Email

This shows you how to pretend like your organization has a professional email system using Gmail.

To many foundations and organizations bikerdude@hotmail.com isn't very professional and might not sound like the most credible source. To get around this you can either install a professional email server like Microsoft Exchange, or a free unix equivalent -- both of which require someone with IT experience. Thanks to Gmail there is a low administrative overhead way to send professional email.

Receiving Email

By request most Web Hosting Providers (hosts) can set up forward-only or virtual email addresses. Which are a fancy way of saying that all emails sent to jonathan@bikecollectives.org will be automatically forwarded to jonathan.morrison@gmail.com or whatever email address you choose.

After this is done, all the email sent to jonathan@bikecollectives.org will end up in a gmail account. But how do we reply from the gmail account using jonathan@bikecollectives.org?

Replying and Sending Email

Now that you are set up to receive email you can use some handy Gmail features to send using that email address. After doing the following, every time you send an email you can send and even automatically reply from the email address you designated. Here is how:

1. Log in to your Gmail account, create one if you don't have one.
2. Click Settings along the top of any page, and then select the Accounts tab.
3. Click Add another email address in the Send mail as section.
4. Enter your full name in the Name field, and the email address you'd like to send messages from in the Email address field.
5. Click Next Step >> and then click Send Verification to complete the process. Gmail will send a verification message to your other email address to confirm that you'd like to add it to your Gmail account. You'll need to click the link in that message, or enter the confirmation code in the Accounts section of your Gmail account, to complete the process. Once you've verified that you'd like to add the address to your account, you can start sending messages using your custom 'From:' address.
6. In the Send mail as: section of the Accounts tab, select the radio button next to Reply from the same address the message was sent to.

• Keep in mind that each time someone replies to a message you send using a custom 'From:' address, the reply will be delivered to the 'From:' address rather than your Gmail address. If you'd like replies to be delivered to another account, you'll need to enter a 'reply-to' address. Just click Specify a different reply-to address to enter this information.

Cons

There are minor downsides to setting up emails this way.

1. You can change the forwarding address with your hosting provider when someone leaves your organization, but they will still have the ability to send email from that email address.
2. Emails are "signed" by gmail.com instead of your domain. So while it is rare, there is a chance someone else's email server might consider this to be spam.
3. If you use Google Groups, it may force you to use the Gmail address instead of the one you want.

Google Calendar

Great for events, grant writing scheduling, reminders and everything else you can think of.

Google Docs and Spreadsheets

Great for grants, meeting minutes, distributor ordering, and anything else you can't afford to lose in someone's My Documents folder.

References

• Google - They might be the next evil empire, but for now most of their stuff is free and is easy to use.
• How do I customize the 'From:' address on outgoing mail?