This is part of the Quaker Alphabet Project – click here for more information.
F is for Free
While there is always the concern that you get what you pay for, and surely someone must be paying for this somewhere… There are things that you can find that are free and useful whilst running a charity, whatever it’s size – from running buildings, handling administration, managing money etc. etc. If you have anything you use and would recommend let me know and I’ll consider adding it. Do a search for ‘free xxxx for charities uk’ and see what comes up – there are companies offering free or discounted website hosting, IT support, laptops etc. etc.
Free Advice from Friends House
If you are a Quaker charity as well as the very useful website you can telephone or email staff questions on specific issues and be certain that they won’t charge you. See if your own denomination also offers advice and resources.
Free Posters, Leaflets and Outreach Materials
Designed professionally and supplied at no cost – if you order them from the Quaker Centre Book Store they’ll even pay postage. Or you can get the design printed locally.
Yes, of course the above are paid for out of central Quaker funds but they are still free to you as an individual or meeting.
Free Productivity Tools and Advertising
Google supply many of their business tools free or at low cost. Check out their Google for Non Profits website for more details. I used to recommend this as a bargain to my clients before it became free to non-profits.
Charity Digital Exchange and Charity Digital both provide a way for Charities to get discounts from a range of tech companies – update in July 2024 these are now the same organisation but still have separate websites and catalogues.
The offer is at registered charity level i.e. Area Meeting rather than local meeting. Setting up is straight forward and you only need one computer-savvy person per AM to organise this. Even if your Area Meeting isn’t a registered charity it is still worth applying.
This also ties in nicely with the Generic Email advice I’ve given before.
As part of the above Google AdWords Grants are available to enable you to create adverts and attract people to your website.
Google Places was talked about in the first Marketing Your Meeting House post and is still one of the first pieces of marketing I recommend.
Free Photos and Images for Websites, Posters and Newsletters
Flickr, Wikimedia Commons, and Unsplash have items that can be used with various levels of permission and they have thousands of images
To browse through all of the posts click on the Quaker A-Z link here or in the side bar.
(last updated July 2024)
