from NTEN (Nonprofit Technology Network):

“Google Was Our First Office”: Managing a Worldwide Staff

[PresenTense] PT used technology from day one, says Simi Hinden, the director of the online community. A print magazine is one of PT’s main activities, providing an additional channel for the global community of young Jews to exchange ideas.

“Google was our first office”, Simi explains. They used Google docs to help share documents with the volunteers worldwide as they worked on the magazine. They also used wufoo.com, which helps create online forms, process applications for programs, manage magazine applications, subscriptions and more.

CRM

PT started using Salesforce.com in 2008, taking advantage of its free licenses for nonprofits. Salesforce helps manage PT’s contacts, work flow, fellows and mentors tracking, magazine subscriptions, opportunities, and donations.

It was not used efficiently at the beginning. Today, Simi is the sole person is dedicated to customizing Salesforce. Although she doesn’t have a strong technical background, she picks up things as she goes along.

At one point, they considered using civiCRM, another CRM platform, designed for nonprofits, but they found it to be too basic for some of their needs, like managing and tracking all the different people and organizations with whom they are involved.