5 Tools Every Nonprofit Youth Leader Should Use

In the second episode of Nonprofit Tech Talks, host Jack Showers talks to Steve Lee, founder of the Foundation of Environmental Stewardship and a former Organizing Partner at the Major Group for Children and Youth. 

Steve and Jack discuss five technological tools nonprofit youth leaders can use to save more time, create more social impact, and raise more money for their cause. 

1. Google Workspace

Steve uses Google Workspace almost every minute of his day! 

Formerly known as G Suite, Google Workspace is a collection of cloud-based computing, productivity, and collaboration tools. These tools allow nonprofit leaders to perform almost every aspect of their administrative work, like communicating with their team on Gmail, organizing donors in Google Sheets, and preparing impact presentations in Google Slides. 

Google’s products are ideal for youth leaders because of their intuitive design and because of Google’s nonprofit-specific discounts for specific products. This affordability is perfect for youth leaders because, while their work is filled with passion, their pockets aren’t always full of cash for software! 

2. Streak

Designed to integrate seamlessly with your Gmail account, Streak is the customer relationship management system (CRM) that’s perfect for youth leaders. Users can record information about their donor pipelines, contacts, and tasks to always stay on top of current projects.

Steve also commented on how easy Streak is to use because of its magic columns. These are fields within your stakeholder database that Streak automatically updates based on your interactions. This feature saves youth leaders tons of valuable time! 

Best of all, getting started with Streak is free! If you decide you love the tool, you can upgrade to receive more storage space, data validation, and priority customer support. 

3. NVivo

Nonprofit youth leaders meet with various stakeholders who likely have different opinions on how to solve an issue. To keep track of these viewpoints, Steve uses NVivo, a qualitative data analysis tool, to record and analyze the opinions of his stakeholders. 

By feeding a transcript into NVivo’s software, you’re able to identify a meeting’s most common phrases, opinions, and arguments.

This tool is a must-have tool for youth leaders spending too much time transcribing meetings and drawing out the most important themes. Your NVivo findings will allow you to back up your decisions to your stakeholders. 

4. Calendly

Calendly is a free meeting scheduling software that helps youth leaders eliminate the hassle of back-and-forth emails so they can get back to work. Like Streak, Calendly offers affordable upgrade packages for anyone looking for customized scheduling features.

5. Tableau

According to Steve, Tableau is “the best” data visualization tool!

Essentially, tableau can help youth leaders and stakeholders see and understand data. What’s more, Tableau can be used as a storytelling tool, helping youth leaders communicate their work’s impact. 

This tool helps nonprofit youth leaders show the impact of their work and create models for evaluating their fundraising efforts. 

The common theme of these tools is that they help youth leaders save time and resources. Near the end of the interview, Steve suggested that, with the time saved, nonprofit youth leaders should put more effort into calling people with the time saved. Phone calls go a long way to communicate the essence and value of your mission to your donors and stakeholders.

Ultimately, youth leaders should use these tools to spend more time doing what they do best: using their passion and hard work to make the world a better place!