Posted by Social Media is a very important factor in business growth. And most businesses use a ton of apps to make increase their content on social media, increase engagement, communicate with their teams, improve strategies, and lots more. Since it’s such a cutthroat competition on Social Media most businesses will pay and pay some more to make sure they have the best apps helping them out.
But what of the non-profits? While they are out doing their bit for the world they don’t necessarily have the resources required for these apps.
Don’t worry, there’s hope for them too. There are tools and apps that have a special discount for non-profits so that they continue their good work and continue telling the world about their good work.
I’ll quickly list out a few here. If you’re from a non-profit, take note!
Design tools
1. Canva
Canva is a free-to-use online graphic design tool. You can use it to create social media posts, presentations, posters, videos, logos, and more. There’s a photo editor and a video editor that will help you create content. They also have a wide range template bank. While the free plan doesn’t include all features and benefits as the Premium Stock Image Library and publishing directly from Canva to your social media, they do offer free Canva Premium versions for non-profits. All you have to do is submit some documentation that’s required on a per-country basis.
2. Adobe Express
This is another image and video editing tool. They have a free and a Premium plan available. With Adobe Express free plan, you get 2GB storage and can create on both the mobile and the web app. You’ll also have access to a limited collection of royalty-free Adobe Stock-free collection photos.
3. Kapwing
Kapwing is a very easy-to-use image and video editor. Their free plan offers a lot and you get access to all their tools. Their tools include things like subtitlers, meme generators, GIF makers, and a lot more. Kapwing allows you to upload images, videos, gifs, and more all into a single workspace. Create and edit content, then send it to share and collaborate with your teammates.
Schedulers
1. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a social media management tool that helps you manage multiple networks and profiles. Their free plan is limited and only allows 2 social accounts to be connected. But for non-profits, they have a discount of up to 50% on their Professional and Team plans. They do have eligibility criteria and you have to fill in a form with your organization details. You can find it here.
2. Buffer
Buffer is a social media toolkit that specializes in scheduling and analytics. While they have a very good free plan, their non-profit discount is a standard 50% off on all their products and plans. They have eligibility criteria and you have to fill out a form to submit documentation. You can find it here.
3. Crowdfire
Crowdfire is another social media management tool and has a very user-friendly interface. It’s an easy-to-use mobile and web app and its free plan has similar benefits as Buffer. One of their really cool and important features is the ContenCuration feature. You can select a bunch of topics and Crowdfire will give you ready-to-post articles and images based on the keywords. This is extremely helpful when scheduling and when you have to fill up a social media calendar. Crowdfire also offers a discount to non-profits but you are required to submit documentation.
Mentions
1. Mention
Mention is a social media monitoring tool that enables brands and agencies to monitor the web, listen to their audience, and manage social media. Their free plan is very limited but they do offer a discount for non-profits. To avail of the discount, you’ll need to contact them directly.
2. Crowdfire
Apart from being an easy-to-use social media scheduler, Crowdfire offers the mentions feature on their Premium, VIP, and Business plans. The feature allows you to monitor and respond to all mentions over social media platforms. You can reply to these mentions directly from your inbox using plain text and emojis. You can use GIFs wherever applicable and also use canned responses to reply. The Premium plan also unlocks a lot of other useful features like the Calendar View and Advanced Analytics. You can get all this and more with your purchase of Premium (or VIP/Business) at the non-profit discount.
Communication
1. Slack
It’s important for the members of the organization to connect and collaborate easily and this is where Slack comes in. You can create new channels for different projects; basically keeping all your internal communications organized. Their free plan does offer decent benefits. But for paid subscriptions, they offer non-profits a discount of up to 85%. They have eligibility criteria and you need to fill out a form for submitting documentation. You can read more here.
2. Telegram
Telegram is a completely free-to-use messaging app. It’s available for the web and mobile as well. They do not have any limits on your media or chats. And they also allow up to 200,000 members in a group.
3. Meets
Google Meets is a real-time communication service. And it is completely free. You can use this when you need to communicate with your teammates working remotely or from a different office location. You can share screens when you need to collaborate or discuss projects and presentations just as you would in a conference room.
Analytics
1. Google Analytics
Google Analytics lets you measure your advertising ROI as well as track your Flash, video, and social networking sites and applications. They offer data collection and tagging, analytics intelligence, and also reporting. It’s a free-to-use tool offered by Google.
2. Talkwalker
Talkwalker is a consumer intelligence acceleration platform. It’s a very in-depth social listening app that doesn’t only monitor text. You’ll get access to more consumer insights with their image, video, and speech recognition technology. You can read more about their free tool within the app for social listening and monitoring here.
3. Buffer
Buffer also offers a strong analytics feature. It’s mainly to measure and analyze your content performance. They also have boosted post insights, account analytics, stories & post analytics, and audience demographics. And as I’ve previously mentioned Buffer under the ‘Schedulers’ portion of this article, it’s clear that this also comes under their 50% discount for non-profits.
There are multiple tools and apps that you can use for free but they may not always offer enough features or limits needed to run an organization. You have to make sure to do your research well and try out a few. This way you’ll be able to understand which one works best for you and your organization.
And don’t be too disappointed if you do not find any information about non-profit discounts on any particular site. You can always contact them directly and find out about what they may offer.
If you know of other apps or tools that offer a non-profit discount, let me know in the comments. 🙂