Efficiency through technology for nonprofits-Basics

This is the first post in a series on increasing the efficiency of your small nonprofit. I'll be starting with the basics and progress from there into more technical tools in later posts. Today I will be focusing on Google Calendar.

Our office has around 10 people in it, with 3-4 more volunteers. We have six core programs we offer that require coordination and scheduling. For awhile this was done with appointment binders that floated between the offices. We transitioned to Google calendars last year and have seen a remarkable improvement in appointments set and kept.

1. Sign up for a google account http://bit.ly/hDwYZs 
1. You do not need a gmail account to use Google calendar
2. Go to http://bit.ly/cD5ORx to sign into Google calendar
3. Repeat steps for all employees and volunteers

Now that you have the account set up, you should see this.

You can now create calendars by clicking "My calendars" and "add" 

You will be presented with this screen,

The creation form is pretty standard, be sure under Share with specific people that you add your co-workers emails and chose the correct permission settings then create calendar.


You can create multiple calendars with different sharing permissions, by repeating the last step.


Now if your coworkers already have their calendars set up they can give you permission under their calendar settings or you can ask for permission to see theirs.


To add your coworkers calendars, start by clicking here,

Now enter the email addresses your coworkers used to set up their Google account with. This will add their main calendar that is associated with their email and not any additional calendars they have created.


Extra Credit*
Using appointment slots
Google has a new feature for setting up appointment slots, click your calendar to create a new event and click on appointment slots.

This allows you to block off times you hold open hours for others to book. Unfortunately others have to use a direct link to access the blocks. Accessing the direct link gives you a view similar to this,

Shoot me any questions you may have.