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The Balsamiq Software Donation Program

We've donated our software since day one. Read all about it here.

Did you receive our software for free? Add a comment below!

Peldi for the Balsamiq Team

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Comments (137)

  1. I just want to take a moment to express my gratitude for the Balsamiq team and their amazing tool for designing my non-profit/charity project. Balsamiq has been an absolute lifesaver throughout the entire process, allowing me to quickly and easily create wireframes and mockups that truly capture my vision. The intuitive interface and wealth of features make it a joy to use, and I couldn’t be happier with the results. Thank you, Balsamiq team, for creating such an incredible tool and for making my design process so much smoother and more efficient. And finally, “Life’s too short for bad software!”, thank you for standing out from the crowd.

    Phu Le Ngo
  2. Balsamiq donated licenses to our international charity several years ago and it has been a big help in developing our application to manage information about volunteers. I’ve recently used it for two other new applications. It is so easy to use that training isn’t needed and I can pick it up again a year later with no problem. It is extremely helpful to be able to mock up screens so the users can easily see what they will look like and we can make changes in the requirements/design phase instead of after the application has been developed. It fits perfectly with our organization where everyone is a volunteer working very part time.

  3. I love Balsamiq, they help me a lot with the donation program.
    I am currently designing a website to help the animals of Ecuador, and this program helped me to do the whole UX design process to give a perfect design and then get more help for the animals.

    William
  4. Saludos desde el centro del mundo, Ecuador!
    Gracias a Balsamiq por ayudar a nuestra fundaciĂłn para recuperar la fauna ecuatoriana, estamos muy entusiasmados en trabajar con esta herramienta y entregar una pĂĄgina web con todo el proceso Ux implementado.
    Gracias de parte mĂ­a, de todo el equipo y de los animalitos que ayudarĂĄn.

    William Cochea
  5. Hello!
    We are Scafander Games, a non-profit game design studio. We create interactive smartphone novels for young people on human rights. Our first game, “Spring in Bishkek”, talks about the problem of kidnapping women to force them into marriage, and the second game, “The Mystery of Sary-Kol”, is about the problem of child marriages in Central Asia. We are currently working on our third novel about propaganda and disinformation in Russia.
    All our games are 100% free to play, we are raising money from individuals and non-profit foundations to produce them.
    We use Balsamiq to design our apps, thanks to the licences they have kindly donated to us twice throughout past 3 years.
    It is good software created by good people.
    We simply love it.

    Scafander Games
  6. Hola, somos una universidad pĂșblica, generamos sistemas informĂĄticos para poder brindar acceso a servicios de calidad para toda la comunidad universitaria. Es posible acceder a su herramienta?

    Sofia Codocedo
  7. We’re a nonprofit making open-source software, so a great wireframing tool is essential. Thanks, Balsamiq!

    Josh Chamberlain
  8. Dear Balsamiq,

    Thank you so much, both for the incredibly good software you’ve developed and for providing it to organizations like ours which wouldn’t otherwise have access to it!

    We’re a non-profit which aims to improve access to healthcare within the most remote and underserved places on the planet. One way we do so is with software! The opensource software we provide helps governments track the whereabouts and stock levels of medications and vaccines, and reorder them soon enough to avoid stockouts. We’ve demonstrated that the approach saves lives, but are also reliant on very non-technical users shifting from inefficient pen and paper workflows to the digital age. That’s where you come in! Every efficiency we can introduce to the UX, and every window we can made more intuitive, drives adoption of the software. It’s broadly recognized to work in multiple countries – and your software is helping us make it a reality in even more.

    Thank you sincerely for the great software! Not only are you indirectly saving lives, you’re helping make it fun and easier to do so!

    Sincerely,
    Ben Leibert

    Ben Leibert
  9. Dear Balsamiq Team,

    My team can’t thank you enough for your kind act of donating to non-profit organization.

    I cannot mention in which ways balsamic will do wonders for us. With this we will quickly gather ideas and requirements from our users which includes, doctors, nurses, OT staff, and others clinical staff, they are non-technical people and it’s really hard to guess what they want in the system.

    We are charitable Hospital running a fully automated system, to manage everything in our hospital, from patient services to staff attendance system, our vision is to not produce the paper.

    We are currently revamping our in-house HMIS, and balsamic will be a wonderful addition to our tool set.

    again, lots of thanks to all of you guys.

    Thanks, and Prayers from Pakistan <3

    Falak Ejaz
  10. Balsamiq team

    Thanks so much for your software and your donations to non-profits and open source projects.

    With Balsamiq we will be able to create prototypes, layout the content and improve the way we display information to users of passenger transport in Andalusia (Spain).

    Thanks

    Juan Carlos
  11. Dear Balsamiq team,

    I cannot thank you enough for creating such fantastic software and for your generous donations to non-profits and open source projects.

    We are a think-tank focused on the Sustainable Development Goals (eliminating extreme poverty, tackling climate change, etc…). Balsamiq has been massively helpful in accelerating our brainstorming, prototyping, and user feedback phases for our open data portals and interactive websites for our reports.

    Thank you from Paris! ♄
    Finn

    Finn Woelm
  12. Hey guys,
    I am a Interface Design Student at the FH Potsdam in Berlin (Potsdam). I wanted to ask you, if there is a possible to get your balsamiq software for a lower price?

    Best
    Isabell Herzog

    Isabell
    • Hi Isabell,

      For educational use, we offer both Balsamiq Wireframes for Desktop or Balsamiq Wireframes for Google Drive for free through our software donation program. One of your professors can apply on your behalf via our online form below, to receive a license for their whole class:
      https://balsamiq.com/givingback/free/

      I hope this helps! If you have any questions, you can reach us at sales@balsamiq.com 🙂

      Kendra

      Kendra Kirk
  13. Balsamiq is the standard, is there anyone else? Our small team have all used it at several organizations and this works beautifully.
    Thank you for paying it forward for organizations like ours!

    Our mission as is to remove finance as a worry for students for under-served students. Thousands of deserving students don’t even dream of studying abroad at some of the best universities because they have always believed it’ll be unaffordable. We are driven to remove this belief, and encourage every student to dream of, apply to, and get into the BEST possible college they can.
    Via our partnerships with scholarship foundations, banks in the US, philanthropists, and work-study programs, we help plan each student’s finances; not just for tuition, but down to the last dollar including living, books and also flight expenses.

    Most of our process is online, a workflow for both our internal team and especially for students. Balsamiq is also where we started when we wanted to further help for students to not just paying for their college, but also career guidance & planning after college too!

  14. Balsamiq is the best. Simply put it allows us to speak visually with everyone. Our IT team gets it, our Marketing and Design team gets it, our web development team gets is. And the software is so easy to use. It’s simple to click and drag. You can take all those notes from paper or sketch and turn them into prototypes.

