Non-profits of all sizes rely on a good fundraising package to help them maintain relationships with their donors, plan events and track donations. Whether the software is deployed in house or available in the cloud, the most important thing is functionality and usability.

Across America, volunteerism remains a strong, basic value within our nation's diverse culture. More and more corporations are requiring their employees to give of themselves, and these professionals are eager to do so. In fact, according to the Corporation for National Community Service, about 64.3 million Americans, or 26.8 percent of the adult population gave 7.9 billion hours of volunteer service worth $171 billion in 2011. As voluntarism thrives, along with that growth comes increased complexity in terms of finding ways to organize volunteers and match them with corresponding, relevant volunteer positions.

The Internet has provided nonprofit organizations with such a wonderful avenue for getting the word out about the amazing things they are doing. Web sites serve as a great "brochure," blogs allow for more in-depth exploration and storytelling, and social media provides an opportunity to build rapport that can develop into a sense of community with constituents. These are all wonderful methods for reaching out and creating potential for support in the form of donations and volunteer hours.

For non-profit organizations, saving money and resources is an operational imperative that requires managers to make smart and sustainable choices. Implementing a new solution feels like a commonplace decision in the for- profit world, while even considering to adopt something requires a small miracle in the non-profit world. A September of 2013 survey by Connecting UP and TechSoup Global revealed that 90% of non-profits were using the cloud in one way or another for everything from emailing and online database management to web conferencing.