Essential Tools

May 2, 2010 · By Christopher Howell

If you work at a small nonprofit you may have little or no marketing collateral. You know – those things like brochures, newsletters or an annual report that can help you sell your organization’s mission to funders.

I’m here to show you that creating professional marketing collateral is easy to do and won’t cost a lot of money. In fact with just a few computer tools and some creativity you can get a lot done.

If you don’t have these things – get them. They are the barest essentials.

One – a computer. It doesn’t have to be the latest but make sure it’s not more than a couple of years old. It doesn’t matter if it’s an apple or a p-c. Either will do, although p-cs tend to be much more common, cheaper to buy and upgrade and easier to find software for. And no, you don’t have to have an apple computer to do a lot of professional level graphics work.

Two- a printer. It doesn’t have to be new – it doesn’t even have to be color, although that would be nice. If you work for a small nonprofit black and white will do, however do upgrade to color whenever it becomes practical. Your printed material will have much more impact in color.

Three – a camera. Today’s digital cameras are cheap and powerful. You’ll want to take a lot of pictures to show everyone what your agency is doing. Take some time to read the instruction booklet that comes with it. Getting to know its features and capabilities will help you get the highest quality photos out of an inexpensive camera.

Four – software. Here’s where it gets tricky. I have a set of software tools that I’ve used down through the years that works for me. Others have their favorites.

For right now I’ll just mention what I use and save the details on other software options for another episode. Starting with office 95, I have always used the Microsoft office suite. I currently use office 2003 which has word, excel, PowerPoint and starting with the 2003 version – the page layout and graphics tool publisher. The office suite also has InfoPath and access but I don’t really use those on a daily basis. This package has been updated through the years but I have to say that I get by just fine with this older package of tools. If there are some compelling advantages to a newer version I’m not aware of it. For photo editing I use adobe Photoshop.

That’s the barest essentials when it comes to software. There are many more tools you can get and quite a few cheaper alternatives but I’ll have to save that information for another episode.