    The best part for us is being able to show a design along with its functionality – this is how it looks and how we want it to behave. Often the “tech” folks understand the behavior and the “design” folks understand how it should look, but being able to put those two needs together is incredibly helpful for everyone.

    Our web development team is overseas and so being able to quickly grab screenshots and add annotations has saved us money and time where we used to have to go back and forth.

    We’ve had a license key for more than 8 years and I personally use it every month. It’s been an incredible time saver and has really helped us grow and refine our website.

    I cannot thank you enough.
    -Liz

  15. As a non-profit focused on cancer prevention and control, we greatly appreciate the donation of Balsamiq, the best Wireframing tool on the market.
    The generous Balsamiq model of donating software to “do-gooders” is both inspiring and extremely helpful to informatics groups such as ours.

  16. Balsamiq is an exceptionally amazing wireframing software. I have been using it for some time now and I can absolutely say that I am addicted to it.

    Their “Donate” is really an amazing initiative to help non-profits. Please keep up the great work guys. You guys truly will help the world get rid of bad softwares.

  17. Excellent software, I am freelance and I use it for my projects and thanks to this tool my projects are wonderful I recommend it for anyone who does developments, that good tool is fantastic.

    Regards

    Carlos

  18. I am a student and really enjoy using the software. It is the best for college projects. It is enjoyable. I have been student two years

    Julie Anderson
  19. Hi Balsamiq Team – A big Thank you!

    I volunteer software engineering services for social good to organizations and governments and been always challenged on translating abstract ideas and concepts to my stakeholders and sponsors.

    Through Balsamiq wireframes, I can now say it’s a thing of the past as its easy, fast, and collaborative. This license really enables me to share more and hopefully do good in the world.

    Thanks,
    Kevin

    Kevin Barasa
  20. This is an awesome program – Turn2me.org in Ireland – providing mental health solutions for youth and more – are benefitting from it now with donations from the Balsamiq team. Get Mockups and start those wireframes now!

    Here’s what we’ve done already!

    https://uxplanet.org/leaning-into-user-experience-with-twilio-and-turn2me-3a8e8b0960ea

  21. Thank you Balsamiq for our freebie license and such a speedy response!

    We are a not-for-profit organisation working across sub-Saharan Africa and Bangladesh to provide the poorest communities with access to safe drinking water and sanitation. A large part of what we do involves setting up and supporting sustainable water and sanitation businesses, working with stakeholders like utilities to build their skills and capacity. Although Balsamiq is fantastic for creating wireframes for digital solutions, I often use it simply to create intricate flow diagrams which help communicate plans and processes, which can be particularly difficult to explain when working in global teams. Different language preferences can make visual collaboration far more productive that long-winded written strategies. I plan to introduce the tool to more colleagues as it’s so intuitive to use.

    Annie Hall
  22. Thank you Balsamiq!

    We are from the Outdoor Education Group (OEG) and OEG takes young people into the outdoors so they can learn about themselves, others and the natural world. Our team supports that work by giving OEG staff access to apps that allow them to forecast, plan and deliver quality outdoor education.

    As a not-for-profit organisation receiving access to Balsamiq has saved so much time in development, enabling us to achieve our goals quicker. This means we can focus more on delivering amazing outdoors experiences for young Australians!

    Lachie

  23. Thank you – We barely had applied when Alasdair got back to me so graciously. We’ll post again when we have something built to show, but wanted to express our appreciation as promptly as you expressed your generosity! Enjoy your day.

  24. No doubts ! Inspiring i read each and every word you shared for donating or do something good for do-gooders. Well i am almost a freelancer, who is not very successful but working hard and not unhoped from the chances i am gonna get soon. Well i am going to use the trial period for now if in case you will not asked for any card for trial.

    I am simply an un successful business analyst and try to use different tools and balasmiq sounds interesting to me and i am good follower of you as how you started and motivated for your own startup. Well all about i might be able to do good for sure in case i will be successful with my skills. I really dont know why i am writing all these here but i m inspired with your donation programme and may apply if in case i may possible.

    Thanks for sharing good stories and inspiring people like us.

    Help with your best wishes, i may come back some day and purchase a license with enterprise account with you.

    Regards
    Faisal

    Faisal R Fazli
    • Hi Faisal and thanks for reaching out! 🙂

      Just wanted to confirm that we don’t ask for any cc details during the trial period. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions, we’re here to help!

  25. Fantastic tool, thank you Balsamiq Team! I contribute to open-source Apache projects in the Hadoop eco-system and Balsamic is a great way to do quick wireframes and continue to help the open-source community.

    Cheers,
    Alejandro Fernandez

    Alejandro Fernandez
  26. thanks for all your efforts
    can i ask a question
    how can i translate a finished project to mobile app

    • Hi Ehab! Balsamiq is low-fidelity wireframing tool, and its intent is to let you rapidly showcase your design ideas. It’s more of a rough draft, like sketching ideas on a whiteboard. To bring your wireframes to life in a real mobile app, you’ll need to get some coding done. We’re not in the business of building apps, but if you onboard a developer, they can help!

      Liz Green
  27. Hi Balsamiq Team

    I am never happier than when pulling together designs using Balsamiq. It’s been a real bonus for me and my team and has enabled us to pull together much stronger wireframes. The knock-on effect has been introducing people to standardized graphics which has reduced the number of questions we get around the meaning of specific icons etc.

  28. Hi Balsamiq team, thank you for donating Balsamiq.
    We work for the World Food Programme and we’re using its mockups. That’s amazing!!! Thanks!

    Michela
  29. Hi Balsamiq team, thank you for donating your amazing Balsamiq.

    We are a growing NGO, aiming to End Tuberculosis (TB) in the world, and internally we are managing many IT projects simultaneously with couple IT specialists. One of our IT team’s challenge has been to present those projects to the senior management and to get necessary approvals without investing our limited resources to create demos and prototypes. For me, Balsamiq has been proven to be a great communication for non-IT colleagues. My colleagues and the management can instantly understand what we want to do and how it will benefit the organization. The mockup sparked new ideas, energetic discussion and constructive feedback.

    Your software has been effective for innovating our organization, and supporting our cause to end TB in the world. I hope that your company continuously develop and improve this amazing software and support NGOs in the world. Thank you so much for donating your software.

  30. Hi Balsamiq team, thank you so much for your help with donating Mockups for my project First aid for children. Thanks to your SW is much faster and easier to test new designs and UX improvements and then overall site usability. And more usable site equals to more moms being able to save their most loved ones in critical situations. Thank you again! Vlasta

  31. I was glad to see that Balsamiq help us make our world a better place. I have the honor to help our organization teach children who can’t afford the education they need. using our new Mockups license we”ll create a new web site which will assist us help more children and teach them how to make this world, even better.

