Affordable Tech Tools for Churches
As a church planter, I’m tight on both time and money. That means I’m on the lookout for tools that save me time and don’t cost too much. I’m picky, so I’m not just looking for cheap. I want quality as well.
Here are some tools that I’ve found to be helpful recently. Many of them offer discounts for churches. You may find some of them helpful too.
Buffer — Buffer is a great way to schedule your posts to social media. They now offer a 50% discount for nonprofits.
Dollar Photo Club — Stock photos are getting more expensive. Dollar Photo Club is a good alternative to some of the more expensive sites. Join for $99 a year, and you get 99 photos, and additional ones at $1 each.
Evernote Business — You’re probably aware of Evernote. It’s where I store pretty much everything. You may not be aware that they offer a 75% discount on Evernote Business to not-for-profit organizations that sign up with a minimum of 5 users.
Fiverr — Fiverr is a marketplace for creative and professional services, starting at just $5. I’ve used it for voicemail greetings, website design, and a whiteboard animation. Check out the reviews, as results are mixed, but I’ve had some great work done here.
I Done This — I Done This is a simple way to keep track of what you and your team accomplish every day. They now offer a 40% discount for non-profit organizations.
MailChimp — MailChimp is a way to send emails to your email list, and they offer a 15% discount for non-profits.
Planning Center — We use Planning Center to organize and plan our worship services and participants. It saves us a lot of headaches.
Proclaim — Proclaim works with Planning Center, and helps us quickly move from our order of service to a fully formatted slideshow complete with song lyrics and Scripture readings.
Salesforce — Salesforce is a great tool to manage donors, members, and volunteers. I didn’t know until recently that the Salesforce Foundation offers to pay all or most of the cost for eligible non-profit organizations.
Squarespace — Squarespace provides everything you need to set up a great website. I’m a huge fan. I host this blog and our church site on Squarespace, and you can’t beat the price: $16/month for unlimited pages, storage, and bandwidth. If you need help in getting set up, I’ve already mentioned a Fiverr service that can help.
Leave a comment if you have any recommendations I’ve missed.
UPDATE: Here’s another tool I’ve found.
Milanote — Milanote is an easy-to-use tool to organize your ideas and projects into visual boards. Check out some examples of how people are using this tool.
