CS NewsDAAPResourceStories

Tech Recipes

By October 20, 2026No Comments

The Tech Recipe Menu

As a part of CultureSource’s Digital Access for the Arts Program, in partnership with the Gilbert Family Foundation, we have developed a library of “Tech Recipes” focused on tools and workflows that arts and culture organizations can benefit from.

A Tech Recipe is a simple, step-by-step guide for using a tool or process to complete a specific task. It includes the tools you need, the steps to follow, and a clear outcome — no technical expertise required.

These recipes were put into practice by our recipe testers at several arts and culture organizations, who then provided feedback on the ease of use and practicality of implementing these recipes into their everyday work.

The goal of sharing these recipes with the broader arts and culture sector is to help organizations make small but impactful steps in improving their digital tools and workflows.

Download the Full Recipe Book Here

Small Plates

Build a Shared Drive your Team Can Actually Use
15-20 mins
If your team's Google Drive is a maze of files with names like "final_FINAL_v3.docx," you're not alone—and you're not stuck. A well-organized Drive saves time, reduces duplicated eort, and means people can actually find what they need without asking. In this recipe, you'll build a folder structure that fits your organization, set up clear naming conventions, and learn how sharing permissions work so the right people always have access.
Download the Recipe
Turn Your Inbox into an Organized Workspace
15-20 mins
A cluttered inbox isn't just annoying — it costs you time and causes you to miss things that matter. The good news is that both Gmail and Outlook have powerful built-in tools that can do the sorting for you automatically. In this recipe, you'll set up labels (or folders) to categorize your email, and filters that apply those labels the moment a message arrives. By the end, your inbox will be working for you instead of against you.
Download the Recipe

Appetizers

Use CSV Files to Move Data Between Systems
30-45 mins
Whenever you need to move data from one place to another — from your donor database to a spreadsheet, from a form to a mailing list, or from one software platform to another — you will almost certainly encounter a CSV file. CSV stands for Comma-Separated Values, and despite the technical-sounding name, it's one of the most simplistic and universal file formats around. In this recipe, you'll learn what CSV files are, how to open and edit them safely, and how to use them to move data confidently between tools.
Download the Recipe
Create Organized, Collaborative Google Docs
30-45 mins
Google Docs is more powerful than most people realize. Beyond basic writing, it has built-in tools for tracking every change ever made to a document and for applying consistent, professional formatting across your work. In this recipe, you'll learn how to recover lost work, track changes made by collaborators, and create professional-looking documents that stay consistent across your organization.
Download the Recipe

Entrées

Clean Up Messy Spreadsheet Data with OpenRefine
45-60 mins
If your organization has been collecting data for any length of time — donor records, program participants, mailing lists, event registrations — chances are that data has some inconsistencies. The same person entered as "Smith, John" in one place and "John Smith" in another. City names are spelled three different ways. ZIP codes with and without the trailing four digits. Cleaning this kind of data by hand is painstaking and error-prone. OpenRefine (formerly Google Refine) is a free, powerful tool designed specifically for this job. In this recipe, you'll learn how to load a messy dataset, identify and fix common problems, and export clean data you can actually use.
Download the Recipe
Get Better Results from AI with Better Prompts
45-60 mins
AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude are only as useful as the instructions you give them. A vague
prompt produces a vague answer — but a well-crafted prompt can save you hours of work. The good news is that prompting is a learnable skill. In this recipe, you'll learn the core principles of writing effective prompts, practice with real examples relevant to arts organizations, and build a personal library of prompts you can reuse. All of the tools used in this recipe have free tiers that are more than sufficient for getting started.
Download the Recipe
Protect Your Organization’s Digital Files
45-60 mins
Hard drives fail. Laptops get stolen. Accidental deletions happen. For most people, it's not a question of whether they'll experience data loss — it's a question of whether they'll be prepared when it happens. The good news is that setting up automatic backups takes less than an hour and costs nothing if you're working primarily in the cloud. In this recipe, you'll audit what needs backing up, set up automatic cloud backups, and leave with a simple system you don't have to think about.
Download the Recipe
Build a Simple Organizational Database with Airtable
45-60 mins
Spreadsheets are great — until they aren't. When you're tracking something with multiple types of related information, lots of people adding data, or a need for different views of the same records, a spreadsheet starts to break down. Airtable is a tool that looks and feels like a spreadsheet but works like a database, making it much more powerful for managing dynamic organizational data. In this recipe, you'll set up your first Airtable base, build a useful table, and learn how to create views and link records between tables.
Download the Recipe
Build a Professional Social Media Presence
1-2 hours
Getting your organization on social media is more than just filling out a sign-up form. The decisions you make when setting up your accounts — which platforms to prioritize, how you write your bio, what image you use — shape how your organization is perceived online. In this recipe, you'll set up accounts on the platforms that matter most, make smart choices at every step, and learn a few underutilized features that can help your profiles stand out from the crowd.
Download the Recipe
Prototype Your Website Before Hiring a Developer
1-2 hours
Redesigning a website is one of the most expensive and time-consuming projects a small
organization can take on. A lot of that cost comes from unclear communication between the organization and its developers — changes requested midway through development, mismatched expectations about layout, and features that weren't planned for. Wireframing — building a basic structural blueprint of your site before any real development begins — solves most of these problems. In this recipe, you'll use Lovable, an AI-powered development tool, to build a working wireframe of your website quickly and inexpensively.
Download the Recipe

Leave a Reply

Share