Digital tools for organisations
Many different free digital tools are available for organisations to use which can help you plan, fundraise, organise events, and spread the word about what’s happening within your local community centre.
Utilising these tools can help your community organisation save time creating content, planning events, marketing, and even to communicate effectively with residents and stakeholders across County Durham.
What is ‘going digital’?
- Moving services online – designing and adapting services so that they can be delivered digitally whilst still meeting the needs of users.
- Resources – ensuring both hardware (computers, laptops, tablets) and software (Wi-Fi, computer systems) are up to date and fit for purpose.
- Online safety and security – making sure staff and users know how to stay safe online and confirming systems are secure to avoid cybercrime.
- Digital inclusion – encouraging people to engage with online services and supporting those who struggle to access and use digital tools.
The below resources are free, quick learning modules and tutorials to help you make the most of these tools within your organisation.
Utilities
Utility programs and software are available to help your community organisation to email, store and send data, and ensure you have correct use of grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Google Workspace
Cost: Free – paid tiers unlock additional features
Google Workspace offers a suite of tools that many will be familiar with. By registering and signing into a free Google account you will get access to productivity tools including Google Office apps - Docs, Sheets, and Slides. If you have used office-based apps before you’ll find these extremely easy to pick up. Google Docs allows you to produce Word-based documents, with Sheets you can develop spreadsheets and Slides allows you to design presentations. Further apps are also available which may be useful for community organisations such as MyMaps, Meet, and Forms.
All tools work online and can be shared to work collaboratively or downloaded for sharing via email and working offline.
| Description | Used for | Devices | Things to know | Module/tutorial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Workspace is a collection of cloud computing, productivity, and collaboration tools, software, and products developed and marketed by Google.
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Creating Word documents or posters, managing budgets with spreadsheets, and designing slide decks for presenting. | Desktop PC, laptop, mobile, and tablet. | You must have an internet connection to access Google Workspace. You can download documents and work to view and share but to make edits you will need a compatible offline application such as Microsoft Office.
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Training resources (google.com) |
Grammarly
Cost: Free – paid tiers unlock additional features
Grammarly is a software that you can install for free that reviews spelling, grammar, punctuation, clarity, engagement, and delivery mistakes in English texts. It also detects plagiarism, and suggests replacements for the identified errors. The programme allows users to customise their style, tone, and context-specific language.
| Description | Used for | Devices | Things to know | Module/tutorial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grammarly is a program that reviews all spelling, grammar, and punction on documents and emails that you are writing up. | Literature correction within programs such as Microsoft Office or Microsoft Outlook (emails). | Desktop PC and laptop.
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You must have an internet connection for Grammarly to work within your documents. | Tips & Tutorials – Grammarly Support |
Mailchimp
Cost: Free – paid tiers unlock additional features
Mailchimp is a marketing automation and email marketing platform that analyses millions of data points to offer recommendations and to help improve your emails.
| Description | Used for | Devices | Things to know | Module/tutorial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mailchimp is an all-in-one marketing platform that helps you manage and talk to your clients, customers, and other interested parties. | Mailchimp’s marketing focuses on healthy contact management practices, beautifully designed campaigns, and powerful data analysis. | Desktop PC and laptop.
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You must have an internet connection to use this service.
Different price tiers are available which will unlock more features. |
Getting Started with Mailchimp | Mailchimp |
Wetransfer
Cost: Free
WeTransfer is a file-sharing platform that allows you to send files such as photos, videos, and other large files around the world. It allows you to Transfer up to 2GB of files for free.
| Description | Used for | Devices | Things to know | Module/tutorial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WeTransfer is a file-sharing platform that can be used for teams to collaborate on work within the program. | File sharing which allows users to send different filetypes of up to 2GB in size. | Desktop PC and laptop.
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You can upgrade plans at a cost allowing you to send and receive up to 200GB of content. | Knowledge Base – WeTransfer Support |
Communications / Social Tools
Social media can help you engage and communicate with your local community. You can use it for advertising and promotional giveaways (this could be free tickets to an event your centre is running). Social media can help your community centre to attract visitors, market events and build an effective community base and loyalty.
Canva
Cost: Free – paid tiers unlock additional features
Canva is a free-to-use online graphic design tool. It can be used to create a variety of content for your organisation such as social media posts, presentations, posters, videos, logos, and more. Projects can be personalised by uploading your own content, logos, and imagery or you can create brand new as Canva has its own stock of imagery and layouts to use.
| Description | Used for | Devices | Things to know | Module/tutorial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canva is an online graphic design tool. | Canva can be used to design media, logos, websites, presentations, posters, and more. | Desktop PC, laptop, tablet, and mobile phone.
