Here's everything you need to know about Google G Suite for nonprofits.

Google G Suite for Nonprofits: Everything You Need to Know

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Organizing your work and connecting you with your fellow employees are tasks any business software should accomplish. However, none delivers better value and usability than Google’s business software, Google G Suite (otherwise known as Google Workspace).

Like businesses, nonprofits can benefit from all that Google G Suite has to offer. The wide variety of apps suits any need a nonprofit could have and makes communication and daily tasks quicker and easier. All you have to do is understand G Suite’s features and configure them to match your organization’s needs.

To help you out, we’ve put together this guide on everything you need to know about Google G Suite for nonprofits. Here are the questions we’ll answer:

Here at Getting Attention, we help nonprofits navigate the Google Ad Grant program. Spending so much time utilizing and optimizing the tools that Google provides, we know how to use Google G Suite effectively. We are happy to share our knowledge with nonprofits so that they can access all that Google’s applications have to offer.

 

Follow along to learn more about Google G Suite and how it could benefit your nonprofit.Schedule a free consultation with Getting Attention to learn about additional tools Google provides nonprofits.

These are the basics of Google G Suite.

What is G Suite?

G Suite is a host of integrated apps that work together to make your organization run smoothly. For example, you can create a Calendar invite that goes directly to the invitees’ Gmail inboxes. Within the Calendar event itself, you can start a new Google Doc to take meeting notes or add a Meet link for virtual meetings.

These apps work together seamlessly to allow employees to focus more on their work and less on logistics. Additionally, all files, emails, and appointments within G Suite are highly secured, so you don’t have to worry about hosting sensitive information on the platform.

There are many useful features of Google G Suite for nonprofits.

What Features Does G Suite Include?

Together, the apps of G Suite provide many beneficial features for nonprofits. To help you understand how these tools will fit into your organization’s operations, take a look at the features G Suite has to offer:

Organization

Google Drive is the home base for any type of file your nonprofit creates, including Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides. Folders within Google Drive allow you to organize these files into categories based on projects, campaigns, teams, partnerships, and more. You can also share these files with others and assign different levels of access to different members of your organization such as viewing or editing capabilities.

Collaboration

One of the unique benefits of G Suite is the ability to seamlessly work on the same files as others at the same exact time. You can even see the icons of who is currently viewing or editing a certain file at the top right of the screen. As long as you have an Internet connection, you can work with your team from anywhere on any device. In particular, Google Meet fosters collaboration by allowing you to meet with others virtually while viewing files within the Drive together.

Communication

Effective communication is key, and G Suite provides many tools for streamlining internal and external outreach, including Gmail, Slides, and Forms. Gmail is the ultimate email service that allows you to easily sort your emails into different categories. Additionally, Slides makes it easy for you to present your ideas to others and foster a dialogue about your presentation topic. Lastly, Forms allows you to easily create questionnaires in order to gather feedback or important information from external stakeholders or teams across your organization.

Integration

As mentioned before, all of the G Suite apps work beautifully together so that you can accomplish your goals. Another example of such integration is when writing to someone on Gmail, you can easily attach files from Drive.

Storage

Different G Suite plans provide different storage options, but they all allow for at least 30 GB of storage per user. This expansive amount of storage means that you won’t have to worry about storing too much on Drive and can create as many files as your organization needs.

Onboarding

G Suite’s tools make onboarding and training new employees a breeze. You can create training files and folders in Drive to organize new information for your recruits. Additionally, you can use Meet to train new employees in different time zones or locations or Sites to create your organization’s own training website.

Marketing

There may not be a specific marketing app within G Suite, but using G Suite’s apps can allow for seamless marketing campaign creation. From brainstorming ideas on Meet to creating a website for your nonprofit using Sites, G Suite can assist your team in the marketing campaign process from start to finish. Google G Suite provides many invaluable features for nonprofits.

Considering all of the amazing features G Suite has to offer, you might be wondering about how much it costs. We’ll go over that in the next section.

Here's a guide to Google G Suite for Nonprofits' pricing.

Is Google G Suite for Nonprofits Free?

