Resources for Nonprofit Storytellers

Tools We Love

After nearly 45 combined years of experience as professional communicators and marketers, we’ve gotten pretty clear on our favorite tools* to support our work with nonprofit and charitable organizations. We’re excited to share a few of them with you!

*Please note that some of these links may be affiliate or referral links, which means we may earn a commission or service credit if you use a link shared here to make a purchase or register for a service trial. We only recommend and share tools that we love and use. Please consult our Disclaimer for more on our use of affiliate and referral links.

Canva

Our favorite tool, of course, is Canva! Canva makes it easy for nonprofits to stay on brand and produce assets for visual storytelling that have a consistent look and feel.
We also love that Pro accounts are available for FREE to eligible nonprofit and charitable organizations!

Learn More

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Adobe Creative Cloud

We believe in using the best tool for the job, so we also maintain a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud for some of our more complex projects. With applications for vector and raster design, video editing, and print design, we love that Adobe offers an application (or two!) to solve every creative problem we encounter! Adobe Creative Cloud offers discounted pricing to eligible nonprofit organizations through TechSoup.

Check Out Adobe Creative Cloud

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Bloomerang

We’ve worked with more than a few donor management systems through our consulting work, and Bloomerang has always been one of our faves! We love their integrations with tools our clients already use and love, as well as their pricing model that offers access to nonprofits of every size.

Check Out Bloomerang

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CoSchedule

CoSchedule is an all-in-one marketing calendar that offers project and task management within the context of your marketing projects. With drop and drag features that allow for quick rescheduling of blog posts, email newsletters, and social posts, CoSchedule is a great way to manage your nonprofit’s marketing campaigns. CoSchedule also offers a 30% discount to eligible nonprofit organizations.

Check Out Coschedule

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Google Workspace

Though the name has changed a few times over the years, Google’s cloud-based suite of productivity tools just keeps getting better. With virtual meeting, chat, presentation tools, and more, you’ll find everything you need to elevate your nonprofit’s workflow. Through Google for Nonprofits, Google Workspace offers free and deeply discounted plans to eligible nonprofit organizations.

Check Out Google Workspace

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Grammarly

Even third-grade spelling bee champs (Sandee takes a bow…) could use a little help with their writing occasionally. Grammarly does the job perfectly! We love the clarity suggestions because sometimes the fingers move faster than the mind, and we LOVE that Grammarly works in Canva so our designs there reflect us at our best. Grammarly started offering free access to eligible nonprofit organizations during the pandemic, and the program is still available at this writing.

Check Out Grammarly

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Little Green Light

When we’re looking for a donor management system that comes with an online donation processor, consider Little Green Light (LGL). We love how customizable LGL is — the system is extendable through custom fields and offers custom reporting. You’ll also find volunteer and membership management modules, offering your organization a full suite of management tools.

Check Out Little Green Light

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MailerLite

Email marketing is an integral part of your work as a nonprofit communicator; whether regular communications with all your stakeholder groups to program-based communications to clients or participants, MailerLite has got you covered! With integrations available through automation apps like Zapier, MailerLite will fit right into your nonprofit’s workflow. We also love that they have educational resources to help you learn the system! MailerLite offers a 30% to eligible nonprofit organizations.

Check Out MailerLite

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Nonprofit Hub

With webinars, podcast episodes, downloadable guides, and more on everything from board relations to online fundraising, the Nonprofit Hub is a nonprofit membership organization for nonprofit organizations, nonprofit professionals, and nonprofit vendors and service providers that functions as an amazing resource for nonprofits.

Check Out Nonprofit Hub

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nten

nten is a nonprofit membership organization that helps “missions and movements” make better use of technology. In addition to providing professional development, online communities, and reference materials, nten coordinates one of the most engaging and educational annual conferences for nonprofits, called NTC.

Check Out nten

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Publer

Planning and scheduling your organization’s social content is an important way to support the campaigns and events coordinated by your nonprofit. We use Publer to organize our social content. With workspaces that allow you to save settings for each platform your organization uses, Publer takes care of the messy part of organizing the digital aspects of your campaigns and events, so you can focus on the storytelling that will increase your organization’s impact.

Check Out Publer

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qGiv

qGiv is, hands down, our favorite online fundraising platform. We love that it offers solutions for nearly every fundraising scenario your nonprofit encounters — event registration/admission, peer-to-peer fundraising, and even auctions. Best of all, they offer eligible small nonprofits a free plan as a way to get started with raising money online.

Check out qGiv

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Scribe

With Scribe, you can create visual step-by-step guides to document any process you need to share with others. We use Scribe to prepare the images used in our blog posts, but we can envision a nonprofit using this tool to create program and staff training materials. Scribe offers a 50% discount to eligible nonprofit organizations; once your account is established, you can email them to have the discount applied to your account.

Check out Scribe

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Slack

We love using Slack to stay connected with members of the Shop team. We can easily share links and documents without having to resort to email. Our conversations there are easily organized so we can go back to anything we’ve missed, and with integrations like Giphy, our chats are also tons of fun! Slack offers free or deeply discounted pricing to eligible nonprofit organizations.

Check Out Slack

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TechSoup

TechSoup is a great marketplace where eligible nonprofit and charitable organizations can access discounted software and hardware from brands like Adobe, Microsoft, Dell, and Lenovo. Through a global network of community organizers, TechSoup also offers educational events for nonprofits on things like grant writing, data compliance, and nonprofit governance.

Check Out TechSoup