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Canva is free to use but you can upgrade for a fee to unlock additional tools, content, and features. | Tutorials (canva.com) |
Hootsuite
Cost: From £89 /pm
Hootsuite is a platform used to plan, schedule and manage social media posts across multiple platforms. It also shows you how your accounts are performing by analysing followers, engagement, and posting and gives you a score out of 100.
| Description | Used for | Devices | Things to know | Module/tutorial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The world’s first social media management tool helping organisations save time, grow their following fast, and get real results on social media.
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Planning and scheduling social media posts across various social media channels. Hootsuite also shows how the business/organisation is performing by looking at followers, engagement, and posting and gives a score out of 100.
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Desktop PC, Laptop, mobile, and tablet
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There are 4 pricing options for Hootsuite: professional (£89 /pm), team (£249 /pm), business (£660 /pm), and enterprise (custom). The professional plan allows for 1 user to post and schedule to 10 social accounts as well as access messages in one inbox. Users can have a free 30-day trial. | Make It Click (learnmyway.com) |
Microsoft Teams
Cost: Free – paid tiers unlock call length and features
Microsoft Teams is a collaboration tool where you can share documents online, message, chat, and interact with others. This app (similar to Zoom) can help you stay in touch with suppliers, service users, staff, and volunteers. You can access learning resources and webinars hosted with Teams. You can schedule group meetings with peers or your communities. Microsoft Teams can be a powerful tool with the free version coming with 5GB of cloud storage to share files and work on them collaboratively with other users.
| Description | Used for | Devices | Things to know | Module/tutorial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Teams is the chat-based workspace in Office 365 that integrates all the people, content, and tools your team needs to be more engaged and effective. | Video calling, group meetings, group chat, one-to-one messaging, online data and file sharing, and collaboration with Microsoft products such as Word documents. | Desktop PC, laptop, mobile, and tablet | Teams has both free and paid tiers. The free tier has limited functionality vs the paid tiers and calls are limited to 60mins. Paid versions start from £3.00 per user per month. You may have access to Teams if you have a Microsoft 365 subscription. | Microsoft Teams video training - Microsoft Support |
WordPress
Cost: Free –paid tiers available to unlock different features
WordPress is a web content management system. It was created as a tool to publish blogs but has evolved to support publishing other web content, including more traditional websites. Many community organisations use WordPress for website design and creation to show information about the centre such as opening times, which events and activities are running, and if there is an onsite café, etc.
| Description | Used for | Devices | Things to know | Module/tutorial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress powers more than half of the world’s websites and uses simplicity to support organisations to design and create their own websites. | Website creation and hosting.
WordPress offers a number of themes or complete customisation wit the option to add plugins such as a store, mailing list, social feeds and more. |
Desktop PC and laptop.
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WordPress has a free tier that will give you all the tools you need to develop and maintain your web page. More premium subscriptions with added features start from £3 per month. WordPress offers various learning resources across different platforms such as webinars, courses, and YouTube tutorials. | Learn WordPress – WordPress Tutorials for Beginners |
Zoom
Cost: Free – paid tiers unlock call length and features
Zoom is a platform for video calls, meetings, hosting webinars, and break-out rooms. Zoom can help you stay in touch with suppliers, service users, staff, and volunteers. You can access learning resources and webinars hosted with Zoom. You can schedule group meetings with peers or your communities.
| Description | Used for | Devices | Things to know | Module/tutorial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zoom is an all-in-one collaboration platform that makes connecting easier, more immersive, and more dynamic for businesses and individuals. | Video calling, online phone calls, Group meetings, conferencing webinars, presentations, and break-out rooms.
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Desktop PC, Laptop, mobile, and tablet.
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Zoom has both free and paid tiers. The free version limits to 40mins per call with up to 100 participants. A pro licence is £119.90 per year or £11.99 per month with no time limit. Such further paid plans give more features and up to 300 participants per call. | learn-zoom.us
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Planning / Fundraising
Many free websites are available online which can help your community organisation to effectively plan, host events and to fundraise. The right tools can help you to promote and target the right audience.
