Definatly start at tech soup. I'm at a not for profit with a budget of like 10 million or so a year, and we still rely on them for software at times. Good stuff, advice, etc there.

For the mailings, the two most places I know use are either constantcontact.com or vertical response over at http://www.verticalresponse.com/ Some of our chapters use one, some use the other, they love them.

Also look into etapestry.com, they offer small not for profits their software for free based on the number of records.

Hello,

I just saw this thread and wanted to chime in more on Salesforce.com. In my nonflyertalk life i manage nonprofits and higher education for salesforce.com and are happy to donate to 501c3 nonprofits. I'm happy to speak with anyone further if they have questions.

[email protected]

Chris

Why not create a Google Group to serve as the e-mail list manager? Restrict access so that only administrators can send out e-mail. You can import users into the group then users can add/delete/modify themselves as they see fit.

As for e-mail services... use Google Apps for domains. They can start you off with as many e-mail accounts as you'd like.

Every software company out there will have something for non-profits, ask and you just might receive. :D

I second cordelli's recommendation of Constant Contact. I have no experience with Vertical Response, but it seems very similar.

You design your emails on their web site. They have a very good array of templates for different kinds of newsletters and other sorts of email. These can be customized pretty easily. You can upload photos and other graphics for inclusion in the newsletter. It is simple to insert links to the appropriate page of your web site to provide additional information on a topic introduced via email.

With CC, my small not for profit pays a heavily discounted yearly fee. For that fee, we can send out as many emails as we like. CC maintains the databases of email addresses - as many as we like. It is also possible to import/export whole lists.

Also included is a "sign up for our newsletter" function that can easily be put on your web site. An email address entered there will take the interested person to a sign-up site that you can customize to ask for whatever additional information you wish to gather.

Good value, I think.

I saw a banner ad someplace for constant contact in the last week or so, said free 60 day trial, don't know the details, but wanted to pass it along if anybody is still looking.

To follow up on some of the comments about Virtualization and open source - VMWare has a huge selection of "prepackaged appliances," in other words open-source based virtual machines ready for download. There are tons of LAMP, email, etc devices here:

http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/index.html

There are some that you have to pay for, but most are free.