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 Quaker Meeting House. If you have anything you use and would recommend let me know and I’ll consider adding it.
Free Advice from Friends House
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.
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.
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.
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.
Halls for Hire is a website that will allow you to enter data about your meeting house and the rooms you have for hire.
Free Photos and Images for Websites, Posters and Newsletters
Flickr has items that can be used with various levels of permission
Wikimedia Commons has thousands of images
To browse through all of the posts click on the Quaker A-Z link here or in the side bar.
