-profits.  Another option is venngage.com but if you are looking just for icons, check out iconfinder.com

Statista – another often requested source that doesn’t yet have a phone app – Is a searchable site to find statistics and facts to support your case for support. In Canada, we also benefit from having the StatsCanada app at our fingertips.

Slack – is a project management tool for teams that are just starting up or for teams working across Canada who need a way to stay in sync.  There are a million apps and all our clients have different favourites (e.g. Asana, Google Tasks, etc.) Asana is another alternative.

Toggl – a good time tracking tool whose basic plan is free and allows teams to visualize how they are spending their time.

Adobe integrates with Google Drive as well to offer free e-signature and PDF viewer tools.

Eventbrite – A terrific tool if you are setting up free events. Their essentials plan is free as long as your event tickets are free (a fee is applied to paid tickets). It lets you easily post your events to other sites such as Google Calendar, Facebook or MailChimp. Trying to find a date that works for the majority of your volunteers? Try Doodle , a free polling tool that easily surveys what dates would work best.

Fiverr – is a site that allows NFP’s to resource digital marketing freelance skills like graphic design. Consider also partnering with local colleges and university courses that would like to have projects students can work on to gain hands-on experiences via internships.

No surprise – But Zoom is now for many our favourite digital meeting space

As you consider your needs, ensure you check with any software or app service provider if they offer a nonprofit or registered charity discount. TechSoup makes it easy to find this information for Canadian nonprofits.  You will also need to register with them to apply for a Google advertising grant if you are eligible.

Fundraising / Crowdsourcing

I am often also asked about options for donation processing, fundraising, peer-to-peer events and crowdfunding. For small non-profits, there are a wide variety of platforms such as:

CauseVox – A crowdfunding platform for non-profits in Canada, Australia and the United States. It offers a free trial plan that waives CauseVox’s monthly fees (there is a fee on donation pages or on campaigns as you consider processing fees).  Alternative options include Vancouver-based Fundrazr or FrontStream.

Large platforms that offer specialized NFP and fundraising tools, also regularly publish research and benchmarking articles.  For example this Benchmarking Study by SalesForce

or BlackBaud’s Canadian Giving Report 2023