Cheap/Free ISPs for Non-Profit Organizations?

mhhelle asks: "I live in a co-op with non-profit status. We are looking at starting a website to distribute information for current and prospective residents. I'm wondering if there are any ISPs that provide discounted or free service to non-profit organizations. We have few requirements-- enough capacity for some nice graphics, possibility of database access (using MS Access (I know...)), posting PDF files for download, cgi-bin, and the ability to use our own domain name. I'd estimate less than 500 hits per day, so I don't imagine that we would require a lot of bandwidth. Does anyone have any suggestions?"

Comments

Sponsorship or such

[jpm242]

I'm pretty sure that there are ISP's out there who would participate in such a thing for free. It could be a tax write-off and it brings good publicity. Also, I doubt that a non-profit org's website would be a bandwidth hog, IMHO. Can't see why someone wouldn't do it...

JP

Yahoo!

[Chris Pimlott]

First off, why are you asking for an ISP? You need a web hosting company...

Anyway, this took about 5 seconds:
Yahoo Search: "non-profit" and "hosting"

And for an encore...
Google Search

Re:Yahoo!

[Chris Pimlott]

Well, to most ISP refers to supply one with an internet connection. I can't think of anyplace that calls itself an ISP without doing that (be it via modem, dsl, broadband etc.), but there are ISPs that don't offer hosting.

Anyway, from your post it seemed to me you were looking for any listings at all. Regardless, I don't see anything wrong with looking for personal testimonies from people who have done this sort of thing in the past.

And searching for 'free' is probably a waste of time - you'll get lots of mishits ("1 free month of service with subscription!" etc.) and any place that is truly free (for anyone) will probably not be able to give you what you want.

Just ask

[jon_adair]

My wife got free hosting donated for BonkFest.org just by asking the web host she uses (and providing 501(c)(3) paperwork, etc.).

Re:Check your local ISPs

[Big Brass Balls]

I agree. In fact, you might want to check out newer ISPs, since they'd be hungry for some free publicity.

I helped out with organizing a student conference/competition one year, and one of the things we needed was a website. Naturally, since we're a student organization, our intent was not to gain profit - just to meet costs. That meant that we didn't have a whole lot of money to splurge on a website (in fact, our budget was already stretched to the limit). A few calls around, and one of the newest ISPs in town had jumped at the opportunity to provide free space for our website. In return, we offered them a spot in our "sponsors" listing, both on the website, and in the conference package.

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