No Free Lunch, Please.

We all like to negotiate, haggle, bargain, give me your final price, or I'll go down the road. But for business, it's awful. Free isn't free. Free equals waiting, no customization, and no support many times. I understand that non-profit businesses have limited budgets, but no free option exists. There always is a catch. Free = luring you in to sell you something MORE EXPENSIVE. Thank you, marketing teams, you have lured us.

Refrain from falling prey to free. Free means you are waiting on someone to find a resource who may have time until they don't. Free means using a technology you or your team don't understand and can't support the technology. Free means more wasted time for your organization than if you invested a bit of money in finding a solution that works.

Many donor relation management systems track donor information for FREE. But there is a catch. That is the basic version. You need to purchase the apps that process the fees, send emails, and show a meaningful dashboard. So yes, the basic system is free but can't function without all the add-ons. And when you add on these essential apps, it can amount to thousands of dollars of investment. So why do we keep running after free?

I don't know, but I now run from FREE. I don't want it, and neither should you. If there isn't a contract in place to enforce and a money trail to follow to ensure the quality, there may potentially be more re-work that will happen. And we all know how much we love to do re-work and waste our time, energy, and donors' money.

Just don't accept free. I'll pay for my $14.25 lunch now.

What has been your experience with FREE?