    Aharon Ohayon
  32. I am co-founder of a not-for-profit startup looking to provide wellbeing monitoring for elderly persons who live alone.
    Think about it, in the UK alone, there are over 7 million persons ages 65+, and more than half of them live alone. Most are dealing with at least one life-changing illness, some up to three.
    The do-gooder license will go a long way to help us achieve our goals.
    Thanks to Balsamiq for this excellent initiative

    Micheal Aderinto
  33. A big thank you to Balsamiq! We were using the mockup tool in the development process of mobile apps for different projects on our platform Geo-Wiki (www.geo-wiki.org) and LandSense.eu! Putting together wireframes helps us very well for making decisions within the project teams which are spread across various countries and continents. Many thanks for providing us with free licenses, we will put them to good use – keep up the good work! 🙂

  34. Thank you Balsamiq! The Anti-Harassment Tools team at the Wikimedia Foundation is using your software to build better tools for our Wikipedia users.

    It’s a breeze to draft up a wireframe to illustrate my ideas for our users or my team.

  35. Balsamiq donated the license for wireframing jihomoravsky.pirati.cz, web of regional department of Czech Pirate Party in South Moravia. Thank you for supporting open and transparent society!

  36. We are small online photoschool from Russia. Hey!)
    We just try to make photography easier for people and do it with videolessons, tests, etc. And of course we have to develop good website, so people will glad to use it and don’t get bored.
    We use balsamiq for wire framing almost 2 years, and all that time this great team and especially Valerie help us with this 🙂 I’m sure that if anytime in the future I develop some commercial soft, I will share it with do-gooders completely free as well. Pay forward, stay grateful!

  37. I have no experience with any wireframing software but needed to get a mock up of a phone app done quickly. Nothing special, just about 7 or 8 example screens.

    I tried several software solutions. Balsamiq is the one that worked best for me by far and let me get it done without much of a learning curve at all.

    Further, when I contacted the folks at Balsamiq and asked if our registered non-profit could get a discount on a paid tier of the product they got back to me quickly and said, “Sure, no problem.”

  38. Pontvelem is a nonprofit program to enhance young generation commitment to sustainable development focusing on recollection and recycling, combined with financial and economical consciousness and importance of charity. Our team team is very thankful for Balsamic Team for support they provide for us. Thanks for this great tool. You are really fantastic!

  39. Thanks to the Balsamic team for supporting my first attempt at wire framing. Your generosity and support is greatly appreciated!
    Niko

  40. We are a French institute working in research against cancer, and i’m very happy and proud to became a do-gooders. Thanks to Val from Balsamiq for supporting our work and projects with your generosity.
    Marc

  41. All these comments are amazing.

    Thank you so much for supporting our initiative.

    It’s an honor to be able to help you make the world a better place. More importantly, it’s great to see that our intention of encouraging others to donate is resonating with the community. Let’s keep sharing this idea.

    Again, a whole lot of WIN!

    jessica
  42. Currently we are using myBalsamiq for wireframing our app. This app, which will be totally free and without any in-app purchases, will challenge users to do gardening without pesticides. myBalsamiq is really a great tool to share and discuss the wireframes of our app. We especially appreciate the fact that we can make a clickable prototype. Thanks to myBalsamiq we will be able to deliver a great app which will make the garden and neighbourhood of our users a healthier place.

    You guys at myBalsamiq are the best!!! Thanks for this fantastic tool which makes designing a mobile app much easier.

    Bert Carremans
  43. Thank you very much balsamiq team!

    A lot of disable people from our organization are learning how to design web page. I wish that more companies will contribute to our world like you did!

    ahva

  44. I “ditto” Justin’s comments. I had the pleasure of speaking with Valerie Liberty today. I received over-the-top excellent service. She really listened to what I was saying – so rare in today’s fast-paced world. I appreciate the opportunity for the “do gooder” license and am excited to dive in and use Balsamiq to create my storyboard. It’s not often that I’m moved to comment about my experience with a company. Today is the exception.

    Linda Lange
  45. I would like to say that you guys are amazing. Your dedication to open source, as well as charities is astonishing. Being a web developer and owning my own business, I have used the same principals that you have applied to my business. Thanks to the free non-profit license I have received from Balsamiq, I have returned the favor by providing several non-profit and local charities free websites to house their charity events and information about their organization. Thank you balsamiq for caring!

  46. guys,

    we love your tool, and keep using it for our initial start which is planned by the end of Jule. Thanks for giving us the opportunity of a (heavily) extended trial period of myBalsamiq, especially in the starting phase of a startup!

    Best,
    stefan

  47. Balsamiq is really easy-to-use but the important thing is, there is a story and good will at this projects heart.

    Basically Balsamiq helps me to improve my knowledge about design as well as providing free useful UI/UX designs to -especially- students and/or new grads for their good ideas about domestic or Worldwide improvement.

    Keep up the good work!

    Efecan Basoz
  48. Dear Balsamiq’ers, I just wish to say I appreciate the great software you have built and wish to applaud your guts for giving it away to others who are trying to make a difference.
    First of all the software has a very gentle learning curve and you can get started on just 2 five minute tutorials. The sketch and wireframe skins are classy and prototyping on pdf just adds a whole new dimension of “WOW!”.

    I am trying to bring aid closer to invalids and other home bound patients through a free app. Will be lucky to break-even even with offline marketing after a 100K users. So every little bit helps us in bootstrapping our little business to fight another day and Balsamiq has been a great help in giving away their software to us for free!
    Thank you so much and God bless you all!

  49. Balsamiq has given us a tool to easily visually sketch out ideas for the systems we’re designing. This puts the user experience at the forefront of our minds very early in the process, and has been an invaluable asset during the design process. Thank you, Balsamiq, for your donation.

  50. Looking to cut costs for my non-profit community Church app platform I decided to do most of the UX/UI design myself and asked Balsamiq for some help after trying out the mockup tool. To make a long story short, they were generous and if all goes well, they will be honorably mentioned on the largest Church app platform in world. And even if it fails, God sees. Wish me luck or pray for Theosity.

    Thanks again Balsamiq!
    The Lord bless you and make His face shine upon you…

  51. Thank you so much for the D-Gooder access!

    I am a long time user of Balsamiq Desktop but i do a lot of work in the public/not for profit sector and asked for a do-gooder extended trial of MyBalsamic so that my colleagues can share in it’s brilliance too. Thank you Joy for making that hapopen and i’m sure that you’ll have a new bunch of Balsamiq evangelists as a result!

