Best tech solution asynchrnous written group communication?

June 16, 2023 9:15 AM

I sit on the board of a nonprofit with members scattered around the globe. We have an issue we want to debate in writing over a period of weeks. Best way to do that?

I’m looking for the best tech solution to allow asynchronous written communication which everyone in the group can read and respond to as the wish. Ideally the platform would ding all group members when a new message comes in. Also ideal (but not essential) would be the capacity to upload files.

I'm dimly aware there are a number of solutions to this common need but don't know where to start. What do you recommend?

posted by mono blanco to Technology (7 answers total)

What's wrong with email? Seems like it fits all your requirements.
posted by caek at 9:16 AM on June 16, 2023

Slack would work for this. There is a free tier that might meet your needs.
posted by sriracha at 9:35 AM on June 16, 2023

Seconding Slack. It also has a poll feature, which might be handy.

Certainly people have used email for this purpose for decades, but I don't think it's the best tool. People have a tendency to respond to earlier comments in the thread and it's harder to keep the full discussion in one place.
posted by AndrewInDC at 9:49 AM on June 16, 2023

Teams has a free tier too, and hate to say it but it's actually decent for cooperation? You can upload files, edit them cooperatively, there's a forum-type thing with channels and threaded messages and separately, text chat (plus people can side-chat with others privately).
posted by I claim sanctuary at 10:04 AM on June 16, 2023

You might look into Basecamp. We use this at my work and it's really great. You can upload files (although I don't think you can edit them online), you can have threaded conversations (this is the "Message Board" feature), there are chat rooms (the "Campfire") and direct messages ("Pings"), there are notifications in the app/website, and you can enable email notifications as well. There's a discount for 501(c)(3) nonprofits as well.

In my opinion, email is not good for this type of thing, for reasons noted above. In addition, when files are involved, you end up emailing back and forth stuff like

Proposal version 2 (revised) final (1).ppt

and everybody's head explodes.
posted by number9dream at 10:27 AM on June 16, 2023

I agree that exchanging versioned documents via email is not good, but if I understand correctly OP wants to facilitate an asynchronous written conversation, not collaborate on documents.

I can see lots of arguments against email, but one pro is that everyone on this non profit board knows how to use it (which is likely not true of slack, for example).
posted by caek at 12:11 PM on June 16, 2023

Zulip is good for this, has better threading than Slack and in my experience is faster in the web browser than Slack, and has special offers for nonprofits. Disclaimer: I have worked on Zulip in the past.
posted by brainwane at 4:55 AM on June 27, 2023