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April 2012
How do you choose software for your nonprofit? With so many different types of software available, it’s difficult to even know what’s available, let alone what’s best for your organization’s particular needs. That’s why we created the Idealware Field Guide to Software for Nonprofits. This handy reference covers all the different types of software that might be useful to you—and we just updated it for 2012.
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Laura S. Quinn and Jay Leslie,
July 2011
The Google Apps donation program provides organizational email, calendaring and document sharing as a free alternative to Microsoft Outlook. How do the two applications compare in the face of typical nonprofit needs?
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Chris Bernard, Senior Editor,
March 2011
Can software help your board collaborate more effectively? It likely can -- potentially, anything from scheduling meetings to share documents or even to meet online. This Idealware article was written for the inaugural issue of NTEN: Change, the new quarterly publication of the NTEN. Thanks to NTEN for their support.
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February 2011
Online surveys can be a huge help in understanding what your constituents think and how successful your programs are, without breaking your budget. Last year we spoke to five nonprofit staff members to understand how existing online survey tools compare—this is an update of that article with current information about the tools’ features and pricing.
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Colin Pizarek and Chris Bernard,
October 2010
eLearning modules -- multimedia modules that provide students information in an interactive, multimedia-rich way -- can be an interesting way to teach staff or constituents. But how do you create them? There's a whole class of software packages that help you create the core elements like text, graphics, narration, animation, and interactivity.
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June 2010
There are many software applications that can help with project management tasks - but also many different opinions about what types of functionality you might want. In this article, revised in June 2010, we round up the types of software and the vendorswhat nonprofit project managers to understand what software has been useful to them.
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October 2009
How can online friend-to-friend fundraising help you to raise money and engage your staff and volunteers? This detailed case study looks at how one small school raised $3000 from mostly new donors with a minimal investment.
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September 2009
You've got data. How do you transform it into charts, graphs, and maps that will help your audience understand the data and move them to take action? This 30-page independent Idealware report provides an overview of the types of graphic formats that might work for you, provides some examples and case studies, and then compares eight low-cost tools that can help you create them.
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March 2009
The Internet gives you access to a virtual smorgasbord of information. From the consequential to the trivial, the astonishing to the mundane, it's all within your reach. This means you can keep up with the headlines, policies, trends, and tools that interest your nonprofit, and keep informed about what people are saying about your organization online. But the sheer volume of information can pose challenges, too: namely, how do you separate the useful data from all the rest? One way is to use RSS, which brings the information you want to you.
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January 2009
If you’re looking for software tools that can help your group collaborate, you’ll find a lot of options. There are many different types of solutions that support many different types of needs. This article compares your options.
