In the never-ending quest to quell email’s domination of our work lives, many people are turning to instant messaging platforms.
For small organizations, texting, Facebook Messenger, and Google Hangouts can work just fine. But when you get more people in the mix talking about a variety of topics that not everyone cares about, you need something more robust. The answer for many nonprofits is Slack.
Heard of it, but never used it?
Slack describes itself this way: There’s a searchable channel for every conversation.
- Channels can be divvied up by team, project, client, or whatever else is relevant to your organization.
- Team members can join and leave channels as needed — unlike lengthy email chains.
- Threads keep side conversations from derailing the topic or project at hand.
And, yes, Slack does have a nonprofit program with discounted rates if you decide to move beyond the free plan.
Here are five helpful, real-world articles that will get you started on evaluating whether it’s a good choice for your team or not.
Slack: A Cheat Sheet (from TechRepublic)
Getting the Absolute Most Out of Slack: 4 Must-Dos From Slack’s Head of Internal Comms (from Forbes)
How Slack Uses Slack (from Troops)
How We Use Slack as a Virtual Office: 4 Best Practices (from Corevist)
Slack-Off Fridays: What Happened When On Team Experienced a Day Without Slack (from Buffer)
Do you use Slack at your nonprofit? We’d love to interview you for some upcoming posts. Email Kivi if you would like to share your experiences with our writers.
