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We’re all facing common challenges in the face of the Coronavirus pandemic, and mission-based organizations across human services, education and nonprofit are at the epicenter of the chaos.
At Sparkrock, we’ve never been more acutely aware of our role as a supporting partner to you, our customers, in achieving your missions. Even as we deal with how this crisis is affecting our ability minimize the impact of the pandemic on our day-to-day operations.
This center will continue to grow and evolve as we build and/or discover other things we’ve found useful and want to share with you – the heroes on the front-line of this crisis. We hope you find them as useful as we have.
Our CTO and Co-Founder, James Faw, shares his insights as to how Sparkrock is utilizing technology to stay connected during COVID-19. James discusses the many tools we use to stay on top of our assignments such as Zoom, Ring Central, Azure Dev Ops, but most of all, Microsoft Teams.
Learn how Sparkrock staff are staying connected while working from home, and how HR leaders can support their organizations in this high stress time.
Beth shares what tools and programs you can roll out to make sure your most important resource – your people – have what they need to the weather the storm.
Ryan discusses how the how the global pandemic can affect not only our ability to conduct “business as usual”, but also our mental health. He explains the importance of empathy and community during this time, and how everyone at Sparkrock has come together to support our customers.
We will continue to add to our special edition webinar series in the coming weeks. In the meantime, the following pre-recorded webinars may also be useful to you and your teams.
Available to: Nonprofits
We are proud to partner with Microsoft, who have announced that they are offering trials of Office 365 to eligible nonprofits. Office 365 includes web-access to Teams, email, and file storage which is important technology to enable efficient remote work for staff and volunteers. Visit our dedicated page for more information.
Available to: Any accredited academic institution
Build collaborative classrooms, connect in professional learning communities, and connect with colleagues when you get Office 365 – which includes Microsoft Teams. Both of which are free for your entire school. Simply verify that you are an accredited academic institution to take advantage of these offers.
Available to: Nonprofits and small businesses
In response to the global economic impact of COVID-19, Hootsuite is offering free access to our Professional plan to help small businesses and nonprofits stay connected to their customers and audiences. The social media management software will be available at no cost until July 1st, 2020.
Available to: All government agencies
Questica has launched OpenBook, a cloud-based data transparency tool that enables you to quickly transform financial, statistical and GIS driven data into interactive and engaging visuals, such as charts, tables, maps and informational pop-ups. This solution will be available at no cost to all government agencies until September 30, 2020.
Available to: Non-political humanitarian groups
Airtable works like a spreadsheet but gives you the power of a database to organize anything. Airtable Pro plans are now available for free—with no time limit—to any non-political humanitarian groups working on COVID-19 relief efforts. They are also offering free Airtable Pro plans for students and live trainings for everyone.
Available to: Nonprofits, Government, and NGOs engaged in COVID-19 direct relief and emergency response efforts
During this global pandemic, NationBuilder is offering free software and services for the course of this critical period to those engaged in COVID-19 direct relief and emergency response efforts. The platform provides digital organizing infrastructure, including geo-targeted SMS, email, website, and online fundraising tools.
Available to: Schools and higher education institutions
Adobe provides access a collection of software used for graphic design, video editing, web development, photography and more is via the Creative Cloud, and until May 31, 2020 it will be available to schools and colleges at no additional cost.
Available to: Schools and higher education institutions
Zoom offers a cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, collaboration, chat, and webinars and are temporarily lifting the 40-minute time limit on free Basic accounts for schools affected by the Coronavirus.
Read the top news updates, articles and blog posts explaining how technology can help us through COVID-19.
In an effort to assist you to work through the temporary impacts of the pandemic on your operations, we’ve curated a series of resources we have found to be useful. If you think we missed anything important, please email us links to other resources you think we should share with the community at large.
General:
The Foundation of a Resilient Organization
As we weather this crisis, it’s important to recognize that this isn’t the first time our organizations have had to cope with external threats to our missions, nor will it be the last. That recognition, that crises are an inevitability for which our organizations need to prepare, is the reason that we need to consider whether the technologies we’re using to manage are business are contributing, or not, to our businesses’ resiliency.
Financial and Human Resource Management systems, like Sparkrock 365, form the backbone of an organizations’ mission critical infrastructure. Being cloud-based, Sparkrock 365 enables organizations to react quickly to crises like the current Coroniavirus pandemic. Staff can shift to remote work quickly and organizations can stay on top of the increased pace and demands for shift changes and trading. A mobile friendly user interface means employees can access Sparkrock 365 from virtually anywhere, and a multitude of potential devices. And flexible reporting can help an organization identify where and when they need to pivot as an organization, or even address short term, urgent reporting requirements form regulatory bodies and governments.
The best time to have invested in a move to the cloud was yesterday. The next best time is today. We’re here to help you understand your options and assist you in building resiliency into your organizations before you next need it.