5 of the best mobile apps for nonprofits to help your productivity

Chances are during your busy nonprofit fundraising schedule you spend at least a certain percentage of your time away from your desk and still need to try to conduct daily tasks in a mobile environment. The continued rise of smartphone and tablet technology means that you can accomplish more than ever before without having to be tied to your desktop or powering up your laptop, but with so many apps constantly being launched it’s almost impossible to find enough time to evaluate them all let alone give them a test drive. All of which is quite unfortunate as developers are creating a slew of apps that can help with your mobile productivity, note taking and even fundraising itself.

This month I’ll be collecting and sharing some of the most nonprofit useful apps that are readily available and can make your day that little bit easier and help keep tasks under control as well as saving you time and effort. My first list focuses on some of the best productivity apps according to a compiled master list of recent reviews and feedback that I’ve researched and used.

1. Trello (Android, iOS) is much harder to explain than it is to use, but think of it as a fully customized digital note taker/bulletin board which can be used for almost anything you can think of. For those of us spinning plates most days it will allow you to create lists, notes, pending tasks and reminders which help keep you on track. The user can build a list and add to the list a series of cards – cards can be time-stamped tasks, briefing notes, pictures, links, extracts, thoughts or almost anything else. Your cards can be dragged and dropped into as many or few lists (essentially folders) as you wish all on a platform that can shared with others using the same tool in real-time. The beauty of the app is the ease of use and flexibility no matter what tasks and notes you’re trying to manage and users regularly consider it to offer the best solution for desktop to mobile syncing. You can share documents and content via any of four application sharing services (Google Drive, Box, Dropbox, and OneDrive)
2. Sprout Social (Android, iOS) There are a number of nifty social media sharing tools for comprehensive dashboard style management of all of your large social media platforms and although Hootsuite is the most popular Sprout Social is receiving the best feedback from users who want a useful suite of tools to hand. The biggest step up comes via the reporting and analytics that Sprout offers as standard and the ease of use and visual clarity mean that it is certainly one worth adding to your device if you are very active with social media. In fact while many respect the value of social media for nonprofits it is often something that can slip to being priority number six or seven on people’s daily list when confronted with other tasks which means that a great mobile solution is even more beneficial to try and help you catch up.
3. LastPass (Android, iOS) If your days are anything like mine keeping tracks of your dozens of passwords is something that might have you losing sleep or pulling your hair out from time to time. I’ve never counted but I’d guess that I need to be aware of at least fifty and probably nearer one hundred user and password combinations on a weekly basis to be at my most effective and it can be difficult enough while working from your desk to keep everything in order. That struggle is even greater when limited to a mobile device but LastPass can overcome all of that in both arenas. It allows you to sync password vaults, and then have the LastPass browser automatically fill in forms and login details when surfing or accessing sites, either through the built in browser, Safari or Chrome. It also allows the user to generate new passwords, plus add or update their list of Form Fills.
4. Grammarly (Android, iOS) It wouldn’t be unfair to say that about 75% of the time you can spot someone whether the person who is emailing or messaging you has done so via a mobile device due to the frequency of errors within the content. Unfortunately, it seems many just accept that as a nuisance but the reality is that it doesn’t look terribly professional or reflect well on the sender. Grammarly can help to ensure that you’re not within that easy to spot percentage as it brings the power of an excellent automated proofreader and grammar coach in addition to enhancing your word choice via context-optimized vocabulary suggestions. Come to think of it why not try Grammarly all of the time regardless of the device that you are using. Please find a screenshot below of the app itself in action.
5. SwiftKey (Android, iOS) This might be my favourite of all as I’ll never be a fan of typing with my thumbs or fingers on a smartphone. While voice recording can save time it’s far better to find a custom keyboard for smartphones that can help a user add normal everyday functions to emailing, messaging and very importantly the editing of existing documents. SwiftKey seems to be the most popular third party option as it bring wonderful responsiveness, swipe typing options and by far the most valuable predictive typing system on the market per reviewers. SwiftKey rapidly learns and understand your typing habits and preferred vocabulary which can be incredibly useful when you are using very specific and less than apparent terms time and again on your messages, emails and other communication. In addition the keyboard can be configured to match your own needs, if you use numbers and statistics constantly just configure your keyboard to have a full numeric keypad.

I’m sure you have other favourites that you might like to share but I am certain that if you were to add a few from the list above this week your productivity will benefit immediately due to what these apps can do for you. I’ll be looking at more apps over the coming weeks including a number that have very nonprofit-specific viability.
________________________________________________________________________________

Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Pinterest or subscribe to our RSS feed. 

Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including PCI compliant inbound telephone fundraising, outbound telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery fundraising services, donation processing and receipting and direct mail fundraising services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all our business decisions  and advancing the missions of the nonprofits we proudly serve.