If you use Google Apps to connect, it doesn’t really matter.

The debate rages — which is better, the iPhone or Android phones? They both have their strong points. The iPhone comes with a tightly integrated ecosystem, is dead easy to learn how to use, and easily fits in your pocket. Android phones offer many more options (including lower cost and larger screens), the ability to customize, and a more rapid pace of interface evolution. So which is a better solution for nonprofit organizations?

The key issue isn’t really the device itself, but the data you want to sync between your computers, cloud services and phones (and tablets for that matter), and how you are going to do it.

The calendar on your desktop computer needs to talk to your phone, your email needs to sync across all devices, accessing documents on the road is critically important, and of course contacts need to be accessible anywhere.

Apple promotes its iCloud solution as the best option for syncing data across multiple devices, and it indeed works nicely, The only problem is that it only works within the Apple ecosystem, which means that iCloud is of virtually no value if you are using a non-Apple device.

Google relies Google Apps at the solution for syncing your data across devices, and unlike Apple’s approach, it is device agnostic. So you can use Google Apps to sync iPhones or Android devices, and it works beautifully in either platform. Plus if you lose your phone on the road, you can still easily access all your stuff on any computer.

So if you are in a position to do so, give your staff the freedom of choice to use whatever phone works best for them, knowing that with Google Apps, your data can easily sync between their mobile device and their desktop machine.

And if you are worried about security, both platforms can encrypt your local data. Google also offers two-step verification, so that if someone’s phone is lost or stolen, you can rest assured that your data will be safe.