    Paul Lyndon
  52. Balsamiq I cannot thank you enough on behalf of Pinnacle Church Planting Network. Your product is going to make our lives a whole lot easier when it comes to developing our ideas as a graphics team. You guys are incredibly amazing for being willing to give to others! Thank you SO much! Your product is absolutely amazing!!

  53. Valerie and the whole Balsamiq organization is one class act. Not only did they answer my questions about Mockups Desktop, it was enjoyable to talk to them and feel the energy they have for do-gooders. As a volunteer rescue / recovery scuba diver my work has me doing things I never imagined. Using Mockups has made the dry side of this work much easier.

    Thanks for promoting and sharing the excitement for do-gooders!

    Stephen
  54. Interesting perspective Don!

    A couple things:
    – now that we employ 17 people, our profit margins are much lower (around 35%).
    – our software donations never qualified as tax breaks

    Peldi Guilizzoni
  55. I honestly am pretty *upset* by this post; why? You admit outright that you are taking 80% profit margins, which is not only greedy but so much more than you need that you are donating large portions of your profit away again.

    The message here is that you’re ripping off businesses and then giving away their money, perhaps so you can take some nice tax breaks. The whole setup is rather unethical when you consider that small businesses who need your software but don’t qualify for donations are going to be hurt the most by your profiteering.

  56. Thank you Balsamiq (and especially Valerie Liberty)! It’s been a little over a year since you’ve donated licenses to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and we’re still very grateful for this amazing tool.

  57. Thank you, Balsamiq. Your contribution to our organization means our development team can continue to flush out new ideas for our thousands of kindergarten and 1st grade students trying to learn how to read.

    Using Balsamiq, we’re able to talk about ideas faster, get proof of concept going before we even code, and waste less time haggling with design through code.

    Keep working for the good!

    rb

  58. Thank you so much! Our institution is struggling so hard and I was dreading asking the administration for money for this greatly needed tool for the donor and student web application that I am trying to build for them. The free license notwithstanding, I did a lot of research of different mockup programs and I really liked yours the best. It is so easy to use and does exactly what I need it to do.

    If only more people and companies would take the time to care, this world would surely be a better place. With people like you guys – I think we are on our way.

    In the merit your good deeds may your company have much success in all your endeavors.

    Kelly Klein
    Neve Yerushalayim Computer Department

  59. Hi there – just wanted to say THANK YOU to Balsamiq – I use it to prototype iOS Apps @ Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and we’re having a blast! I really appreciate the licenses and I promise to make even better apps for patients and doctors now that I’m using Balsamiq. No duds.

    Thanks again!

  60. This is a really great side to your business. Charities, particularly small ones, rarely have budget to spend on niche software so having access to tools like this is invaluable. Thank you very much for the licenses. We plan to build great products off them 🙂

    Kimberley
    Kenyan Orphan Project

  61. I also want to send over my sincere thanks to Balsamiq (and Valerie!) for providing the Getty with free Balsamiq licenses. We used Balsamiq in order to create clickable wireframes for a digital publishing project, and test it with art history scholars. The testing was amazing and helped us refine the project. Working with Balsamiq was key. Your organization is helping in a big way to move forward the world of digital scholarly publishing!

  62. I just want to express my sincere thanks to Balsamic, especially to Valerie Liberty, for the impressively quick response to my request for a do-gooder license of Mockups. To my surprise, I got my request granted within 1 hour after I submitted it. More importantly, Valerie was generous enough to give me multiple licenses for our non-profit work. Before I made my request, I already like Mockups as a tried it since it allowed me to quickly create my mockup with a lot of convenient ready-made UI objects; it definitely saved me time. Amazing!

    Thank you so much again for the good you all do there Balsamic.

    Benigno
  63. Balsamiq astonished our team with it’s web version functionality. Even complex actions like nested grouping and editing grouped elements is easy and intuitive. Filling in data elements like Data Grid is quick and comfortable.
    Thanks to the whole Balsamiq group for giving us the opportunity to use so a nice tool.

  64. A big thanks from The Scripps Research Institute for extending our license in your “do-gooder” program. We use Balsamiq to plan out our training website and some of our database layouts. It’s a very easy tool to work with and allows us to share the new mock-ups and designs with our team quickly and efficiently.

    Scripps Research is non-profit organization working on some amazing things, which have the potential to help to develop cures for Alzheimer’s, cancer, AIDS and drug addiction.

    Owen
    The Scripps Research Institute
    http://www.scripps.edu

  65. Since we received our do-gooder license to Balsamiq Mockups, we’ve been able to work on iterative improvements to our websites much more easily. It’s a great tool to have at hand. I’m really happy with how quickly I can sketch designs and get them to the rest of the team for their feedback.

    Thanks so much for your support.

    David
    Religion News LLC

  66. Balsamiq donated a license to my group at edX fairly early on. It’s been a tremendously valuable tool. I’ve never used competing tools, so I can’t judge relative quality, but it does everything we need, and it’s saved us tremendous amounts of time.

  67. I have been using a do-gooder copy of Balsamiq Mockups off and on since 2010, and it just occurred to me that I’ve never thanked the good folks here for the donation! I’ve been able to help, as a volunteer, a small number of local NGO’s, churches, and impoverished rural units of local government (townships) with their website planning using Balsamiq. I only wish I were a better designer, but at least the organization and layout of the sites were pretty solid, thanks to the wonderful tool that Balsamiq provided! Thank you for all your help!

    Howard Yamaguchi
  68. Hi Basalmiq folks! Just a quick note to say THANK YOU for the do-gooder license you have given to CaringBridge! We are a non-profit dedicated to offering personal, protected web sites that make it easy to stay connected during any type of health event. The Basalmiq tool has been a great tool for our current work wireframing the iOS and Android versions of our apps. It has become my go-to tool for wireframing; it’s a quick and light weight application to quickly get your thoughts down on paper.

    Basalmiq deserves a big thank you from the UX community for donating so many software licenses! They have helped so many great organizations to further their missions.

    Thanks again!

    Michael Ibach
    User Interface Designer
    CaringBridge
    http://www.caringbridge.org

  69. Hello Balsamiqistas,

    Now that I’ve spent some time with your software I wanted to give you and your team a long-distance high-five for this indispensable tool. I’ve used it for mocking up two websites and a tablet app, so besides being easy to use it also has proven to be very flexible.

    I spent a good amount of time testing various mockup tools, and I’m glad to report that Balsamiq is now a permanent part of my toolbox. It never gets in my way and does exactly what it’s supposed to do.

    Nice work!

    Regards,
    Gabriel
    SETI Institute

    Gabriel
  70. For the design of the new “Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland” (e-codices) we use Balsamiq Mockups for Confluence. It’s a supberb and truly user-friendly tool that integrates perfectly with the Confluence wiki. The ease of use makes us more productive and adds extra fun to our work. Thank you so much for the generous free license!

