A couple of months ago I shared 10 of my favorite free tools for nonprofit marketing. People seemed to enjoy that post, so I’ve put together a list of 10 more of my favorite free tools. I’d also like to mention that no one is giving me anything to promote any of these tools, I just think they’re wonderful and worth sharing. Ready? Here they are:
10 More of My Favorite Free Tools for Nonprofit Marketing
1. GIMP (the GNU Image Manipulation Program) – Sometimes, resources are a little too tight to enjoy the spendy tools in life such as Photoshop or InDesign – so thank goodness for GIMP! GIMP is a pretty good solution to not having Photoshop. The learning curve can be a little steep on it when you are just getting started, but thankfully they have user guides, and Youtube is full of handy tutorials.
2. Skitch – Evernote has a sweet tool called Skitch, which in my opinion works even better than Microsoft’s Snipping Tool (if that’s what you currently have on your PC), and you can do some pretty fancy things with it. Bonus: it’s incredibly easy to use.
3. QuickMeme – Memes are all the rage these days, so if your nonprofit wants to dip their toes into the meme making waters, there are a couple of sites you can go to like QuickMeme or Imgflip.com. But be careful, sometimes the “example” memes or the current trending ones on the home pages may have language that might be NSFW (not safe for work). Also, before you post memes to Facebook, you might want to read up on how Facebook has decided to punish pages with ‘crappy memes’.
4. Notepad++ – Have you ever tried copy/pasting something from a web site or word doc to an HTML editor and you just CAN’T get rid of the original formatting? It won’t let you change the size, or color, or some other dumb little thing. Well, Notepad++ is great for getting rid of formatting and getting back just plain text. I use it frequently when I’m moving text around, and it’s a wonderful time saver!
5. Trello – Do you have a lot of projects needs to be organized and kept track of? Try this awesome tool to make boards for each of your projects, add team members to assign tasks, and seamlessly move your assignments through stages until completion. It’s a pretty fantastic tool, great for helping to maintain those big or ongoing projects.
6. Prezi – Speaking of big projects, I hope you already know about Prezi, but it’s basically the coolest way to spice up your presentation that may otherwise just be a boring power point presentation. If you only make presentations once in awhile, they have a great free option. And if you are a hard-core presentation maker, or if you want your presentations to be private, they have reasonable pricing options for those extras.
7. Infogr.am – This is a great tool to make interactive infographics. It’s a great way to present info during meetings in a more visually interesting way. There are many other great uses for it that you can use for your organization externally too.
8. Clipping Magic – Alright, this one is pretty cool. My coworker shared it with me a couple of weeks ago, and I absolutely love it. Ever wish you could turn that white background into a transparent background on an image? Well this site makes it super easy to do! It’s still in the Beta stage, but check it out.
9. Doodle – Do you need to figure out people’s schedules quickly and easily to get a meeting together? Doodle is a wonderful tool for doing just that. Simply list the dates and times to choose from, and send the URL out to people. It’s incredibly easy to use, and very handy.
10. Coffitivity – Do you find that you work better in a coffee shop with the soft murmur of people chatting mixed in with the light music played overhead as background noise? For those who can’t get out of their office and set-up shop at a sweet cafe, this is a pretty neat alternative. Just turn on your favorite tunes, and have this site open in another tab (at a volume level just below your music, which you can adjust on the web page), and sit down with your favorite cup of coffee – et voila! You have a great coffee shop ambiance without leaving your desk.
Do you have free resources you love to use? Let us know in the comments!
thedatabank, gbc is technology for change, and we walk the talk. 
