The QWU Tool Shed
We run a 501(c)(3) nonprofit on 48+ tools. This page is a transparent look at every single one of them... what we use, why we chose it, and what kind of company is behind it.
Most review sites ask "How good is the product?" We ask a different question: "How good is the company... and will this tool still be here in 5 years?"
That question led us to build the QWS Scorecard — a scoring framework that evaluates the soul of a company, not just its features. Because mission-driven organizations can't afford to bet on a tool that gets acquired by private equity and gutted next quarter.
How We Score: The QWS Scorecard
Every tool is scored across 4 categories, 14 metrics, each rated 1-5.
| Category | What It Measures | Weight | Key Metrics |
|---|---|---|---|
| Soul | The company behind the tool | 30% | Heart (nonprofit support), Owner Involved, Child or Investment, Ear (listens to users) |
| Character | How the company operates | 25% | Roots (funding), Door (data portability), Backbone (incident handling), Shelf Life |
| Fit | How well it works for nonprofits | 25% | Hands (docs/learnability), Neighborhood (community), Value, Bridge (integrations) |
| Craft | The product itself | 20% | Quality, Reliability, Stars (aggregated ratings) |
Soul gets the highest weight because that's what makes this different. A beautiful product from a soulless company is still a risk.
Two scores are called out in every table below:
- Heart — Does this company show heart toward nonprofits and social good organizations?
- Child/Inv — Is this product the founder's life work (a "child") or a venture built to flip (an "investment")?
Scores marked ? mean we need more research. We only score what we can defend with evidence.
Tier 1: Star Content
These tools have the broadest audience appeal, strongest stories, and highest QWS scores. They're the tools we'd recommend to any mission-driven organization.
| Tool | Category | Heart | Child/Inv | QWS Est. | Why We Use It |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Obsidian | Productivity | 4 | 5 | 4.9 | Our entire knowledge base, daily operations, and this transparency site run on it. Bootstrapped, founder-led, free for personal use, local-first data ownership. |
| Supabase | Database/Backend | 5 | 4 | 4.6 | Powers 8 projects across QWF. Open source, strong nonprofit support, active founder (Paul Copplestone). |
| BetterStack | Monitoring | 5 | ? | 4.5 | Uptime monitoring and status page for all QWF services. Generous free tier, founder-led, loves nonprofits. |
| n8n | Automation | 4 | 4 | 4.4 | 50+ workflows automating everything from meeting prep to daily operations. Self-hostable, open source core, founder still active. |
| Stripe | Payments | 3 | 5 | 4.2 | Processes all QWF donations. Patrick Collison still CEO, rock-solid, universal. |
| SuiteDash | CRM | 4 | 5 | 4.2 | Our family portal (family.quietlyworking.org). Bootstrapped, founder active in community, lifetime deal roots, all-in-one. |
| Cloudflare | DNS/Security | 4 | 4 | 4.2 | DNS and security for every QWF domain. Incredible free tier, public company but not PE. |
| Claude / Anthropic | AI | 4 | 4 | 4.0 | Primary AI for all QWF operations. Safety-focused mission, Dario Amodei founder-led. |
| Claude Code | AI/Dev Tools | ? | 4 | 4.0 | The agent that literally runs our backoffice. This page was synced by a script it helped build. |
| Lovable | AI/Frontend | ? | ? | 3.8 | Builds our web apps (HQ Command Center, Quietly Spotting, and more). Founder very active, early stage, great story. |
Tier 2: Strong Content
Engaged communities, good stories, solid vendor partnership potential.
| Tool | Category | Heart | Child/Inv | QWS Est. | Why We Use It |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Let's Encrypt | SSL/Security | 5 | 5 | 5.0 | Free SSL certificates for everything. Nonprofit (ISRG), free forever, changed the internet. Perfect Heart score. |
| OpenRouter | AI Gateway | ? | ? | 4.2 | One API for all AI models. Founder-led, great developer experience. |
| EmailDelivery.com | Email/ESP | ? | 5 | 4.2 | Self-hosted email platform. Open source, MIT license. Our ESP runs for $35/year. |
| Docker | Infrastructure | 3 | 2 | 3.5 | Containers for n8n, ESP, and local services. The technology is foundational even if Docker Inc. has had ownership drama. |
| Vista Social | Social Media | ? | ? | ? | Daily social media management. Needs research on company. |
| RackNerd | Hosting | ? | ? | ? | Budget VPS hosting. Our ESP runs on a $35/year VPS that actually works. |
| Amazon SES | Email Delivery | 2 | 1 | 3.0 | Email sending at $0.10 per 1,000 emails. AWS is the opposite of founder-led, but unbeatable value. |
| Twilio | Communications | 5 | 2 | 3.5 | SMS and voice for all QWF communications. Twilio.org provides tools AND grant funds to nonprofits... we've never paid a penny. Their nonprofit program is EPIC. |
| GitHub | Development | 3 | 1 | 3.3 | All our repos including this transparency site. Microsoft-owned, but the free tier is generous. |
| VS Code | Development | 4 | 1 | 3.7 | Primary code editor. Microsoft-owned but fully open source, incredible community. |
Tier 3: Solid Reviews
Important tools, narrower audience, still worth reviewing honestly.
