We want to write a post about the best iPhone apps from nonprofits and associations. Help us out. Do you have one already? Tell us about it in the comments. If not… are you ready to think about going mobile?
We were! … and we thought we’d test out the process of making an app. We searched around and decided to go with AppMakr – simple and inexpensive (two prerequisites for experimenting, right?). The process was easy. This app works by pulling in feeds – from your blog, from your Twitter feeds, even from YouTube. You set it up in minutes, and they check it for you and send it off to Apple to be approved. A couple of weeks later, voila!! Your very own iPhone app.
One important point: there are plenty of other developers who can create all kinds of really fabulous, really robust, really feature-rich apps. But how do you know if your community is interested at all? We say start small and good, build up to big and good. If you start big and no-one uses it, you’ll have problems convincing people again later. We thought, we’re geeky and techy, we’d love to create something that really blows people away… but then we thought, what do people really need from us? They just need our content and content curation. That’s it. If they want more, they will tell us and we’ll upgrade later.
So… drumroll please… we are SO EXCITED and would love you to please check out and download our SocialFish iphone app! Our app is FREE and means you can get great stuff from us straight to your iPhone. Simply search for “socialfish” in the App Store. (By the way – the excitement of seeing your own little app in there for the first time – indescribable. I know there are a million apps in there – but who cares. It’s AWESOME.) Help us test our market. Tell us what you think of it. Review it and rate it in the App Store. Tell us if you want more from it, or if it’s just right!
So what about one for your organization? Are you wondering what other nonprofits or associations are doing? Here’s a good list from the Extraordinaries blog with examples explained. Here’s more:
- Three iPhone Apps that Every Nonprofit Needs to Know About (Nonprofit Tech)
- iPhone apps for Nonprofits (Britt Bravo)
- Associations/nonprofits turn to iPhone apps as latest viral tool (Acronym)
- Social Media and Expo! Expo! – The Good, The Bad, The Ugly . . . and The Weird (Christina Stallings)
- There’s an App for That (Avectra Blog – and they have a netForum app! kewl!)
Check out the AppMakr case studies on their home page too. Really good stuff!
Ready to try it? AppMakr gave us a “SOCIALFISH” discount code just for you – it’s good for $100 off through Feb 28, 2010. If you’re snowed in today, and tired of shoveling snow, you know what to do…
1. Go to AppMakr.
2. Set up an account and start playing. You don’t pay for the app until you’re ready to publish! Take as long as you need. Preview what it will look like!
3. Get approved by Apple. Jump for joy.
4. Tell all your peeps.
5. Come back here and tell us all about it! Then we’ll write a *real* post about Best iPhone Apps from Nonprofits and Associations. W00t!
- Bit.ly URL for this post:
- http://bit.ly/agnveW
8 responses to "Best iPhone Apps from Nonprofits and Associations"
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Great post. I have downloaded your app t
yeah – also thank you for including me in your January blog roundup
We just launched an app in partnership with Newstex that aggregates all our social media content. Search the App Store for SIIA.
Hey there,
For nonprofits, associations, and charities on the iPhone, I’d strongly suggest the Appliya App Builder tool. It lets you create a variety of engaging, custom utility apps and games, and it’s totally free to use. Check it out at http://appliya-studio.com/appbuilder/index.php. There’s also a walkthrough video up at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v1Io83uLBo
One project that came out of this service was an app for a charity called the Street Children Art Festival. This free application will let you create customized calendar pictures using the drawings of homeless children from different countries like India, Kenya, Vietnam, and Mexico. The app itself is free, but you can donate to the charity by purchasing new pictures directly from the app. Here’s the iTunes link for the app: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/art-children-living-on-street/id336353491?mt=8&uo=6
I’m disappointed that such a useful application “REQUIRES” the latest hardware. How come it doesn’t work on the first gen iPod Touch? AppMakr says “hardware issue”, but that cannot be, since all other blog/twitter readers work fine. Please use whatever leverage you have with them to support all iPhone/iPod Touch devices. Thank you.
Hello –
We think that anyone who manages relationships with customers or donors should consider using the Gist iPhone app, available for iPhone and iPod Touch.
Here are some more details:
http://blog.gist.com/2010/02/16/new-gist-iphone-application-now-available-v1-3-now-with-facebook-integration/
Gist helps you know more about who you know in your professional network, and also helps you to prepare for important meetings. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions, or to view http://blog.gist.com/what-is-gist to learn more about our service.
Regards,
Greg Meyer
Customer Experience Manager, Gist
It’s a nice looking app! And you make a good point about starting small with the self-service feedreader app makers out there like AppMakr.
For anyone who wants to go beyond that, but still not start from scratch, there are open source apps out there as well that a developer could build from. Last summer I wrote a free app called GreenSpace Map (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/greenspace-map/id325075915?mt=8) to map environmental sites of interest from Data.gov. You can find these sites (superfund, TRIS, etc) based on your location.
All of the code is freely available by MIT license at http://github.com/flafeer/GreenSpace-Mobile so I hope more people will use it as a template at least to build similar tools for the public.
The Capital Area Food Bank of Texas just launched an iPhone app called IPheedANeed. You can get more info at http://www.ipheedaneed.com
- Lisa Goddard
Online Marketing Director
Capital Area Food Bank of Texas
@lisa_goddard on Twitter