100 Killer Resources for Social Innovators
One of the main reasons that organizations in the nonprofit sector fail is the limited awareness of accessible technological and networking resources at their disposal.
At #charity, we believe in the power of technology to connect everyday heroes with high impact projects and we have compiled this evergreen resources list with the purpose of expanding your awareness on the different tools available to help you operate more efficiently and reach your goals.
This is far from an all inclusive list but it’s a starting point.
If you know of any other resource that is not mentioned on this list please post it in the comments and join us in our mission of giving forward.
Productivity
Asana: Project management tool helping organizations thrive by enabling team work efficiency.
Basecamp: Similar to Asana, it’s a project management tool helping organizations get projects done on time and budget.
Google docs: Create and edit documents online, for free.
Evernote: For everything you'll do, make notes.
Todoist: The world’s most powerful platform to manage your daily to-do list.
Slack: Slack is a platform for team communication: everything in one place, instantly searchable, available wherever you go.
Invoice to Me: Free invoice generator.
Coffitivity: Coffitivity recreates the ambient sounds of a cafe to boost your creativity and help you work better.
Dropbox: Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily. Never email yourself a file again!
Trello: Trello is an awesome project management tool that makes collaboration easy and fun.
Sales and Marketing
Wordpress: you can use to create a beautiful website or blog in a matter of minutes.
Copyscape: Copyscape is a free plagiarism checker. The software lets you detect duplicate content and check if your articles are original.
Mailchimp: Online email marketing solution to manage contacts, send emails and track results.
Zoho CRM: Customer relationship management tool helping you close more deals in less time.
SumoMe: SumoMe is a suite of free tools that can be used to grow your website’s traffic. TheSumoMe tools are easy to install and work on any website.
Skitch: Skitch is a free app that helps you communicate visually with friends.
Canva: Amazingly simple graphic design tool.
Medium: A free blog-publishing platform.
Strikingly: Strikingly is the best website builder for anyone to build a gorgeous, mobile-friendly website easily.
Prezi: to create beautiful zooming presentations.
Withoomph: Withoomph offers individuals and start ups relevant and beautiful designed logos created instantly online.
Time Management
Acuity scheduling: Online appointment scheduling software.
Toggl: Toggl is an online time tracking tool. It features 1-click time tracking and helps you see where your time goes.
Mind42: Free social and collaborative online mind mapping software.
MyLifeOrganized (MLO): Powerful To-Do list, task management & personal organizer software.
Google calendar: Free calendar management tool.
Pocket: When you find something you want to view later, put it in Pocket.
Focus at will: Achieve higher levels of focus and concentration through music based on neuroscience.
Rescue Time: Keep track of the time you spend online and get a clear picture of what you were doing all day.
Timely: Timely lets you schedule and log hours, simultaneously. By planning your hours in advance, time tracking will be automatically accounted for.
Time Planner: Time Planner for iPhone helps you manage your time and to-do list more efficiently.
Careers and Internships
B Lab: B Lab is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that serves a global movement of entrepreneurs using the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. B Lab serves these entrepreneurs through three interrelated initiatives that provide them the legal infrastructure and help them attract the customers, talent, and capital to scale.
Bridgespan: The Bridgespan Group is a nonprofit advisor to mission-driven organizations and philanthropists.
Commongood Careers: Founded by a group of nonprofit professionals to provide high-impact recruitment to high-impact organizations
Echoing Green: Unleashing the next generation talent to solve the world’s biggest problems.
GameChangers 500: The World’s Top For-Benefit Companies
Idealist: The world’s best place to find volunteer opportunities, nonprofit jobs, internships, and organizations working to change the world since 1995.
MediaBistro: A website connecting journalists and new media professionals to jobs and each other.
NetImpact: Net Impact is a community of more than 60,000 student and professional leaders creating positive social and environmental change in the workplace and the world.
ReWork: Helping recruit exceptional people for organizations making social, environmental, and cultural progress.
Millennial Trains Project: The Millennial Trains Project (MTP) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that leads crowd-funded transcontinental train journeys for diverse groups of young innovators (and virtual audiences) to explore America’s new frontiers.
Financial Planning
Learn Vest: LearnVest empowers everyone to take control of their personal finances by providing expert advice, resources, and financial plans.
Mint: Manage your money, pay your bills and track your credit score.
ReadyForZero: Award-winning tools helping people pay off debt faster and build wealth sooner
MoneyThink: Moneythink is the only movement of young people working to restore the economic health of America through financial education.
inDinero: inDinero is the fastest growing way for business owners to manage their money.
Budget Simple: Easy to use, free online budgeting tool.
Yodlee: Yodlee transforms data and insights into scalable personal financial management solutions for banks, entrepreneurs & the people they serve.
Spendee: Spendee is a simple app to help you keep track of where your money goes.
Expensify: Hassle-free expense reporting.
Dollarbird: The smart calendar app for your finances.
Fellowship Programs
Ashoka: Ashoka is the largest network of social entrepreneurs worldwide, with nearly 3,000 Ashoka Fellows in 70 countries putting their system changing ideas into practice on a global scale.
Atlas Service Corps: An international network of nonprofit leaders and organizations that promotes innovation, cooperation, and solutions to address the world’s 21st century challenges.
Dell Social Innovation Challenge: Global entrepreneurship competitions supporting early-stage social entrepreneurs with training, mentors and seed funding to grow their enterprises.
Do Something: One of the largest global organizations for young people and social change with over 3.6 million members tackling campaigns that impact every cause, from poverty to violence to the environment to literally everything else.
Fulbright Program: The Fulbright Program provides funding for students, scholars, teachers, and professionals to undertake graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and teaching in elementary and secondary schools.