Well, yes and no. The cost of Google G Suite depends on which plan your nonprofit chooses. The basic plan is completely free, but you’ll need to upgrade to one of the paid plans to gain access to get more cloud storage, increase the number of users, improve your video meeting quality, and more. Here’s a quick overview of each plan and how much it costs:

Check out the different Google G Suite for Nonprofits plans your organization can leverage

Google Workspace for Nonprofits

  • Cost: $0/user/month
  • Benefits:
    • Up to 2,000 users
    • Video meetings with up to 100 participants
    • 30 GB of cloud storage per user
    • Email address for each user at your nonprofit’s domain
    • Security and management controls
    • Standard support

Business Standard for Nonprofits

  • Cost: $3/user/month
  • Benefits:
    • Up to 2,000 users
    • Video meetings with up to 150 participants and recordings saved in Drive
    • 2 TB of cloud storage per user
    • Email address for each user at your nonprofit’s domain
    • Security and management controls
    • Standard support

Business Plus for Nonprofits

  • Cost: $5.04/user/month
  • Benefits:
    • Up to 2,000 users
    • Video meetings with up to 250 participants, recordings saved in Drive, and attendance tracking
    • 5 TB of cloud storage per user
    • Email address for each user at your nonprofit’s domain
    • Enhanced security and management controls with Google Vault
    • Standard support

Enterprise for Nonprofits

 

  • Cost: 70%+ off standard pricing – need to contact sales
  • Benefits:
    • Unlimited number of users
    • Video meetings with up to 250 participants, recordings saved in Drive, attendance tracking, noise cancellation, and in-domain live streaming
    • Unlimited storage
    • Email address for each user at your nonprofit’s domain
    • Advanced security and management controls with Google Vault, DLP, data regions, and enterprise endpoint management
    • Enhanced support

Google certainly provides a lot of G Suite options for nonprofits to leverage at discounted prices. Whichever plan you choose, your nonprofit’s communication and its overall operations are sure to flourish when you put thought behind how you’ll implement the different features.

Set up your Google G Suite account in these easy steps.

How Can I Set Up Google G Suite for My Nonprofit?

Ready to dive right into G Suite? G Suite offers a ton of great benefits for nonprofits at affordable prices. However, before you start using the software, you must put in the work to get it set up correctly.

There are a few simple steps you’ll need to follow to set up G Suite:

  1. Create a Google for Nonprofits account. If you’re familiar with other Google resources for nonprofits like the Google Ad Grant program, then you may already have a Google for Nonprofits account. If not, then no problem! You can request one here. As long as your organization meets the eligibility requirements and registers with TechSoup, you should have no problem getting approved.
  2. Migrate users over to their new accounts. Once Google approves your Google for Nonprofits account, members of your organization will need to switch from their previous accounts to their new ones. Users can do this manually or by using Google’s migration services.
  3. Arrange teams. When all users have shifted over to their nonprofit accounts, you can split them into teams and give them different levels of access to different resources.
  4. Complete training. To help out new users with the platform, Google provides training through the Google Workspace Learning Center, which includes tips and tricks for how to use G Suite.

Here’s how to set up Google G Suite for your nonprofit.

Congrats! You’re now ready to start using your Google G Suite for Nonprofits account and start accessing all of the wonderful benefits it provides.

Here's a recap of the amazing benefits of Google G Suite for nonprofits.Why Should I Use Google G Suite for My Nonprofit?

If it’s not clear by now, G Suite is the ultimate platform for nonprofits to organize their work and communicate with their employees and communities. It’s not hard to see why it’s the dominant platform that nonprofits turn to when managing their work.

To summarize its benefits, here are some of the top reasons why you should use Google G Suite for your nonprofit:

  • Many helpful apps to run every aspect of your organization
  • Plenty of storage to securely maintain any documents you need
  • Efficient communication and collaboration both internally and externally
  • Organization and integration between apps
  • Easy accessibility from anywhere at any time, great for nonprofit teams that are on the go

There are several benefits of using Google G Suite for Nonprofits.

No matter how big or small your organization is, Google G Suite provides resources that are invaluable to the cohesion and success of your team.

Read on for some additional Google resources.

Conclusion & Additional Resources

Now, you should be backed by plenty of helpful information about how to use Google G Suite for nonprofits. Whether your organization already uses Google resources or is thinking about switching over from another platform, G Suite for nonprofits is a great choice for your organization.

Since Google created the features and pricing with nonprofits in mind, your organization is sure to find G Suite’s tools and accessibility extremely helpful and relevant to your everyday operations.

As we mentioned before, the Google for Nonprofits program has a variety of resources in addition to Google G Suite. If you’re interested in other Google for Nonprofits resources like the Google Ad Grant program, check out some of these articles for more information:

If you want help managing other Google resources like Google Ad Grants, you may benefit from using a Google Ad Grants agency.