  71. Hey Balsamiq!

    Thanks so so much for the Do-Gooder licence. We’re Geek Girl Meetup, we bring women together from across the world every few months to talk code, web and startup. We’re always demo-ing Balsamiq as it’s such a great tool but it allows us to show girls that want to get into tech that there are quick and versatile ways to start playing around with product design and user journeys. We’re huge fans and all the Geek Girls that try it are too – we can’t wait to get people using it as well so they can all start building their own Balsamiq mockups and then products too!

  72. An Ode of Gratitude to Team Balsamiq

    CyberTracker Conservation would like to thank Team Balsamiq
    For the two free licenses to their software uber slick.
    Now we’re, um, making a “mockery” of our design blocks,
    By using this software that totally rocks!
    The salad of wire-framing is now oh-so-tasty
    Thanks to the seasoning we added – Balsamiq zesty!

    The good Team Balsamiq is doing deserves a loud applause,
    Since they’re striving hard to further such a noble cause.
    Their philanthropic spirit in helping non-profits out
    Is something to absolutely to write home about!
    Keep up the excellent work! You’re making a difference!
    Giving generously – giving in abundance.

    -The CyberTracker Team

    The CyberTracker Team
  73. I am working with a small and mighty non-profit called Project IDDACT, dedicated to making special education more accessible and effective for families of children with special-needs. Bright enthusiastic volunteers from various fields and geographic locations collaborate in building and accommodating assistive technologies.

    We are currently exploring the beneficial uses of interactive technology to help children with autism reach their full potential. Having Mockups around is such a great help! In prototyping apps, we have found Balsamiq to be a strong ally, maximizing the time of the volunteers and allowing the kids to try out the ideas before we spend a gillion hours on developing them. Thank you Val and the whole team for making this possible and for contributing to the greater good with such an amazing tool!

  74. Thank you so much Balsamiq. Valerie gave me a free license as I work for a charity. I was looking for a package to help me mock-up website pages to give to a designer and I did not know how to do it. However, within hours of receiving this package I was able to have mock-ups which I could present to colleagues to explain what I had conceptualized. I highly recommend your product to anyone in a similar situation – it was really simple to get started. I wish you every success with your company and product.

  75. Thank you very much balsamiq company members. Balsamiq mockup builder is one of the best mockups. we use it and i recommended all use balsamiq!!!!

    Hripsime
  76. Setting up a Human Rights Commission in Samoa is a tricky business and one
    of the most important parts is making the information available to the
    whole population. Through using Balsamiq we will be able to design an easy
    to use site that has all the functionality we need. Without this
    user-friendly tool we may not have been able to employ designers to do this
    work for us so you guys have significantly helped in bringing human rights
    to the fore in Samoa! Thanks once again.

  77. Yahoo Balsamiq!

    Like many startups, it’s tough affording a monthly expense at a point when an income stream to support one is a long way off. I greatly appreciate the understanding that Balsamiq has for young, good startups by providing a free license. It helps me forge ahead with more confidence and a corresponding loyalty to the good folks at Balsamiq who are helping me.

    It’s particularly helpful as there are times when my ‘day job’ responsibilities keep me from making as much progress as I’d like, when a month or two go by without using the software. Knowing it’s available when I need it is huge…

    I can promise that when we have an income stream to support using Mockups that I’ll be the first to convert my subscription to real live cash, month to month.

    Thank you Balsamiq; you da best!

    ScholarDollars will help kids and families become financially literate in their day-to-day saving and spending, using mobile devices in a fun, informative family-oriented way.

  78. Our NGO http://carefortribes.webs.com uses Balsamiq not for making websites, but as a lightweight, informal graphic design tool. Our shoestring budget (which comes from our own pockets) prevents us from purchasing apps like Adobe’s Illustrator or even Microsoft Word (Smart Art), so we have to think of ways to create great stuff within our limitations. Balsamiq’s ease of use is extremely helpful when we have volunteers who can’t speak English so well and are not so computer literate. Just drag, drop, tweak, export and it’s done! Thank you Balsamiq for such a great tool!

  79. Hi Valerie

    Thanks very much for the generosity of the not-for-profit registrations for Mock-Ups. We have just finished upgrading and redesigning our website http://www.lowitja.org.au. The Balsamiq mock-ups software was really helpful for bringing together our communications team and the web developers to talk about how the website would look.

    Many thanks
    Johanna

  80. Every time I open Mockups, I think to myself that it is the essential productivity companion to Microsoft Office, my web browser, my donor database, and my development environment.

    I’m someone who is very comfortable mocking up a site in code, but Mockups is a better starting point because it loosens me up to think about my goals and approach instead of nitpicking the little bits. And my work reflects that in the result. I’ll often use it to lay out a template for print design too.

    Thanks for the incredible donation. We’re using it regularly in our environmental education and outreach, and our use (and license use) will grow as we enter our next phase. Thank you, Thank you!

  81. Thank you Balsamiq – on many levels!

    Valerie just graciously gave us a free Balsamiq do-gooder license. We are huge fans of Mockups and especially the spirit of your company. When my partner John and I recently started Jamoki, LLC (a very small mobile software company), we wanted to give back as part of our business goal. We have several not-for-profit projects spec’d out along side our other main stream ideas. As you know, it’s a leap of faith to start up a new venture. Progress is slow but steady and your generosity has added even more fuel to keep moving and paying it forward.

    We are very appreciative, inspired, and committed to living up to our ‘Do-Gooder’ status.

    Sincerely,
    Cynthia McCurdy
    Chief Innovation Officer (CIO), Jamoki LLC.

  82. Balsamiq generously donated five free licenses to Samaritan’s Purse.

    We are a non-profit relief organization and we work in many areas of the world. These are a few examples of our projects:

    1. Clean water projects providing wells, sanitation and education in Africa.

    2. Building a refugee camp in Yida, Sudan for those who fled fighting in the Yuba mountains.

    3. Disaster Relief – we have several fully equipped disaster trucks that we bring in to US sites where floods, fires and earthquakes have devastated the area. We coordinate a team of volunteers – in fact it is upgrades to our volunteer extranet that I am using Balsamiq for.

    4. Children’s Heart project – where we bring children from impoverished countries to America to have life-saving heart surgery.

    5. World Medical Missions – where we refurbish medical equipment for third world hospitals as well as provide a network of volunteer doctors for short-term placement.

    6. Operation Christmas Child – where we collect annually millions of gift-filled shoe boxes and give to provide for children in poor areas of the world.

    We are very thankful for this generous contribution. We are in the process of casting the vision to our users to participate more in the design process. This mock up tool allows them to get immediate feedback and conveys the important concept that they can change their mind and easily rearrange things as we discuss best how to meet their needs.

