Toolkits for NGO

I do highly appreciate people who do or create something and give their work back to communities. No matter how small the contribution someone gives, but I am sure it will anyhow have a great impact to someone else’s life. I believe that sharing is the best way to keep knowledge on the flow. That is also my main point why I keep this blog online, by the way. I hope you can take some useful things over here and by sharing we can learn together.

Back to the topic, most of us know what NGOs are. We are also aware that most NGOs operate in the non-profit sectors. Their activities range from providing services and support in basic needs such as education and health, building communities in rural area, to advocacy on various subjects. People do this because they want to see improvement in lives. Sure, whatever NGOs do must conforms the policies and rules set by the government. To finance their activities many NGOs rely on donations, gifts and grants. Usually they must do a lot of things with limited budget and low resources.

And then, what do you want to say actually with this entry, brother? That question might arise in your head, right? No problem, just shoot me. Nowadays, NGOs need IT extensively to support their activities. Nobody involved in NGO can deny that. But the main obstacles occur when they have to find the right IT tools and materials such as a set of softwares with low resources. Many NGOs just can not afford to pay the proprietary softwares, resulting the use of pirate softwares. What a shame. On the other side, when they decide to deploy FOSS, they have little knowledge or it is hard to find and pick the alternatives for the proprietary softwares they usually use. Problematic, right? Therefore, we need to find the right solutions for this issue.

Fortunately, our friends at Tactical Tech provides the toolkits for NGOs. They manage some selected FOSS to several collections and specific uses, namely:

• NGO-in-a-Box sets, which consist of Audio/Video edition, BaseBox edition, Security edition and Open Publishing edition. These sets are compiled to help daily operations running smoothly.
• When it comes to advocacy, there are two new resources set for that purpose.
  • Message in-a-box
    
  • Mobiles in-a-box: Tools and tactics for mobile advocacy

I, personally, already know the existence of these sets a year ago when I participated in the Asia Source II Camp. I often use the NGO-in-a-Box sets to help some friends with their work. And, they are satisfied and continue to use the softwares until now. In some occasions, when I have to demonstrate what you can do or achieve with FOSS, the sets are very handy and helpful. So, I really recommend these toolkits to everyone. You do not have to be a NGO person to be able to fully use it. Ordinary persons like me and you, can! I hope Tactical Tech will continuously support these sets and come with other useful things in the near future. Salute for you, guys!

Try it now, folks.

* Image is taken from here.