Not a 501c3

Howdy Y'all from South Texas on the Gulf of Mexico.

I am the promotions director and a moderator for http://www.menwithfibro.com. It is a website for men with Fibromyalgia. Mainly a forum based community where men with Fibro can find info, support etc. We are not yet a 501c3 but have been talking about it, it will be a big step for us and we are not sure if we are ready.

My question is this, do we have to be a 501c3 to get any of the TechSoup products for our site. I am currently working on a Tutorial with Camstasia donated by Tech Smith and want to make opening and closing signs if you will and instructions to appear in the tutorial. I would like to clean up our logo and do other things for the site also. I was told that I need PhotoShop Elementsa to do these things. I was told that it is much easier than the full blown PhotoShop which is good as I am learning as I go. Is there a way that it would be available to a website/forum that is not a 501c3?

Thanks ahead of time for you help with this matter.

XcntrK

Hello there, welcome to Tech Soup.  Here is Adobe's Restrictions page.  If all you are looking for is Photoshop Elements, perhaps you could find it on Amazon or Ebay?  I've purchased it for home use for $75 this past winter. 

Thank you for the qwick reply and the link, it answered my question. Do you know if all of the donated products from this site only go to 501c3's?

Hi XcntrK,

Welcome to TechSoup's forums. Your question is a good one (and frequently asked around these parts).

The donated and discounted products available to be requested through TechSoup Stock, are only available to registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations or public libraries. You can see the full eligibility details here: http://www.techsoup.org/stock/faq.asp#q2_1

Beyond those guidelines, our donor partners (ie, Adobe in this case), can also set specific restrictions and requirements for eligibility based on the type of organization or the services provided.

We do, however, have a variety of resources available to folks who aren't eligible to receive product donations through TechSoup. Our forums, blog, and articles are available for anyone to use. Check out this article, which largely applies to nonprofits as well, but also provides reseller information for Adobe programs.

There are also free alternatives to Photoshop Elements, like GIMP. Check out this recent article that reviews different free and low-cost options as well as some of the pricier options for photo editing: A Few Good Photo Manipulation Tools

Some of the options discussed there might be just the tool you need. There are also a handful of forum discussions covering photo editing/manipulation, so check them out for more opinions of different products out there.

Hope that helps!

You should be able to use any image editing program (not just PhotoShop Elements). There are some pretty good discussions about image editors here in the TechSoup forum, including one titled Photoshop Alternatives

I always recommend GIMP. It'll be able to do everything you need and more.

Paint.NET is also good (and easier to use). This is what I give people here in the office when they start asking about Photoshop. Never had any problems.

Both programs are free (and open source)

I want to thank all of Y'all for the info and the warm welcome. I have found a great well of knowledge here.

I will be checking out the links which you provided and I hope to lean a lot from them.

Thanks again

nice:)

usefull