    David Sable
    Senior Programmer/Analyst
    Information Systems
    Samaritan’s Purse
    PO Box 3000
    Boone, NC 28607
    828.262.1980
    http://www.samaritanspurse.org

  83. Balsamiq Mockups is remarkable: it’s effective and efficient with a pleasant user experience.

    I’ve used the product in the non-profit space and in the business world. Each sector finds value in Balsamiq’s easy-to-use UI and intuitive iconography.

    I can’t stress BMockups importance as a quick and collaborative visual communication tool. I love it.

    Best of all, the team at Balsamiq is the definition of enchanting. They are kind, generous, sincere and engaging.

    I look forward to continue working with Balsamiq in the future, and hope to spread their product(s) far and wide. They’ve got a lifelong user on their hands.

    Simply put? Balsamiq is one of the best software companies out there. Thanks for your “Wow!”-worthy product.

  84. Balsamiq thank you so much for your wonderfully simple and creative software which you allowed me to use for free.

    I am the founder of the bloomtrigger project; a simple, affordable and creative way for people to protect rainforest. I am developing a new visual model of online fundraising to enable individuals, businesses and primary school children to protect their own part of the rainforest in the Peruvian Amazon. I asked you almost a year ago if I could use your software to sketch out my idea, since then I have built my website bloomtrigger.com and we will soon complete our pilot phase to establish our concept. Ultimately we aim to raise ÂŁ100M to help protect 1 million hectares of rainforest worldwide. Your software and organisation has inspired me since the beginning and has played a small yet vital part in making my project successful.

    Many thanks,
    James Sutton
    Founder of bloomtrigger

  85. Pingback: Balsamiq – A whole lot of good! | The Bucky Box Blog

  86. Balsamiq is really amazing – it means that every member of the team can get involved in wireframing and iterating design ideas regardless of their technical ability. We’ve learned that inspiration sometimes comes from the people who aren’t Photoshop or HTML wranglers.

    Ultimately, that’s opening up a whole lot of talent to rethink big problems that otherwise would have been wasted.

    Thanks!

  87. Incredible tool I may say! I spent less than an hour to lecture my colleagues about Mock up from basic concept to how to use it. Everyone just understood how to use Balsamiq immediately.

    I am grateful that you gave me a chance to share information on this most easy and nice looking mock up program ever! With Balsamiq, we constantly communicate with each others using concrete stuff not using words in thin air.

    Thank you and I hope more people to learn about Balsamiq!

    Junsoo kim
  88. Just a few words to say how grateful I am about Balsamiq Mockups.
    I used to do my UI mockups using very expensive desktop softwares as it’s one the most important part of my job running an open source project.
    Since Mockups exists, I now use it every time I need to write a specification or to point up some UI elements we could define or add in our projects.
    Inside eXo, it’s now a common tool we use regularly. Mockups is really good as it removes all the fancy elements you don’t want to show in your basic UI foundations. It just goes right to the point 😉

    So, thanks to you guys, continue the good work 🙂

  89. I am impressed by how fast your response was. And thank you for also supporting small businesses in countries like Cambodia for their social mission, not only (well-funded) NGOs. Your response shows us that you understand about our situation – many big software corporations could do better. Thank you for your heart and for making a difference.

    Our design advisor is also very happy: “Thanks to balsamiq we are now able to improve the design process by separating information architecture from surface design. Balsamiq was the choice because it is exactly doing what we need, hence it’s easy to train because trainees are not overstrained by functions nobody needs. This helps us a lot.” @dnlhtz

    Your licenses will support our efforts to train young Cambodians in graphic design and web development on a practical basis and in a real-life business context. Thank you!

  90. Wow! I’m impressed not only by your generosity, but by your leadership in calling the sector to think differently. Great post and great product.

    As the founder of EduGuide, I want you to know how important Balsamiq’s tool is to all of us. Quality user design shouldn’t just be reserved for luxury products. It’s even more important when you’re trying to help someone make a change in their life. Thanks for equipping us to make a difference.

    Cheers

  91. On behalf of MAPLight.org, thanks so much for your generosity and for building such a convenient product. As a nonprofit, that makes a tremendous difference in our ability to do our jobs well.

  92. Since I’m of an engineering background/mentality, and don’t have a designer on staff, and am extending a design created in the past by a “real” designer, having a tool that makes it easy/quick for me to sketch out ideas to clarify them for myself and my developers is a big win.

    And, being in a non-profit, we’re of-course resource-starved! 🙂 So Balsamiq’s awesome support via free versions is a huge help. The next time I’m in the for-profit world, I’ll be buying a license.

    Thanks!

  93. You guys area absolutely amazing about this. I had requested this for my non-profit Project Causes which was rebranded and launched as Four Gifts. Please check out http://www.fourgifts.org. I have used balsemiq for how to images on the site and it is just amazing. We wrote a thank you on our page and many of our other friends and supporters (we get web designers to design for other non-profits as part of our organization) love this product as well. I would recommend balsemiq goes one step further and gives more pre-done pages (i.e more design in the templates). I wish them the best success and will recommend this product for it’s merit and the spirit of the folks behind it!

  94. Spero che sia realmente cosi, altrimenti mi cade un mito 🙂 ciao e buon lavoro

  95. Forse questo Ăš l’unica cosa che non mi piace, mostrare quanto siete stati generosi.Cmq nessuno Ăš perfetto e voi siete veramente molto bravi.

    [Peldi: grazie Anto. on mi piace parlar bene di noi stessi, ma ho fatto una eccezione in questo caso perche’ lo scopo di questo articolo e’ di spronare altri produttori di software a fare lo stesso, cosa che per fortuna e’ successa. Everyone wins! :)]

  96. Pingback: Building mockups and some good advice « Are You Software Experienced?

  97. Thank you so much to the Balsamiq Team to provide us with a free license!
    It really supports us greatly!

    I recently tried Balsamiq Mockups and I was absolutely fascinated! It saved me so much time and helped me explain my ideas to other people. Therefore, it gave a lot more energy to the idea and saved me a lot of time.
    I am one of the founders of emersense, an Austrian-based Not for Profit that enables individuals that want to change the world from intention to action.

    Some of our projects

    Solution – an UNESCO awarded conference for young professionals that want to become social entrepreneurs

    Social Impact Award – the largest Austrian award for students with ideas how to tackle social, cultural or ecological issues

    The Hub Vienna – a not-for-profit physical incubator for social innovators to work, meet, learn and connect

    nRich (in the making)- a program for underprivileged children to become leaders in their communities

    ReachOut (in the making)- a platform for community development by the
    community

    Austrian Social Startups (in the making) – an open source online platform,
    mapping the social start-up scene in Austria (and subsequently abroad) to
    help them to connect to each other and for philanthropists to spot new
    social investment opportunities
    ….

