Flickr Photo: Jeff KubinaI spent yesterday at the Salesforce Innovation for Nonprofit Success event in New York. It was a really fun event, and I met a whole host of really interesting people doing amazing work at their nonprofits.

I sat in on most of the sessions yesterday and heard a lot of interesting ideas. What really struck me, though, was that almost every session, including my own, had one theme running through it: the empowerment of nonprofits.

We are moving to a new model of software delivery for nonprofits, and it means more than convenience. Software as a Service is on its way. Google Apps provide just one example you're probably familiar with. Most of the Web 2.0 tools you use also qualify, from your blog software to Facebook.

They are always on, and always available. More importantly, they work the same whether you are Microsoft or Save the Bay. Software as a Service means that we all have access to the same platforms and all they can do for our organizations. It will help bridge the technology gap between nonprofits and the for-profit sector.

There's another benefit...

Many organizations -- including NTEN -- have made the switch to Google Apps. If you're contemplating the move, but find yourself frustrated by a lack of quality information, we've got you covered.

Join NTEN and Fig Leaf Software on Tuesday, January 15 for the FREE Product Spotlight Webinar, "Intro To Google Apps". With Google Apps, you can give your employees the next-generation communication and collaboration tools they need to manage electronic communications, share and publish information, and stay connected while on the go. And the best part is that it is all hosted by Google, so there is no hardware or software to download, install or maintain.

> Learn More and Register Today

Johanna Bates, Technology Manager, Community Partners

[Ed note: This is the second in a series of articles by NTEN Member Johanna Bates, chronicling her organization's switch to Google Apps. Read part 1.]

So, to continue: after we got our free Google Apps account and switched over to Apps Gmail (which is still going swimmingly), we had to ask: How else can Google own us/fix our lives?

The answer: Gcal.

To review, we are six staff, four of whom are part-time. Many of us travel frequently for work and/or work from home on occasion. For years, this has made coordinating our meetings and general communication virtually impossible. When I first started here six years ago, we used a paper calendar on the front desk. Everyone wrote her or his schedule on it. With a pencil. No, really.

Then, there we were, using Google Apps' Gmail, with all its nifty bells and whistles. Why not give the oh-so-integrated Gcal a try?

by Johanna Bates, Technology Manager, Community Partners

[Ed note: This is the first in a series of articles by Johanna Bates, chronicling her organization's switch to Google Apps.]

Google Apps. For free. Huh. I wasn’t too sure what it would do for us, but a free Google upgrade? That feels like a free box of money. After reading Sonny Cloward’s blog post, I was intrigued. I figured, “What the heck? I’ll apply and explore the possibilities.”

The application process was very simple, and Google got back to me in a few days to let me know that we’d been given the free “Education Edition” upgrade that is now available to non-profits. I set to Googling to find out more about what I could do with our Google Apps account. The calendar is nice, but we’re happy with Airset. Google Docs leaves much to be desired over our preference for online collaboration, Basecamp. But we could turn our email server into a Gmail server. Now that sounded interesting.

In case you missed it, NTEN and Google held a shin-dig in the Bay Area last week where Google announced some big news for nonprofits: Google Apps is now available to nonprofits at no charge! If you're looking at moving to Google Apps, you'll want to check out one of Google's upcoming webinars. Please note that it's the Educational Edition that is being made available to nonprofits at no charge, so any webinars about the Education Edition will fit the bill for you. If you're the techie who will oversee the switch, check out their administration webinars too.

Sonny Cloward, NPower NY

With Google’s announcement extending its free Education Version of Google Apps to nonprofits, charitable organizations are situated better than ever to leverage On-Demand Productivity Tools (a.k.a. SaaS: Software as a Service). By no means is Google the only on-demand office productivity player: Zoho, ThinkFree, and Goowy are also viable contenders. Google, however, is making its services extremely attractive and accessible to nonprofits, not only through their donation of Google Apps to nonprofits a la the Salesforce.com model—underwriting the donation via a sustainable for-profit revenue stream—but by providing tight integration between their products and desktop/offline apps.

The biggest challenge for Google Apps and other on-demand productivity suites is making the case to nonprofits: What is the value proposition making the transition from their current systems and processes a worthwhile investment? Of course there are the cost saving incentives, both in terms of infrastructure and management. There are no doubt both advantages and liabilities over traditional desktop applications, but the beauty of web apps is that they augment rather than replace systems. To that end, let’s take a look at how an organization might use a suite of on-demand productivity tools, in this case, Google Apps, as part of their system.

Read More!

IT infrastructure is hard work for any organization. Having worked at a nonprofit prior to coming to Google, I know that the combination of long-standing legacy systems and limited resources certainly doesn't make things any easier. Now that I'm member of the Google Apps team, I spend my time working on simple but powerful communication and collaboration tools for organizations. And so it's with special satisfaction that I share this bit of news: Google has extended the Education Edition of Google Apps to registered 501(c)(3)s.

You may already be familiar with Google's standard suite of free hosted services, including private-label email, calendaring, and online-document sharing. But the Education Edition offers a number of value-added admin features at no additional cost, including email migration tools, phone support for critical issues, and extensibility APIs. (Ads are also optional, in case you're curious.) There's no need to take my word for it, though: if you attended NP.IT recently -- the Google-NTEN midsummer mixer -- you may have bumped into a few nonprofits with their own Google Apps success stories.

At the end of the day, enabling good works through Google Apps -- in any capacity -- both inspires and humbles us. We're excited to offer this worthy sector a low-investment, feature-rich IT choice. Find out more or apply for an account.

As you may know, NTEN hosted a midsummer mixer with Google at their campus in the South Bay. By all accounts it was lively and fun! I couldn't be there for the free food, cocktails, or the sounds of DJ Hey Man, but I am lucky enough to share with you the big announcement from the event (drum roll please!):

Google is now extending Google Apps Education Edition to all registered nonprofits.

For those of you who are already using the free standard edition, this means that you will now have access to:

• Email migration assistance
• 24/7 support
• Integration APIs.

You can read more about the features here.

Why is this important? First, Google provides powerful and usable tools already, often for free.

The announcement of Google to offer Google Premier Apps, a suite of on-demand Google services such as its calendar, email, IM, VOIP, docs and spreadsheets bundled for $50/year. A free version targeted at educational institutions — Google Apps Education Edition — offers the same features as the premier edition except for the storage size. There is also the free Google Apps Standard Edition with less features.

This is not only starting to seriously compete with Microsoft but has the potential to tip the way we all operate. Salesforce.com's success and growing adoption by the nonprofit market is already showing that the on-demand nonprofit working in a hosted environment for critical business functions is here to stay. This true especially for office productivity, communications, and other core functions, such as CRM.