Deals and Low-Cost Options

A list of affordable resources to take teams and organizations mobile.

Disclaimer: Neither Tech impact and 501 Commons benefit from the sale of the tools and products suggested below.

Devices

If you need to provide laptops for staff, ORDER NOW! Laptops are becoming hard to find. We understand that you may be making unplanned purchases and may want to find the least expensive option. However, it is best to remember minimum recommended specifications. Our Tech Director strongly recommends minimum i5 processor with 8 GBs RAM and 256 GB solid state hard drive. We want to provide 3 options for purchasing laptops:

1New Computer Purchase – CDW – Nonprofit account managers at CDW have alerted us that they are due to receive a shipment of 8,000 Lenovo T490s with i5 or i7 processors as early as next week with another 6,000 scheduled to arrive the following week. HP models are out of stock. Pricing on these units are $1250 – $1400. Contact your tech advisor for a quote.

2New Computer Purchases

* Dell

* Lenovo

* HP – out of stock

For fastest processing, you can place orders using credit card directly through TechSoup website.

3 Here is a link to the TechSoup refurbished computer landing page: Refurbished Hardware.

We recommend that you make purchases through an authorized re-seller rather than through a retail outlet. Retail outlets sell consumer-grade computers which generally do not have appropriate operating system (Windows 10 Pro) and also come installed with “bloatware” that needs to be removed for best performance. Configuration of consumer-grade computers takes longer and will require billable project to set up.

Software

Google G-Suite – Google announces expansion of its donation to with greater conferencing capabilities.

Office 365 – Office 365 Teams supports internal and external collaboration.

Zoom – HD video, voice and chat.

Clocktree – Affordable telehealth software that is HIPAA compliant.

Medallia Crowdicity– Crowdsourcing and Idea Management Software.

Donorbox – Easily to integrate donation forms for nonprofits.

Peripherals

How to Create a Full Time Work Space at Home – Head over to the the Wirecutter for their recommendations for home office peripherals. NOTE: This page recommends their top picks, but click on the links to their articles to find budget options.