07 Dec 2023by Laura Stanley
We take a look at the very best offers for charities trying to spend money on new know-how to fulfill tinheritor digital wants, from cyber safety to social media scheduling
Digital know-how is crucial in serving to charities obtain their objectives. However with restricted budgets and sources, the best digital options will be exhausting to return by.
Greater than a 3rd of UK charities mentioned they wanted funding for computer systems, IT, units, and infrastructure as a way to progress with digital, in line with the 2023 Charity Digital Expertise report, second solely to funding to develop their digital technique. Greater than half of small charities, particularly, are struggling to seek out the funding for units, software program, and infrastructure, with the cost-of-living disaster taking its toll on the sector’s means to spend money on digital.
Happily, that is the place the Charity Digital Trade may also help. Charity Digital works intently with huge know-how companions resembling Cisco, Microsoft, and Amazon, to present discounted and donated know-how to eligible charities, serving to greater than 77,000 non-profits save in extra of £284 million on software program and {hardware} purchases.
Beneath, we discover a number of the greatest worth offers for charities on the Charity Digital Trade and a bit of extra about what they do.
Cisco – For cyber safety
As custodians of a wealth of delicate knowledge and with the appearance of Deliver Your Personal Gadget insurance policies, it’s extra vital than ever that charities prioritise on-line safety to guard themselves in opposition to cyber assaults.
So as to achieve this, charities could want physical community {hardware} resembling routers, safety home equipment, and switches, in addition to non-physical techniques resembling VPNs and digital firewalls to maintain their web connection safe. Charities could also have outward-facing IT wants, such as the means to provide an web connection in websites the place there’s little or no broadband protection.
Cisco can present charities with every part they want at a substantial low cost on the Charity Digital Trade.
For instance, routers are wanted to “route” web site visitors between linked units, together with each incoming and outgoing site visitors. Via the Trade, charities can buy wi-fi Cisco routers, which means computer systems and different units don’t have to be plugged into the router as a way to use the web.
Totally different routers could also be wanted to take care of completely different numbers of customers. For instance, high-density routers are for environments the place greater than 30 customers are anticipated to attach with the router without delay throughout its use.
On the Trade, these are:
All merchandise together with “5-12 months Licence” within the title present 5 years of entry to the Meraki cloud platform, characteristic updates, and assist. Charities can discover out extra about Cisco’s routers right here.
Charities may additionally be desirous about upgrading their firewalls to guard themselves in opposition to cyber threats. Firewalls work as a barrier between secured and managed inner networks and untrusted outdoors networks and are one among Cyber Necessities’ core measures to forestall cyber assaults.
By buying Cisco on the Charity Digital Trade, charities can save lots of of kilos on important safety know-how. Yow will discover out extra about Cisco on this complete and simplified product information.
Try the Cisco product information
Charity Digital’s e-mail service makes e-mail advertising simple. Utilizing the dotdigital open supply cloudbase platform, Charity Digital Mail provides personalised assist tailor-made to your e-mail advertising wants, whether or not you want customized design work in your templates or particular person coaching.
A mean of six million emails per thirty days are despatched by means of our charity e-mail service. It’s fast to arrange and integrates with most techniques, together with the likes of Salesforce, as it’s open supply. With dotdigital, charities can simply automate campaigns and take a look at their messaging so emails resonate with their supporters.
Dotdigital comes with all the same old options one would count on from an e-mail advertising platform, with one key distinction from opponents resembling MailChimp. Whereas MailChimp means that you can use your individual stay area for your from tackle, dotdigital require that you simply use a sub-domain or a separate area to your stay web site. That is to mitigate the threat of your emails going to spam.
There isn’t any arrange charge or cost for importing or storing contacts. The service works on an annual bulk pricing construction whereby organisations purchase e-mail credit up entrance and ship out emails as and once they want, which means no month-to-month bands or excesses.
Charities can discover out extra about pricing from our calculator, the place charities can put in what number of emails they ship yearly and work out the associated fee.
Hootsuite – For social media
Charities are notoriously time-poor. Relating to creating and sharing content material on social media, it may usually really feel overwhelming conserving your audiences as much as date with every part happening at your charity. That’s the place social media scheduling instruments like Hootsuite come in useful.
Hootsuite is a social media administration platform that enables organisations to advertise content material, improve engagement, and streamline buyer companies. It may be used to plan, create, and schedule content material upfront, whereas additionally conserving the tone of voice constant throughout a number of channels. It could additionally assist charities handle content material and advert campaigns throughout all their social networks utilizing a single dashboard.
Charities can buy Hootsuite at a reduction of as much as 75% on month-to-month and annual subscriptions on the Charity Digital Trade, whereas additionally being eligible to obtain a 50% low cost on Hootsuite Academy programs and certifications to enhance their social media experience.
