People and Technology How to Run your Organization with Many free software programs are as good or better than expensive versions. Here are the best. By Ian Anderson or years huge software com- Creating a pDf panies have dominated the These products are a (portable Document format) marketplace while charging F Commercial Product: Adobe Ac- hefty prices for using their software. great fit for nonprofits. Thankfully, some software devel- robat/Adobe Distiller Open-Source Alternative: PDF- opers offer free alternatives. for free and compare the features Open-source software is usually Creator (www.pdfcreator.com) before you go out and purchase are a great way to get people as good as — if not better than — Microsoft Office for $679.99. Open- the commercial versions. Of course, to see your documents as you Office can be used on Apple and intended. These fixed-layout for- the benefit of commercial brands PCs. is their popularity. With free mats, independent of the operating software, it will be harder to find Zipping files system, let you share information from any computer application people with whom you can share Commercial Product: WinZip with anyone around the world experiences and troubleshoot. But Open-Source Alternative: 7-zip without changing the documents’ if you’re a pioneering sort, unafraid (www.7-zip.org) original look. to strike out on your own, you’ll Zipping files is a great way to find that these free products are a compress and archive them to save Adobe Systems created and per- great fit for nonprofits. space. You can then group and fected the PDF, but its $449 price Here’s a list of commercial prod- copy these files and unzip them tag may be an impediment. Let me ucts and their open-source alterna- when you need to work with them. introduce PDFCreator. tives (with descriptions) that you If you (like most people) down- PDFCreator basically adds a can use to run your nonprofit. All loaded WinZip (the most well-known printer (that you can give a custom these open-source software titles file-compression utility) but didn’t name) to your available printer are free. buy it because of the high purchase list. When you’re ready to convert any document to a PDF, use File > Using General-office Software price, don’t worry. Download 7-zip, and get all the nice features of Print like you normally would; Commercial Product: Microsoft WinZip for free. I like the way it then choose your PDF printer from Office adds a new right-click menu entry the list; hit Print (then save) and Open-Source Alternative: Open- for zipping files (just like WinZip). you’re done. It works great. Office (www.openoffice.org) Checking E-Mail OpenOffice has most of the fea- Mind Mapping tures you need to run your non- Commercial Product: Microsoft Commercial Product: Mindjet profit. The entire office suite is Outlook MindManager here. Need to keep track of infor- Open-Source Alternative: Mozilla Open-Source Alternative: Free- mation and perform donation/ Thunderbird (www.mozilla.com/ Mind (freemind.sourceforge.net) membership calculations in a thunderbird/) The people who develop mind- spreadsheet? “Calc” can do it. Giv- Freeing your nonprofit from the mapping software are amazing. ing a presentation to the board “@hotmail.com” stigma is a won- Such software lets you create - on a projector? “Impress” can give derful thing. Now you have the you all the functionality you need grams of relationships between ideas, helping you visualize com- problem of “How do I check my in on-screen presentation software. new e-mail address if I don’t have Want to track donors in a fully plex aspects of your organization. Hotmail?” You have two options: functional database? “Base” is for But you may not want to spend Buy Microsoft Outlook for $109.99, you. And all the word processing $349 for MindManager to get your or download Mozilla Thunderbird Microsoft Word does, “Writer” can ideas out of your head. If that’s the for free. If you just need to be able do. case, try FreeMind. It can do ev- to check your e-mail, Mozilla There are more applications in erything you need when it comes the suite, so I recommend you to structuring your ideas and can Thunderbird is a great choice. download and install OpenOffice be used on Apple and PCs. continued on page 22

May/June 2009 www.snpo.org NONPROFIT WORLD • 21 Calling people through the internet Future Trends Commercial Product: Vonage Open-Source Alternative: Skype (www.skype.com) I’d been using Vonage for about a year (paying $24.99 a month) Nonprofit Sector when I heard about a new Skype deal ($29.95 for unlimited calling per year). There are cordless phones that are compatible with Skype, so Growing Pains you can call from anywhere in your office. It’s compatible with Apple and PCs. And you can take your number with you to different locations, as when you move offices or use the number at both home and office, even easier than with Vonage. And here’s something really cool: Belkin (and a few other man- ufacturers) have created Skype handsets so that you can use Skype without being connected to a com- puter. These devices connect through any open wireless net- work. If you have one of these devices and the unlimited Skype account, you have an unlimited-use cell phone. Vonage can’t do that! Why pay Huge prices? the economic crisis may be just what’s needed to turn As you can see, you can obtain the nonprofit sector around. Here’s what we must do. some great nonprofit software By Bruce Glasrud without paying the high costs. If you need help finding and down- ver the past few decades, loading any of these open-source the nonprofit sector has Many nonprofits — far titles, just contact me and I’ll help Obecome one of the fastest you out. Enjoy! growing sectors of our economy. more than we like to admit Most of us have assumed that such — do an appalling job of growth is something to celebrate – a sign that nonprofits are showing engaging volunteers. Ian Robert Anderson (info@clickitz. increasing influence. com) is founder of Clickitz (www. clickitz.com), which offers a simple That’s not the real story, however. way for nonprofits to raise funds using Some of this growth is unnecessary nonprofit. When I inquired about the Internet. Clickitz gives nonprofits and counterproductive, highlighting his intended mission, he said he a complete Web store with thousands weaknesses at the heart of the wanted to raise money for a na- of digitally downloadable products nonprofit sector. Today’s weak tional nonprofit he had always (no packaging, no shipping, no credit economy is bringing the problem liked. It took me considerable card processing). All nonprofits need into full light. effort to convince him to forget do is direct traffic to their Clickitz starting a new organization and, Web store; with every sale, they receive a commission. instead, offer his sizeable talents SPECIAL OFFER only for NONPROFIT Some of this growth we directly to his favorite cause. (I cut WORLD subscribers: Clickitz supports can do without. out the middleman — and cut my- the works of nonprofits and would self out of a lucrative contract. like to offer your nonprofit one free Ethics and bank accounts seldom month of a Clickitz Gold Web store. Leaving a Legacy? walk close together these days.) Visit www.clickitz.com and use the Case in point: I was recently ap- Of course, I can only hope the promo code NPWORLD. Limit one free trial per U.S.-based nonprofit proached by a successful, soon to favored nonprofit has the good organization. Offer valid until 8/1/09. be retired businessperson who sense to involve this businessperson wanted me to help him start a new properly. Many nonprofits — far

22 • NONPROFIT WORLD www.snpo.org Volume 27, Number 3