| Tool | Category | Heart | Child/Inv | QWS Est. | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PostgreSQL | Database | 5 | 5 | 5.0 | Community-governed, open source, no corporate owner. The gold standard. |
| Caddy | Web Server | 5 | 5 | 5.0 | Open source, founder-led, automatic HTTPS. Elegant. |
| WordPress | CMS | 5 | 5 | 4.5 | Powers 11 QWF sites. Open source, nonprofit foundation (despite 2024-25 Automattic drama). |
| DreamHost | Hosting | 4 | 5 | 4.0 | Employee-owned, 28+ years, strong nonprofit support. Hosts our L4G site. |
| Apify | Web Scraping | ? | ? | 4.0 | Founder-led, strong community, good free tier. |
| Redis | Cache/DB | 4 | 3 | 4.0 | Open source (with recent license changes), fast, universal. |
| Divi | WordPress Theme | 3 | 5 | 3.8 | Nick Roach still leads Elegant Themes. Bootstrapped. |
| Discord | Communication | 3 | 2 | 3.5 | Internal team communication. Free tier is incredible, community-first DNA. |
| Circle | Community | ? | ? | 3.5 | Founder-led SaaS community platform. |
| Atlassian (Loom) | Video/Productivity | 5 | 2 | 4.0 | We use Loom for video. As of Feb 2026, Atlassian offers 100% off Jira, Confluence, Loom, and Teamwork Collection for social impact teams (25 seats or less). Previously 75% off. EPIC. |
| Zoom | Meetings | 4 | 2 | 3.2 | All QWF meetings. 50% nonprofit discount via GoodStack (approved Feb 2026). Eric Yuan still CEO. |
| Google Workspace | Productivity | 3 | 1 | 2.8 | Great product. Zero soul. We use it because everyone else does. |
Tier 4: Reference Tools
Specialized tools that round out our stack. Narrower audience, less editorial content value.
| Tool | Category | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 | Email/Office | We use Graph API heavily for email automation |
| Azure | Cloud Hosting | Our primary VMs run here (2 servers) |
| Google Maps API | Geolocation | Powers our local lead research |
| Google Voice | Phone | Free phone line for a small nonprofit |
| SQLite | Database | The most deployed database on earth. Powers our local data stores. |
| DeepSeek | AI (Fast Tier) | Fast and cheap for mechanical pattern matching |
| Google Gemini | AI (Video) | Video content processing |
| Whisper (OpenAI) | AI (Audio) | Meeting transcription |
| Apollo.io | Lead Data | Lead research and enrichment |
| AnyMail Finder | Email Finding | Email discovery and verification |
| DataForSEO | SEO Data | SEO research and analysis |
| Crunchbase | Business Intel | Company research for QWS reviews |
| Instantly | Email Warmup | Domain warmup and cold outreach |
| DMARC Report | Email Auth | Email authentication monitoring |
| Reoon | Email Validation | Bulk email validation |
| Yelp | Business Data | Local business research |
| YellowPages | Business Data | Local business directory |
The Numbers
As of February 2026, QWF runs on:
- 48 tools in production
- 8 Supabase projects powering web apps
- 50+ n8n automation workflows
- 280+ Python scripts in the backoffice
- 11 WordPress sites across the multisite network
- 3 virtual machines (backoffice, automation, email)
- 37+ API integrations connecting everything
Total monthly cost for all of this: less than you'd think. Several of our highest-scored tools have free tiers generous enough to run real operations on. That's Heart in action.
Are you a nonprofit? Check out our Nonprofit Tech Access Guide — a transparent, experience-based guide to every free and discounted tech program we've found, with honest notes on what the application process actually looks like.
What's Coming: The Quietly Working Shed (QWS)
This page is the preview. The full QWS experience is being built at shed.quietlyworking.org and will include:
- Deep reviews of every tool using the full 14-metric QWS Scorecard
- Versus comparisons (n8n vs Zapier vs Make, Supabase vs Firebase, and more)
- Stack guides ("How a nonprofit runs its entire backoffice from Obsidian")
- "Tools We Stopped Using" and why... because honest exits build more trust than 100 positive reviews
- Annual Heart Report highlighting companies that showed the most heart toward nonprofits
- Student research as Missing Pixel students learn business intelligence, technical evaluation, and content creation through the review process
The QWS Scorecard weights Soul at 30% because the character of the company behind a tool matters more than its feature list. Features change. Prices change. Ownership changes. The scorecard evaluates the whole picture... the product AND the people behind it.
Scoring Integrity
A few principles we hold ourselves to:
- We only score tools we actually use. No paid reviews, no "tried it for 5 minutes" takes.
- Scores update when things change. Acquired by PE? Score drops. Added a nonprofit program? Score goes up.
- We show our work. Every score comes with the evidence that supports it.
- Companies can respond. We publish their response alongside our review.
- Conflicts of interest disclosed. If a company gives us a discount, we say so.
- Negative reviews stay up. We don't remove reviews because a company asked.
Last updated: 2026-02-26
Tool count and scores are living data. See Home for more about this transparency site.