photo credit: Photos8.com

When it comes to online technology, it’s a big, confusing and often times expensive world out there for nonprofits. Fortunately, there are some truly spectacular grant opportunities to ease the financial burden of deploying new technology and tactics.

Here are the technology grants that I recommend to my clients again and again.

1. Google Grants

Google gives $10k per month AdWords grants to qualified 501c3s. Nonprofits can use the grants for fundraising, acquisition, advocacy campaigns, events and education campaigns.

Recently, the Google Grants Blog, which I highly recommend reading and subscribing to, asked grantees to share the stories of how Google Grants have made a different in their organizations. A few excerpts:

National Marrow Donor Program Increased Donor Leads

“Our Google grant is helping us reach potential donors that we may not otherwise…visitors referred by Google ads are better qualified, as they spend more time on site, view more pages and are more likely to enter online registration than the average visitor.”

VolunteerMatch Raised Awareness

“Our Google Grant gives VolunteerMatch the additional reach and the awareness we need to sustain network growth. Knowing we have the resources to raise awareness of our services for Google search users who are looking to volunteer or engage volunteers is priceless.”

GOOGLE GRANT BONUS: If you are a member of NTEN, you get expedited Google Grant application processing. It’s one of the many advantages of joining.

2. YouTube Nonprofit Channel

YouTube offers special channels to qualified nonprofits at no charge. Here’s what you get:

• Premium branding capabilities and increased uploading capacity
• The option to drive fundraising through a Google Checkout “Donate” button
• Listing on the Nonprofit channels and the Nonprofit videos pages
• Ability to add a Call-to-action overlay on your videos to drive campaigns
• Posting a video opportunity on the YouTube Video Volunteers platform to find a skilled YouTube user to create a video for your cause.

DON’T SKIP THIS ONE. The benefits are really powerful – the overlay in particular allows you to promote your donation or text messaging campaign right in the video. Check out the inspiring work these nonprofits are doing on their YouTube nonprofit channels:

• Amnesty International USA (below)
• Grist TV
• Brave New Films

DISCLOSURE: Amnesty US is a client of mine, though I do not work on their video channel.

3. Flip Video Spotlight

If you don’t know what a Flip video camera is, you are in for a treat. It’s genius.

No bigger than an iPod, it’s a video recorder completely streamlined for beginners. It plugs right into your computer and comes with simple video editing software.

Nonprofits can buy one camera and get one free with the Flip Video Spotlight program. Once you have access to the store, you can simply reorder.

A producer friend of mine was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the video you can produce with the Flip. He’s thinking about using the Flip for a student contest during a film festival he produces.

Nonprofits like Save the Bay and PBS use the Flip to document and share their work with donors and potential supporters.

You can read about how other orgs are using the Flip in the Flip Video Spotlight Case Studies.

So, these are my 3 favorites. What are your favorite nonprofit technology grants?