Free Wheelin’
Hi everybody, Jeremy here, managing director of The Human IT Company, your trusted source for IT service and support in greater Vancouver and southwestern British Columbia.
This is our first video of the new year, and I know from experience that this is the time of year when executive directors of charities start looking at their budget plans to take effect in April. As a Board member myself, I know from experience that the consistent challenge is to stretch your funds as far as possible. Since IT support is often seen as a cost center from the admin budget, anything you can do to stretch, or save, on your IT services costs is worth another look.
How Charities Can Save On IT Costs
A couple tricks you may or may not know about how charities can save money on IT costs
– Contact software companies directly. Many companies have unpublished discounts, that offer eligible organizations access to their products for free or at a discounted price. I’ve seen situations where software is offered for free in exchange for a partnership agreement, and we regularly see a 30% discount offered for registered charities, that’s offered simply because someone picked up the phone and called to ask the company.
– Use open source software. Open source software is freely available for anyone to use. This means that charities can use open source at no cost. Some popular examples of open source software include the Linux operating system and the LibreOffice productivity suite. Sometimes there is a bit of a learning curve, but when the cost is 0, it may be worth investigating depending on the requirement and the budget of the organization.
– Register with organizations that provide software donations. There are a number of foundations and organizations that specifically provide software donations to charities. TechSoup Canada is one example – they offer a wide range of software donations to eligible Canadian charities, including those located in Vancouver. The amount of software that you can get is amazing, and you even have access to enterprise class systems like Office 365 at no cost.
– Lastly, try working with an IT company that is familiar with charities. The needs and requirements of charities are vastly different than those of commercial businesses; the right IT solution provider knows this, and will work with you to meet the budget and reporting requirements of the organization, the Board, or the membership.
By taking advantage of these opportunities, charities can obtain the IT solutions they need without spending a lot of money. If you’d like to know more about how to get started with any of these, or for some links to some of the products and services mentioned here, leave us a comment below, or send us a message through our website at www.humanitcompany.ca and we’ll show you how to start saving money on your admin IT budget. Thanks for watching and have a great day!