    All of these projects need a powerful, intuitive and easy to use web
    presence. Balamiq Mockups helps tremendously to make this possible!

    Matthias Reisinger
  98. A while back Balsamiq very generously gave our NGO five Mockups licenses. One of my colleagues uses it a lot – she works on upgrading the design of various webpages of our sites. When asked for feedback she said that what she liked about Mockups is:
    * easy to use
    * looks good
    * every element you expect (especially web 2.0) is also actually there
    * quickly gives one a good impression of how the page in reality will look like

    Recently our communication department got a new colleague and as soon as she saw Mockups in practice she asked if she could get it too, her reason being for making advertisement layouts!

    Thanks from Friends of the Earth Netherlands

  99. In a word: THANKS!!!

    In a few more words: Thank you very much!

    Seriously though; this simple donation will allow me to communicate my organisation’s needs to our development partners for our new website. I have spent 22 years in the private sector and one of my key goals is to bring best practices to my new organisation. The points you make in your blog hit all the right notes. It is very hard to make a case for software when there is always more students we can help get a good start in business.

    Please know that your simple act of sending me (and I’m sure most of the others) a key, helps us move projects forward, be a bit more professional, impress our constituents, and of course save a few bucks. Thanks again to the entire team at Balamiq!
    Take care!

  100. Hi,

    I have been looking for a easy to aplication to make some mockups.

    Balsamiq was the answer to our troubles to have the GUI preview within minutes…

    We are now using it to build an open source application for a non-profit organization, it has already been very valuable to communicate with other teams and stakeholder about what we were planning.

    Thanks for your support!

  101. After using the online version of Mockups for over a year I decided to kindly ask Balsamiq for a free license. Within a few hours I recieved a mail with the license key.

    Thank you very much Balsamiq, you guys make the web a better place!

  102. Loving the app. I work with LifeChurch.tv, and am finding this app very useful for mockups. Thanks so much!

  103. Mockups is amazing. I’m a “retired” web developer with over a decade of experience developing software and sketching UIs on paper.

    I’ve been put in charge of developing a web application for our local humane society to track animals, assist with adoptions and, most importantly, automatically create the reports required by other facilities when we transfer animals to them. These reports were a tremendous amount of work for volunteers to complete.

    The ability to automatically print and email these reports will free up a lot of time that was normally spent “shuffling paper.” Volunteers have much more important things to do than paperwork. Mockups has allowed me to sit down with a few volunteers, present my ideas and get feedback on how the application should function.

    I am actually having fun creating a UI mockup. Thank you, Balsamiq.

    Anthony
  104. Thanks very much to the team at Balsamiq and specifically Valerie. Dimagi (our organization) is a small for-profit company that builds technology for developing countries and also mentors many programmers from low-resource settings. I wrote to Balsamiq to inquire about using their tool for one of our open source projects that is used by non-profits after one of our contributors learned about it. Valerie responded in minutes and offered free licenses; Balsamiq’s support of our open source and non-profit work (even though we are a for-profit company) has been wonderful and we love using Balsamiq in our collaborations. We often work in low-bandwidth settings, and Balsamiq xml format is perfect for our environment. This has helped us immensely in the few months we have used it to share mockups internally and with our developers in Africa.

  105. 1000 Grazie
    for this free-license for our non-profit project.

    I really like your social engagement with such a licensing strategy. When I represented big american software vendors in Europe, I always made sure to donate as much as possible. I always attached a small condition to it. The non-profits had to send me an example of their work after 1 year. They all proudly did….

    Kind regards
    Matthias T.

  106. Thanks a lot for this free licence !

    I used to draw user interfaces on paper… it was a waste of time. Balsamiq Mockups is a big time saver for me, I’ve really boosted my productivity ! It’s so simple to use…

    You have great product and a nice philosophy : congratulations for that !

  107. I downloaded the application one morning, and I had a working design for a new project just after lunch. This tool has already saved me so much time, and we haven’t even started tweaking the design or revisiting features. It gives us such a great way to show users what we are building and greatly increases their comfort level. It is not often that you find such a great tool that reduces the UI design time as well as reduces the development time. Thank you Balsamiq for all the time saved.

  108. What an awesome policy and outlook! The Comparative Toxicogenomics Database at the Mount Desert Island Biological Lab has benefited deeply from your great software. We use it to design better information visualizations that help scientists around the world develop hypotheses to understand the effects of environmental chemicals on human disease. Thank you for your donation!

  109. Thanks SO much for the free license! Loving it!

    I’ve been using Skitch, which doesn’t even come close to comparing with Balsamiq. You guys rock and so does this app.

  110. Your vision is astounding and generous. You are extending your influence throughout the world by helping those who are helping others!

    Your product is excellent, and you can count on me to spread the word about it to all my friends who code for a living or volunteer.

    May Balsamiq prosper!

  111. Thanks for giving us another role model. I added the same non-profit policy for our software – a Windows-based syringe pump controller. Most of our customers are researchers of some kind – the majority are at universities, some large pharmaceuticals and perhaps there may be a few non-profits out there who can benefit.

    Again, thanks for encouraging others to be responsible citizens and for leading by example.

  112. I’m really impressed. I’d like to meet you just for a small talk one day – I’m from Brescia. Keep doing business your way
    — Massimo

  113. Just wanted to thank you for donating licenses to SnapImpact (a free app available on the iPhone App Store for finding local volunteer opprotunities). We’re now using Mockups in our new relationship with AllForGood.org, where we hope to donate more time improving the site.

    It really is a great product, I’m by no means a UI guy but could convey my intentions clearly with only a couple minutes of work.

    I also won a license at a local CocoaHeads meetup where the app was demoed, and have been using that for my new startup called GoodCasts which hopes to marry the meta-gaming aspects of casual games (things like Leaderboards, Challenges, and Achievements) with social activism by providing rewards for doing good in your community. Mockups and MockupsToGo.net literally saved me days in getting my iPhone to Facebook and back userflow mapped out. Thanks!

  114. Thank you so much for donating your wonderful s-ware. These days charities are operating on shoe-string budgets. Your donation has made it possible for us to proceed with a free service we hope to offer our members.

    The program is also so user-friendly. I was able to jump right in without any learning curve. We hope to create an app for our film festival, which is a fundrasier for our charity (www.goinggreenfilmfestival.com).

    Your customer support is also outstanding. I emailed you questions on a weekend and received a response same day. That is unheard of.

    So glad we came across your company and s-ware!

