Non-Profit Tools

Google Apps is a suite of web-based programs which you can use to manage your non-profit. These include e-mail, calendar, contacts management, websites, and documents. Coming up are a series of posts related to our company’s move to Google Apps. This first post deals with the initial sell and setup of Google Apps, I will update it with links to later posts once they are up.

The Sell

The first step towards implementing Google Apps is to sell it to anyone who needs to be involved in the decision. For us it was a fairly easy sell; our Exchange server is running Exchange 2000 and is 8 years old so we knew we were going to incur a bit expense in the near future when it came time to upgrade. Since Google Apps is free for non-profits (up to 3000 users) the cost savings were obvious. Here you can find a cost comparison between implementing Google Apps and Microsoft Exchange in a business, there costs for non-profits would be lower because the fees are waived so the the numbers look even more attractive.

The other concern which needed to be addressed was the ease of implementation and the amount of time it would take to train employees to use the new system. At this point in the setup this is not such an easy question to answer but once you get further down the line it becomes clearer and you will be able to demonstrate a functioning account to anyone who wants to see it.

Initial Setup

To begin setup you will need to sign up for a Google Apps account linked to your domain. Go to http://apps.google.com and click on Google Apps for Business (if you are a non-profit) or Google Apps for Education (if you are a school). In the Google Apps for Business page you will see a link to the Non-Profit Edition on the right. From here you can begin the setup process starting with your domain name; if you don’t already own one then Google provides information on buying one and its cost. As a non-profit you will be asked to enter your EIN in order to receive the Non-Profit edition and this may take a few weeks to process but in the mean time you will be able to work with the Standard edition in order to get used to the system and begin your initial setup. This limits you to fifty users initially but assuming Google’s stated 1-2 week turnaround for the upgrade is true then that should give you the time you need to get started.