I find myself reaching for my headset to talk to designers and programmers.  It became a preset when I was working at WESTAF.

It used to be that I would talk on a daily basis with folks from BrownRice Internet about a project via Skype in places ranging from New York to New Mexico to Oregon to Colorado.

Moving from a company that outsourced most of its programming to a company that has talent in house has changed my needs for Skype. 

Now I talk with developers and designers who are six steps away from my desk...and yet, I still find myself using Skype's IM a lot even with that proximity. Often a three word IM is more efficient than a poking one's head around the corner--I just haven't used the voice part of it since I started at pingVision.

Skype is a terrific tool. It is a software based phone that allows VoIP calls anywhere in the world. If you place a Skype call between computers--your computer and the computer of the person on the other end--the call is free. It costs pennies a minute to call to a cell phone or land line.

Skype will allow you to do video calling, share documents, and IM others on the Skype network.

How can a nonprofit use Skype? I think it can be particularly useful when working on collaborative projects. These projects could be technology based or not.