  115. My wife was working on few jobs and now due to this tough economy she went back to the community college ,learning some flash/flex , i with hope contacted for a license and Val was so prompt to give it to us and we can learn the mockup tool well …

    Hats off to you

    I don’t think you ever stop giving. I really don’t. I think it’s an on-going process. And it’s not just about being able to write a check. It’s being able to touch somebody’s life
    Oprah Winfrey – Life – Philanthropy

    Rajaraman P
  116. Pingback: Donating your software - papadi Development Blog

  117. Yes! Yes! Yes!

    I love it! This is what we were made for. Thank you for setting an example and being an inspiration to those that read this blog.

    Anyone that has left the professional world to become a do-gooder has likely taken a big cut in income. It’s a leap of faith not only for you but for those that depend on you. The $680K “pay cut” you’ve taken is almost certainly a fraction of the value generated from the projects borne out of these free licenses.

    I sincerely thank you for committing to a counter-cultural lifestyle that puts others before themselves.

  118. The Mahara project has been a beneficiary of one of the free licenses, and already we’re getting such great value from it! While us humble developers cannot hope to truly produce great design from a mockup tool alone, Balsamiq allows us to share our visions with minimal effort, where before it was a truly momentous task.

    We’ve used it several times already, and I’m sure it’ll see a lot more use in future. Thanks, Balsamiq team! 🙂

  119. Pingback: ConnectSolutions Podium (free) for Do-Gooders « ConnectSolutions

  120. The software development world (or any business) should read this in it’s entirety and take it to heart – not because you are boasting but you are reminding us all that giving is good. It has inspired me to be better at giving and realise I may not give huge amounts but it will make a difference to someone and, I am lucky I do have something to give. Imagine non profits giving to non profits in a happy cycle of altruism. Awesome post. Thank you.

  121. Peldi – excellent post! I think letting people know how a small companies can make a difference is a very good thing to share. Here is another story about how giving does not have to be a big thing to make a difference. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1158171/index.htm

    Robert Tatsumi
  122. The essence of donating is not to show off about it.

    [Peldi: I feared that this post might come across as too preachy, so touche’. My intention is not to show off but instead to hopefully inspire other startups to donate more. So far, I have heard of 3 that are starting to implement donation programs after reading this post, so I have no regrets about the ‘show off’ post above.]

  123. We greatly appreciate the license our not for profit organisation received from Balsamiq, it is great to see such goodwill from commercial software entrepreneurs.

    We are an interactive science museum which also runs three different websites in-house; Scitech – our main website, Astronomy WA – a website focusing on local astronomy news, and ScienceNetwork WA – a website focusing on contributions to science from local researchers.

    Currently we are re-developing the information architecture and navigation for our main website, and using Balsamiq for rapid prototyping of ideas has been very valuable, not to mention saving us reams of paper! We have limited resources to work with in-house and using Balsamiq has saved me time I can now spend on implementing some of the good ideas we’ve been able to generate so far.

  124. Very inspiring. Datamartist is just starting out- we’re making a “data sandbox” that lets people really play with data from multiple sources, without many of the constraints of databases and SQL.

    I bet there are lots of great folks and charities that could use our tool to understand their data- and avoid having to hire consultant database developers.

    I’m going to put nModals license donation program in place ASAP.

    You, and Balsamiq are a huge inspiration to startups like us. Keep up the great work.

  125. The do-gooder license I got from Val was a total surprise; I had emailed you guys to thank you for providing such a useful demo. I said that it had helped me resist the temptation to bootleg, and I promised to pay for a full license as soon as my new job started. Val responded by thanking me for my enthusiasm and for avoiding “the pirate path” (as she put it), and gave me the license! I was shocked, and immediately convinced that the Balsamiq attitude was pervasive throughout the company (rather than just in the blog posts and website copy).

    Since then, Balsamiq has been super helpful. When I got the license, I was in the process of turning a web app that was being used internally in our household (to keep track of our chores, a sort of “super chore chart”) into one fit for public consumption. In addition to beefing up security and improving the architecture, this meant making the app much more usable (since users wouldn’t be able to walk into the room next to them and ask me how to use it).

    I (programming and usability), along with my mom (graphic design) and my best friend (copy writing), all work on the web app ( http://powrhouse.net/ ) together. Balsamiq allows me to quickly turn my ideas into things I can share with them and get feedback on. I’d been using Photoshop for this in the past, but it was a slow process, and it was often hard to explain to my teammates that they were rough mockups (they’d say things like “I don’t really like this, the font looks wrong”). With Mockups, it’s a fast process, and everyone understands which parts of the mockups deserve attention.

    Though my web app still needs some work, it’s leaps and bounds ahead of other things I’ve done in terms of usability, and Mockups deserves a huge amount of credit for this. It’s a joy to use, and produces incredible results quickly. Thank you so much for the license, and for the continued inspiration I’ve gotten from your blog.

  126. Your blog posts inspire me very much, keep up the wonderful work you’re doing 🙂

  127. I fully agree with Peldi’s statements. I’m the webmaster at the Rock Church in San Diego. We received one of the 2,366 keys donated. We are using it to improve our church website. We are very impressed with the product and are thankful for the unexpected generosity. We work with other design firms, and of course Balsamiq Mockups has already come up as a topic of conversation. So, even if purely from a business perspective, the what Balsamiq is doing with the donations easily pays for itself long-term… in sales, branding, company perception, and customer relations. You can’t help but like them, because you know that they don’t have an ulterior motive. Think Google – “Don’t be evil!”

  128. Peldi,

    Very inspirational. By reading this blog entry, it makes me want to get out there and do more for the less fortunate.

    Thanks for sharing this with all of us.

    Shawn

  129. By giving to open source projects, not only do you get good word of mouth, you get to demo your product to tons of prospective customers. Just about every OSS dev has a day job, most of which don’t qualify for free licenses. So if we use your product for our OSS project and love it, we’re going to start asking our bosses if we can get some commercial licenses for the office. I think your strategy is great, and I hope it continues to work out for you.

  130. for a future project of mine I always planned to have a licensing model like:
    – 5$/month or
    – 50$/year or
    – 60$/year including a 20$ donation (so you actually pay only 40$/year for the service) to a charity

    i think this is a great way to encourage people to donate. what do you think?

  131. Pingback: Just 8 days and already profitable! - Napkee - make your mockups come alive

  132. The donation part of myBalsamiq is a great idea. That feature and this post may just motivate me to finish off a website I’ve been working on for a couple months now: http://twomeals.org/ We’re oh so close, just don’t quite have the email stuff working yet. (Side note: You’d be surprised how many charities won’t accept money through PayPal)

  133. Hats off to you! I am quite impressed by your philanthropic spirit plus practical business sense – a marketing win for an ISV, a huge gift to the struggling non-profit community, and better UI’s for all. Looking forward to singing your praises in both the non-profit and Joomla developer communities.