Wild Apricot Provides Affordable Web Solution for Small Non-Profits
Many small non-profits live with websites that can most charitably be described as "functional" and they do so for a couple of basic reasons: lack of in-house technical skill and lack of budget for professional web design and hosting. Also, many of these sites do not easily incorporate the non-profit's membership system and thus make it difficult to provide members with online management capabilities like renewing memberships via the website. They also don't have event registration and management capabilities, which often means that small organizations have to manage them offline with a mish-mash of software tools like Microsoft Excel and Word. With the advent of "Web 2.0" technology this no longer has to be the case, and while there are numerous providers of web services for non-profits I thought I'd highlight one in particular: Wild Apricot.
What I like about Wild Apricot is that they make the user interface simple enough for anyone comfortable with standard computer programs to use (i.e. no web programming skills required) yet provide plenty of functionality for standard non-profit operations, and all for monthly fees that are quite reasonable for most organizations. Standard tools include
- membership management
- event management
- event calendar
- social media
- donation tools
- secure pages for staff, board members or members
- newsletters and blogs
Pricing ranges from $25 to $200 a month, but unlike some services the lower price really doesn't limit functionality, rather the size of the member database and the maximum file upload size. For a free demo and free trial click here.
Finally, here are some sample sites from users:
Triad Chapter of the American Advertising Federation
Women's Jewelry Association
Junior League of Champlain Valley
Mt. Hood Ski Education Foundation