Global Citizen Year: An award-winning, non-profit social enterprise forging a new educational pathway for America’s emerging leaders.
Kairos Society: The Kairos Society works with young entrepreneurs as they innovate, from idea to execution, to solve problems and scale impact.
Mobilize: Mobilize empowers and invests in Millennials to create and implement solutions to social problems.
Agora Partnerships: Providing entrepreneurs who are intentionally building businesses that solve social and environmental challenges in Latin America with the resources they need to grow.
Points of Light Civic Accelerator: The Points of Light Civic Accelerator is the first national accelerator program and investment fund in the country focused on “civic ventures” — for-profit and nonprofit startups that include people as part of the solution to critical social problems.
Crowdfunding
Indiegogo: The largest global fundraising site helping individuals, businesses, and nonprofits raise money online.
Awesome Foundation: The Awesome Foundation for the Arts and Sciences is an ever-growing, worldwide network of people devoted to forwarding the interest of awesomeness in the universe. Created in the long hot summer days of 2009 in Boston, the Foundation distributes a series of monthly $1,000 grants to projects and their creators.
Kickstarter: Kickstarter is the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects.
GoFundMe: The world’s #1 personal fundraising website.
StartSomeGood: Empowering people to become social innovators by providing social entrepreneurs, changemakers, and non-profits with the tools they need to rally their community and raise funds.
Trevolta: A travel crowdfunding platform.
Launcht: Launcht is the leading white label crowdfunding & crowdvoting solution for entrepreneurs, universities, nonprofits, businesses and everyone in between.
Crowdrise: CrowdRise is about giving back, raising lots of money for great causes and having the most fun in the world while doing it.
Crowdfunder: A global network for equity and investment crowdfunding. Crowdfunder connects entrepreneurs with investors around the world to help fund their business.
RocketHub: A worldwide crowdfunding platform and community.
Skills and Education
Code Academy: Codecademy is the easiest way to learn how to code.
Coursera: Free online courses from top universities.
Experience Institute: Experience Institute is a 12-month higher education program based on real world experiences.
General Assembly: Learn from top practitioners of programming, business, and design.
Khan Academy: Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organization offering over 2400 free videos from arithmetic to physics, and finance.
Skillshare: Skillshare is a learning community for creators. Anyone can take an online class, watch video lessons, create projects, and even teach a class themselves.
TechShop: TechShop is a chain of member-based workshops that lets people of all skill levels come in and use industrial tools and equipment to build their own projects.
Academic Earth: Free video lectures from the world’s top scholars.
Alison: The world’s leading provider of free online courses with certificates.
TED-Ed: TED-Ed’s commitment to creating lessons worth sharing is an extension of TED’s mission of spreading great ideas.
If you think you are alone in your mission of making a positive impact in the world, think again!
Professional Networks & Leadership Development
Women 2.0: A media company at the intersection of women, entrepreneurship, and technology. .Creates content, community and events for aspiring and current women innovators in technology.
StartingBloc: StartingBloc hosts transformative 5-day events. Fellows come together to develop skills, build alliances, and gain access to the resources they need to create impact.
Hive: Hive is a global network of leaders and entrepreneurs who are working to create a better world.
Be Social Change: Be Social Change is the largest social impact community in New York City empowering people from all sectors and industries to build purpose-driven careers.
Digital Detox: Inspiring, educating, and empowering our generation to create more mindful, meaningful, and balanced lives, online & off.
Global Leadership Lab: A global network of leaders driving innovative change.
Global Shapers Community: The Global Shapers Community is a network of Hubs developed and led by young people who are exceptional in their potential, their achievements and their drive to make a contribution to their communities.
GOOD: A global community of people and organizations working towards individual and collective progress.
Impact Hub: Offers you a unique ecosystem of resources, inspiration, and collaboration opportunities to grow the positive impact of your work.
Institute for Compassionate Leadership: The Institute for Compassionate Leadership trains authentic leaders to tackle tomorrow’s toughest challenges.
Books for inspiration
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurship and the Power of New Ideas by David Bornstein. Discover how one person can make an astonishing difference in the world.
How to Find Fulfilling Work by Roman Krznaric. It explores the competing claims we face for money and status while doing something meaningful and in tune with our talents.
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose.
The Startup Guide: Creating a Better World Through Entrepreneurship by Ryan Allis. The Startup Guide is for the entrepreneurs, innovators, hackers, designers, and leaders who want to build a business while making a difference in the world.
Work on Purpose by Lara Galinsky and Kelly Nuxoll. This book shows you how and where to start looking for opportunities where your talents and passion shine.
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma. An inspiring tale that provides a step-by-step approach to living with greater courage, balance, abundance and joy.
The Quarter-Life Breakthrough by Adam Poswolsky. An inspiring career guide for twenty-somethings to get unstuck, pursue work that matters, and change the world.
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build The Future by Peter Thiel. Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places.
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. First published in 1937 and is just as useful today as it was when it was first published, because Dale Carnegie had an understanding of human nature that will never be outdated.
The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. It teaches people how to wake up each day with more energy, motivation, and focus to take their life to the next level.
You are not alone.
This list is just a small sample from the thousands of organizations that are helping changemakers operate more efficiently and expand their networks.
And like we mentioned earlier, this is an evergreen resources list and If you know of any other resource that is not mentioned on this list please post it in the comments.
On April 9th, we launch our Minimum Lovable Product version of the #charity platform and we would love for you to join us. Sign Up for free and follow ITProsWhoCare on Medium to receive more awesome content and stay up to date with what we are planning for you!
