Community Action Suffolk IT Services

Latest...Cost of Living Pack

2022 has seen a cost of living crisis like no other for many decades – we can all see it in rising energy costs or just a humble visit to the local supermarket.

Here at IT Services at CAS, we’ve put together a pack together of free or low cost IT resources (software, hardware etc) that you can access – whether it’s as an individual or as a charity or small business even.

These tools are free or discounted at the time of writing this article and were active at the time too.

We can’t be responsible for the quality or safety of these applications, however all of the applications listed below have either been used by ourselves or come strongly recommended by others.

Software

Charity Digital Exchange – Discounted software for charities – up to 80% on some major applications.

Open Office – Free, open source Microsoft Office equivalant if you can’t afford the Office suite of applications.

Libre Office – Free, open source Microsoft Office equivalant if you can’t afford the Office suite of applications.

Canva – Free way of creating graphics and images for individuals or charities

Pexels – Copyright free, royalty free image bank of good quality stock images

Pixabay – Copyright, royalty free stock images

G-Suite – An alternative to Office 365 is Google G Suite, again free for charities, offering similar capabilities for collaboration, openness and increase productivity.

PDF 24 Creator – Free PDF software editing

Small PDF – Free online PDF conversion software (to Word etc). Some limitations on volumes.

GIMP – Free image editing software

Dropbox – Free Cloud Storage of up to 2.5GB

Onedrive – Free Cloud Storage of up to 5GB

Bit Defender – Free anti-virus solution to offer you some protection if you can’t afford any

AVG Free – Free anti-virus solution to offer you some protection if you can’t afford any

Slack – Free communication cool that offers instant messages, project management capabilities with colleagues

Asana – Free project management tool that manages your team’s work

Trello – Free project management tool that helps manages projects

Basecamp – Free task management software

Mailchimp – Free mass mailing and campaign managment software

Survey Monkey – Free survey creation software

Buffer – Free social media scheduling tool

Zoom – Free video meeting and communication tool

Teams – Free video meeting and communication tool

Grammarly – Improve your copywriting with this handy tool

Jotform – Free online form creator

Donorbox – Discounted online donation platform for charities

LastPass – Free secure password management platform

Audacity – Free, open source audio recording software

We Transfer – Free large file sending application

Shotcut – Free, open source video editing software

7 Zip – Free Zipping and compression software for your PC

VLC Media Player – Free video playing software designed to play those films or videos you can’t get your desktop or laptop to play

Hardware

Computer Aid – Discounted hardware for charities including computers

Accessibility

Ability Net – Offering free & low cost information and webinars for charities to assist with IT Accessibility

General

Charity Digital – Not just discounted software but Charity Digital offers a wide variety of largely free advice to charities on a number of digital matters and non digital matters.

IT Support

IT Services at CAS – Great value IT Support packages especially designed for charities, small businesses and community groups.

If you have any queries about these or anything else around IT then please don’t hesitate to contact us on 01473 345305 or email us at support@suffolkonline.net. Whilst we can’t profess to have used all of the above we have tried the vast majority.