by Ero Gray - This is one post in a continuing series aimed at nonprofit organizations with limited access to IT staff. The advice and opinions here will tend to be most useful to small and startup nonprofits, which often need to make IT decisions and accomplish IT tasks despite not having qualified folks to help. It should be assumed that all suggestions here are my attempt to recommend the simplest/easiest/most effective options for most offices. Your office may be quite different (or it may not even be an office). Also, as I'll frequently note, IT staff are necessary for any organization to function for long. Links to previous posts in this series follow this post.
Email is pretty much the most important thing we do with our computers. We use email to fundraise, send memos, and communicate with ourselves, our clients, our funders, etc. constantly. Often we email documents back and forth to collaborate. If you're a tiny startup with limited funds, you may have started out with a single email address at a free provider-- it's not unusual to see email addresses like helpthechildren@aol.com. If you haven't got one of these yet, then you may want to start there. However, once you have a few staff you may find that this isn't quite as flexible a system as you might like-- and doesn't look as fancy as outreach@helpthechildren.org. But before you can have a set of email addresses you'll probably want a domain name to attach to them; (in the above example, helpthechildren.org is the domain name). So let's talk domain names before coming back to email. (Since domain names also affect websites, I'll spend this week talking about websites, and come back to email next week.)
A domain name is something like yahoo.com, theonion.com, or crenyc.org. The internet runs on them, and they're the reason you can find Google by typing google.com instead of having to type 216.239.51.99. If you haven't already, you ought to make sure your organization has one of its own. It should be short (note that around here we use crenyc.org, not communityresourceexchange.org) and memorable. You'll find that almost everything you can think of is taken already. Actually purchasing a domain name is a bit outside our scope here, as this probably calls for a web professional of some sort. It's pretty cheap though; once you've got one, buy up several years and don't let it expire. This is your internet real estate, and if you vacate it someone else will take it and you might have to pay through the nose to get it back.
You'll probably want a web professional (or a talented volunteer) to use this domain name and build you a website (One great way to buy the domain name is as part of a web hosting package). Small and emerging orgs may point the domain name directly to their Facebook page (you already have one of those, right? if not, go here immediately. The next step is probably to build a WordPress site. Wordpress is a much-beloved blogging platform that offers a quick and easy setup, and can be used either on the WordPress site or on your own. It also doesn't have to look like a blog -- there are bazillions of 'themes' and it can be endlessly customized until it does pretty much whatever you like. Of course, more than a tiny amount of customization will probably require a professional touch.
Some website hosts also offer quick & easy template-based website CMSs (content management systems) but beware that even the easiest-to-use website system can really suck up a lot of time and energy. This isn't something that ought to be done halfway (funders and/or clients will see it and judge your organization by it). Doing a website right means making serious decisions about content: what you show the world is a big deal and should involve a lot of planning. A typical thing to figure out right up front is whether your site will be 'brochureware' (basically some unchanging text and pictures about you), or a richer website that changes frequently or encourages interaction. Brochureware is easy to build and takes almost no maintenance, but isn't really going to get visitors excited. Think about how deep you want to get, and commit yourself accordingly.
If you want a professional looking website, you're looking at $80-120 or so per year in web hosting (including domain name), plus as little as two thousand dollars for a web designer to get your website started, and recurring costs to have a professional help with updates. (There's often a difference between web designers and web developers, but that may or may not be relevant to you). If you use something like Wordpress, that's easy to maintain, then you can learn to do minor updates and even layout changes without ongoing help; this means minimal help from your web contractor, which will save you enormous amounts of money. As with other things in the IT world, though, you can't do without help forever without serious consequences, and folks who don't use professionals at all tend to wind up with pretty revolting-looking and/or incomprehensible websites. Shop around though: I've seen nonprofits charged hundreds of dollars per month for basic website maintenance, which means they were getting thoroughly fleeced. Often the costliest packages are not the best packages; there are a lot of scam artists out there. A competent web professional, like any other professional, will only sell you a product that works for you and at a price point that makes sense. Every case is different but if you're paying more for your website than your electric bill, you'd better have a hell of a website.
For recommendations on website hosting, see this article; for a useful (but somewhat dated) discussion of approaches to website maintenance, try this one.
We'll get back to discussing email next week.
Previous posts in the series can be read here:
IT Without IT, Part 1: Introduction
IT Without IT, Part 2: Choosing and Acquiring Computers
IT Without IT, Part 3: Operating Systems and Office Software
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