Top Software and Hardware for Museums and History Organizations

Get the tech you need to realize your mission! TechSoup offers many donated and discounted products for nonprofit museums and history organizations, such as historical sites and societies, of every type.

Here's our guide to what's most popular with our over 8,000 museum TechSoup members. Plus we've got some tips on some less well-known programs that are useful for museums.

Create Striking Exhibits with Adobe and Autodesk Design Tools

Nearly all museums and historical sites need Adobe Creative Cloud for developing compelling exhibits and educational web content. Creative Cloud is a deeply discounted suite that includes almost everything that Adobe makes: creative design desktop applications, mobile apps, and services for designing anything visual. It's got the latest professional versions of industry standard applications like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Premiere Pro.

Get Adobe Creative Cloud

The Autodesk Donation Program offers other professional design tools often requested by museums and historical sites. You can use Autodesk software to design buildings or additions, interiors, exhibits, and entertainment content. Of the five Autodesk donated design suites, three are museum favorites:

• Autodesk Architecture, Engineering and Construction Collection
• Autodesk Media and Entertainment Collection
• Autodesk Product Design Collection

Explore Autodesk tools

See the Autodesk FAQ page for a list of free and paid training resources for its design applications.

Get the Latest Microsoft Products for Every Part of Your IT System

Like most of us, many museums rely on Microsoft products for back office networking, office productivity, communications, and managing data. That's why Microsoft products are among the top products requested by museums at TechSoup. We offer the latest versions of Windows, Office, Server products, and nearly everything else that Microsoft makes.

Our museum members particularly like Microsoft Project and SQL Server.

Save on Microsoft software

Protect Your Organization and Donors from Viruses, Malware, and Hacking

Your donors and members trust that you will keep their information safe. Defend that data from viruses, spyware, and hackers by using the right security tools. The Symantec donation program at TechSoup offers antivirus and Internet security for your local area network, Mac and Windows computers, and mobile devices.

Symantec Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition is museums' favorite application for protecting devices on their networks. It was our most requested product by all TechSoup members last year.

Get Symantec Endpoint Protection

Manage Your Finances with QuickBooks

Intuit's QuickBooks is industry-leading accounting software. It lets you organize your finances all in one place and complete frequent tasks in fewer steps. It's easy to use for non-bookkeepers, with features like easy importing of data from spreadsheets. It's also powerful for keeping track of invoices, revenues, and expenses and reporting on them to your various constituents.

QuickBooks Premier Editions is the product donation most popular with TechSoup's museum and historical site members.

Get QuickBooks

Get Up to Speed Quickly on QuickBooks

QuickBooks Made Easy is a popular DVD-based training program that explains how to set up QuickBooks and how to

• Perform the basic QuickBooks tasks that are most useful to nonprofits
• Run nonprofit-specific reports
• Organize data for an annual audit and the IRS 990 form

Find the Hardware You Need

Of course, nonprofits also need hardware to run their software on, which is why TechSoup's hardware donations are so in demand. TechSoup's hardware programs offer both new and factory-refurbished commercial-grade laptop and desktop computers to our members. Our factory-refurbished laptop and desktop computers provide high-quality IT equipment at less than half the price of equivalent new equipment.

TechSoup's hardware catalog is constantly expanding, so check out our hardware page for the latest offers.

Give Your Technology a Boost

Join your fellow museums and historical sites in taking advantage of waived admin fees and deeper discounts on favorite products like new Dell hardware, the Adobe Photoshop Elements 14 and Premiere Elements 14 bundle, Tableau professional data visualization software, and Box online file-sharing and content management service. All these and many more things are included in the special subscription offer, TechSoup Boost.

Beyond the Top Donations: Hidden Gems for Museums and Historical Sites

Here are some less well-known programs that our museum members also like.

Shopify offers a way for small museums to have a low-cost and easy online store for their products and souvenirs.

Guide by Cell lets you create interactive audio tours of exhibits that visitors access with their mobile phones.

Guide by Cell's Mobile Website is a web-based platform for creating and managing a website optimized for smartphones.

Connect2give Suite is a mobile marketing service that enables museums to develop and engage with their communities and collect mobile donations via mobile devices. The Suite Plan includes services for mobile web donations, text donations billed to a credit card, and mobile alerts.

Stay Current with TechSoup Offers

Check out TechSoup's Museums or Historical Sites page for the latest offers and news. And don't forget to check your eligibility to see all the donation programs your organization may be eligible for. Sign up for our weekly email By the Cup newsletter and Product Alerts to keep up with nonprofit technology news and new product donation offers.

Image 1: Monkey Business Images / Shutterstock

Image 2: Microsoft

Image 3: Monkey Business Images / Shutterstock

Image 4: Monkey Business Images / Shutterstock

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