Crowdfunder
Cost: Free
Crowdfunder is a fundraising platform that supports communities with no fundraising fees.
| Description | Used for | Devices | Things to know | Module/tutorial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crowdfunder is a trusted platform for online giving. They help people raise money for the charities and people they care about the most. | Fundraising for projects, charities, and causes with people and partnerships who care. | Mobile phone, tablet desktop PC, and laptop.
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Charges zero platform fees. | Knowledge Hub | Crowdfunder UK |
Eventbrite
Cost: Free
Event planning and listing is a critical tool for spreading the word about events of non-profit organisations. Eventbrite is an all-in-one non-profit event registration software that helps you maximize donations (if you are fundraising), minimise hassle, and grow your community of loyal supporters.
| Description | Used for | Devices | Things to know | Module/tutorial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eventbrite is an event management and ticketing website which is used to host online event bookings for venues that can be shared on social media. | The service allows users to browse, create, and promote local events. The service charges a fee to event organisers in exchange for online ticketing services, unless the event is free. | Desktop PC, mobile phone, tablets, and laptop.
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Free to use the service if the event is free.
You can manage your event attendance numbers on this platform. |
Sell Tickets Online | Free Event Ticketing Software | Eventbrite |
GoFundMe
Cost: Free however charges a transaction fee per donation made.
GoFundMe is a fundraising platform that provides online tools and processing services to enable the collection of charitable donations.
| Description | Used for | Devices | Things to know | Module/tutorial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A fundraising platform. | Crowdfunding which is putting a request for financial help to a group of people. That means you are asking friends, family, and their networks to donate to a specific cause. Crowdfunding can be for an individual, a pet, a family, a friend, a charity, or for a business. It can be used for any need, hope, dream, or wish. | Mobile phone, tablet, desktop PC, and laptop.
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GoFundMe charges one transaction fee—A transaction fee of 2.9% + 25p is automatically deducted from each donation for personal fundraisers. For charity, the fee is 1.9% + 20p per donation. | The Charity Fundraising Experience Has Arrived on GoFundMe
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JustGiving
Cost: Free to use however deducts the payment processing cost on each donation made.
JustGiving is a fundraising platform that provides online tools and processing services to enable the collection of charitable donations.
| Description | Used for | Devices | Things to know | Module/tutorial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| JustGiving is a fundraising platform for online giving.
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Fundraising. It's quick and easy to set up a fundraising page for a registered charity. If you'd like to run your own project to help a friend in need or a local or overseas community, the JustGiving Crowdfunding product can help make it happen. | Tablet, mobile phone, desktop PC, and laptop.
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JustGiving deducts the payment processing cost on each donation of 1.9% + 20p. | Setting up a Charity Fundraising page – JustGiving Help |
Mindmap Maker
Cost: Free
Mindmap Maker is a mindmap creation website that allows individuals to create and save projects that have been created.
| Description | Used for | Devices | Things to know | Module/tutorial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| This multi-functional tool helps event planners create a virtual mind map of their event designs, to-do lists, and marketing plans.
It can be used for structured brainstorming sessions during the initial design and concept stages of an event. |
It is a personal tool for producing and sorting thoughts before you bring them to the rest of the team. They also have a ton of features that let you colour code, draw, and design your mind map.
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Desktop PC and laptop.
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Mindmap Maker only works with an internet connection. | Mindmap Maker |
Trello
Cost: Free – paid tiers unlock additional features that are for upscaling to larger organisations
Trello is a collaborative, visually appealing, and easy-to-use space for setting and assigning tasks for any event, project, or activity. You can invite other users such as team members, family, volunteers, or community to your visual workflow, assign tasks to individuals, collaborate, and communicate through Trello to complete the tasks. Trello tells you what’s being worked on, who’s working on what, and progress through your to-do list towards your goal.
| Description | Used for | Devices | Things to know | Module/tutorial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Online collaborative project management tool.
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Breaking down a project into tasks that can be monitored to completion. Easily invite and assign other users to collaborate towards any specific goal.
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Desktop PC, Laptop, mobile, and tablet.
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Trello is free but does have paid tiers. Most functionality is available within the free version and it should suffice for a small organisation, club, or business. Trello has a host of training resources as well as a dedicated YouTube channel to get you started. | Trello guides: Help |
Disclaimer, the information provided by Digital Durham on free resources that are available to use is for general informational purposes only. Under no circumstances shall we have any liability for any loss or damage of any kind using these products and websites. Your use of the websites and your reliance on any information or content on these websites are used so at your own risk.
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