Looking for Ideas for Non-Profits

My organization has been using Asana for about 6 months now. Sometimes I feel like non-profits are a completely different beast from the rest of the world. I think we have done some really fun and cool things with Asana. Internally, we have eliminated all e-mail, and I have been able to move towards a much more collaborative style of leadership because of Asana.

I am curious as to how other non-profits are utilizing Asana. I have done many of the premier training and I am always picking up something new to try. My hope is that I can pick up a few good ideas from others in the non-profit world that is utilizing Asana.

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@Rita_Potter sorry for the delay in posting a reply.

I also work in nonprofit. I’m curious how you completely eliminated email? That sounds dreamy.

Is your nonprofit event-driven? Are all departments using Asana?

We are a team of 13 and are heavily event-driven. Only our development/fundraising department is using Asana at the moment.

We have projects for each big event, corporate partner campaigns, & board member needs. I personally also use Asana for our social media calendar, managing internships, editorial calendar, managing creative services requests and our advertising calendar.

I would say one of our biggest improvements for collaboration with Asana has been for auctions, which I shared a post about here: Managing Auctions

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That’s a great read and example, @Crystal_Alifanow. Thanks for sharing and for reviving this post :grin:

@Rita_Potter- I might also suggest checking out the few blog articles below about non-profit customers and their workflows:

Hopefully they might bring some ideas as well, along with Crytal’s suggestions and hopefully other non-profit community members in the future too :blush:

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@Crystal_Alifanow I do have to clarify, we have eliminated e-mail for everyone that is on Asana. We have 2 or 3 people who are not, and they are still using e-mail. I have “officially” declared e-mail evil, and made it a practice that e-mail responses may take 3-5 days to get a response; whereas, Asana responses usually come within 24 hours or less.

It looks like you are coming from Asana use from a marketing perspective. We are utilizing Asana somewhat for marketing, but utilizing it more for the work we do in our programs and development of programs for our clients.

I think the possibilities are endless for making Asana work. I have tried to watch most of the premium training just to get ideas. My hope is there is continue to be more targeted training and sharing in order to generate more ideas.
Thank you so much for sharing your example. I intend to steal some of your ideas ;). I especially like all the custom fields you added, it has given me ideas on how better to use Asana for our fundraisers.

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Thanks for the feedback @Kaitie. Right now I feel like a sponge because I know there is SO much more that I need to learn to continue utilizing Asana at its fullest. I have been singing Asana’s praises whenever I am with peers at Conferences and Association meeting because I see the value of better organization. Unfortunately, non-profits are many times understaffed and underfunded, and whatever tools we can utilize to get better organized and save time, the more time we have for our mission.

As a side note- I wanted to give you a special hello because it is my understanding that we are right in your parents backyard here in Sandwich IL :smile:. If you are ever in the area for a visit, we would love to invite you to drop in and visit us and see what Asana is doing to help better our organization.

All,

At my suggestion, the nonprofit I am working for is going to start using Asana for project and task management. If any you are willing I would love to talk about your org has been using it, best practices, and possibly sharing templates, such as Annual Appeal.

Please let me know if any of you would okay with me picking your brain.

Cheers,

Terri

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Hi Terri-

I absolutely love Asana- so I would be glad to offer any help you may need.

Thanks,

Rita Potter

Executive Director

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Rita,

If you are comfortable I would love to set up a virtual meeting, as I am visual learner, to talk about the things you wish you could tell yourself now knowing what you now. My work email is terrimateo (at) utr.org.

Cheers,

Terri