See how we used Google’s free calendar to help Kathy’s Camp for kids manage their events in an easy and affordable way…

Google has a number of very useful and free web-based tools,including Google Maps, Gmail, and Google Docs, just to name a few. All are excellent, user-friendly applications, and Google Calendar is no exception.

When Kathy’s Camp asked us to develop a website for their budding organization, one of the criteria was that it have an easy-to-use calendar of events that they could update themselves via an admin tool. So, a custom built, Ruby on Rails-based calendar was part of the initial project scope. During the research and concept phase, our programmer Ben suggested Google Calendar as a much more affordable answer. It didn’t come with the feature set that our custom solution would have provided, but it did fulfill the most important duties. While we were skeptical at first, after doing minimal testing and configuration, we quickly realized that it’s user-friendly interface and price tag (free!) made it a great fit for our cost-conscious, non-profit client.

Almost seamless integration

One of the nicest features of most Google applications (like Google Maps, YouTube, and Google Search) is that the code for the application can be embedded directly into any webpage, making it an integral, and almost seamless part of your website. This is the point at which the application goes from being a nice calendar for personal use to a viable option for small businesses. It can also help to promote your events because the calendar and it’s events are visible to Google’s search engine, should you choose to make your calendar public.

Easy to Use

Administrators at Kathy’s Camp can easily add events with dates, times, and details through the Google Calendar admin interface. Visitors can easily view the events in a current or future month, click on an event for details, then with one click add the event to their own Google Calendar, if they have one.

While there are some trade-offs involved with using Google Calendar—it doesn’t come with the bells and whistles that a more expensive events calendar would provide, it’s customizability is limited, and you just can’t get rid of that ubiquitous Google branding—it’s a great solution for anyone who needs a low-cost, user-friendly events calendar on their website. It was the right solution for Kathy’s Camp for kids.

Click here to see the Calendar in action at the Kathy’s Camp website.
Click here to visit the Google Calendar website.

Tags: calendar, google, Kathy's Camp, non-profit