The Cost of Free
You don't have to spend a lot to spend so it would seem at first glance to make sense to find a free software solution rather than a free one. What would be the reasons not to do this?
Take SalesForce for example. While this software is free there is a lot of extra expense you might not consider in the form of time learning, paid training which is an upfront investment and long term investment in using a free product like this.
Resources for Infrastructure
There are a lot of different resources for beefing up your infrastructure and finding low cost machines. We put together a small list to get you started.
- Tech Soup
- Interconnection.org
- Good360
- Christina.org
- Apple Certified Refurbished
- Dell Outlet
- Amazon Refurbished PCs
More and more organizations are moving to the cloud for simplisticity and security, stop relying on an old server that isn’t properly maintained and install a cloud sharing system that will take your organization to the next level.
Cloud sharing options:
Crashplan - Cloud Backup. For $10 a month you can get unlimited automated backup for you and your whole team. Crashplan also offers a free option for backups on local drives
Amazon Glacier Cloud Backup is one of the cheapest cloud backup options, but only if you rarely recover files from “deep freeze”
Other Software:
This is the best free antivirus software out there on the internet. There is a paid version but the free version is capable and well built. Remember it is important to update your antivirus on a regular basis in order for it to be effective. This software (Avast) can be used in conjunction with Windows Defender to really lock down your machines.
Best time tracking system for a small business. A simple online timer with a powerful timesheet calculator. Syncs with iOS & Android app.
It’s a survey creator, poll and meeting calendar all in one.
If This Then That, also known as IFTTT, is a free web-based service to create chains of simple conditional statements, called applets. An applet is triggered by changes that occur within other web services such as Gmail, Facebook, Telegram, Instagram, or Pinterest.
Make and accept calls from your computer. Completely free, no phone plans or anything like that. An Easy solution for creating different phone numbers for your business.
Basically this service lets you set up free conference calls and integrates webcams, cellphones and landlines simply and easily.
Trello is hands down the easiest way to coordinate on and plan tasks and lists of tasks. You can create different “boards” for different types of projects and effortlessly sort through your tasks as you check them off.
Slack is a perfect way to chat with the entire office without things getting confusing. You can have slack chats set up for specific tasks or jobs, have group chats with project teams or direct msg a person to work with them on a project.
Salesforce - “Constituent Relationship Management Application”
Build more meaningful and lasting relationships and connect with your customers across sales, customer service, marketing, communities, apps, analytics, etc.
Tableau - Data Visualization
Tableau is one of the best tools out there for creating really powerful and insightful visuals. Make amazing charts, graphs etc to share data.
Google Translate - Website Translation
Google translate is a great quick and dirty way to find the meaning of certain words and phrases. Keep in mind the results will be far from perfect and you can’t use anything produced for actual public facing content until you have it properly reviewed by a person.
Google Dictate
Basically you can speak into a microphone and it will put that text up on the screen. It’s not perfect but it can be a real time saver
Brown Paper Tickets - Events Registration
Sell tickets to your events yourself simply and easily. They take a small cut, but it is less than you would have to pay for most ticketing companies.
Another ticketing company designed to save people money and be as low cost as possible.
This is the gold standard for website backend tools, it is the primary method the vast majority of search marketing specialists use to monitor and analyze their internet traffic.
The most popular and one of the cheaper ways to coordinate online mailing campaigns. If you are interesting in uploading a customer list or starting from scratch this is probably the best company to start email marketing with.
An easy and cheap way to add simple surveys to your organization’s website.
Google Ad Grants is a donation program that distributes free advertising to selected 501 nonprofit orgs. As of 2018, eligible nonprofits can receive up to $10,000 per month in in-kind advertising within the AdWords search engine marketing platform.
Use their database and fundraising expertise to work for your organization, project, or client, while uncovering information on all 140k US Foundations.
Hootsuit - Social Media Management
Manage all your social media in once place! Makes managing social media profiles for your business an easy process.
Fivverr - Hire Cheap Contractors
You can hire for almost anything on Fiverr. Get your website fixed, get a simple logo, hire a performer.
The free alternative to Photoshop. Photoshop has way more features but Gimp is free, and free is nice.
Another alternative to photoshop. This one is online. A very robust tool for all kinds of graphic design tasks
You can find the slides used in this presentation over here on SlideShare
Tech Tools
Last updated on January 08, 2022.
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