Small Staff Association Resources

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This is a list of free or cheap web, social media, marketing and design resources that I presented in my session, 20 Tools to Help You MacGyver Your Small Association’s Communications, at YourMembership Xperience 2016. It includes not only the 20 covered in the session but a bunch of bonus links with even more great, free resources for busy, budget-strapped association marketing/communications/web pros.

Prefer a pdf version you can print? Here it is.

Web/analytics

  • Mockingbird: wireframing tool for mocking up webpages or your whole site architecture.
  • Website content inventory tools: Dynomapper creates a great visual format for viewing your site’s content and architechture. It has a free trial version or you could pay once to generate a snapshot of your site’s content. XML Site-maps.com is free but only generates a list of your site’s urls.
  • HTML Cheat Sheet is a rudimentary cheat sheet for those who just need a little html knowledge.
  • W3Schools is a good online tutorials for learning HTML and CSS.
  • Two really good resources about web development, design and usability: A List Apart and Nielsen Norman Group.
  • Jing— lets you capture basic video, animation, and still images, and share them on the web. Good for FAQs on how to use your website, member profiles, etc.
  • Google Analytics Academy–learn Google Analytics for free at your own pace, and even get certified if you want (certification costs I think $50).
  • Infographic of Google Analytics–generates a cool infographic of your site’s analytics. (Note: doesn’t work in Chrome)
  • Annielytics –she is a measurement guru and her site has a ton of great content, as well as free and paid templates.
  • Paine Publishing–KD Paine is another measurement guru, and her site is a wealth of information and free resources.
  • Mouseflow: heatmap/conversion tracking for websites. Has a free plan vs. Crazy Egg, another heatmapping tool

Images/Graphic design

  • Sumopaint is a free, browser-based photo editing tool. Also has a downloadable version.
  • Gimp and Paint.net are downloads that are both widely recommended as free Photoshop alternatives
  • Html color code picker–this is a great tool if you need to identify hex codes of elements of your organization’s logo or other branding elements.
  • Free stock image sites: https://stocksnap.io/; http://negativespace.co/ http://www.splitshire.com/
  • CC Search lets you search images with Creative Commons licenses across a number of different sites.
  • Canva–free, easy to use graphic design tool that requires basically no design skill. There’s also a business version that costs $9.99 a month and enables you to create branding templates, upload custom fonts and other enhancements.
  • Snappa–another free, easy to use graphic design tool.

Social media/Marketing

  1. Campaign Monitor template builder is a free tool that lets you create and download html email templates.
  2. Hootsuite is a social media management platform that offers both free and paid versions.
  3. Social media platforms are always changing their image size requirements. This always updated social media image sizes list is just what the name says.
  4. Hashtracking lets you track and measure activity around a hashtag. You can try it for free, or track up to three hashtags at a time for $29 a month.
  5. Google for Nonprofits–Free Google products and services for nonprofits. $10k a month in AdWords, Google Apps, YouTube donation modules and more.

Blogs/articles/podcasts/etc.

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