Google for Nonprofits Blog: Five ways to use Google Apps for Nonprofits for your nonprofit

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Five ways to use Google Apps for Nonprofits for your nonprofit

Friday, March 8, 2013

As we continue to dive into how Google for Nonprofits can work for your organization, we’ve met some great product experts who have shared insightful ways specifically for nonprofits to use Google products. Last week, we met two Google Apps experts, Asha Toulmin and Marianna Kerppola, who walked us through different uses of tools like Google Calendar, Gmail and Docs. If you couldn’t make it, here are five tips we learned to help you take advantage of Google Apps. You can also watch the full video below.

1. Use labels and filters to organize your Gmail. If you have a specific event or team you’re working with, you can create custom labels and filters and assign them to groups of emails. When you need to access information, you can simply sort by labels and filters and find all the related emails.

2. Connect with your team instantly through Gmail. Need to collaborate with someone immediately? You can use Gmail to chat, video chat or make a phone call directly to a colleague - allowing immediate interaction without ever leaving your inbox.

3. Schedule meetings easily using shared calendars. Using shared calendars in Google Calendar, you can view coworkers’ calendars and see when each team member is available. You can quickly find times that work for everyone and eliminate the back and forth that often comes with scheduling.

4. Keep everyone on the same page in meetings by attaching files. Google Calendar allows you to attach documents from your computer and your Drive directly to the meeting invitation. Make sure all your meeting invitees are looking at the same information by sharing an agenda and background resources in your meeting invite.

5. Organize your documents and access them anywhere. With Google Drive, you can upload, create and share documents in the cloud - allowing you to access them anytime, anywhere. Help your nonprofit take it a step further by organizing materials into shared folders. These automatically updated folders can be accessed both online and offline by anyone who is granted access.

Have questions? Our product experts, Asha and Marianna, have answered the top questions from the Hangout with short video responses. Check out their full set of video responses on our YouTube channel.
Posted by Katie Kellogg, Google for Nonprofits team