What do charities get for free from Microsoft?
Microsoft is committed to providing low-cost services to charities but what you may not be aware of is that it also gives some of its Cloud products and services for free!
Microsoft has donated licences for its range of Cloud products and services that are available to registered charities around the world. To qualify for these you have to be eligible based on Microsoft’s criteria, more info on this can be found on their Nonprofit Eligibility page.
Here's what Microsoft are currently offering:
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10 Microsoft 365 Business Premium licences
There are a wide range of grants and discounts available, the most common being the 10 Microsoft 365 Business Premium licences which give your organisation access to all of the familiar Microsoft applications. You can email using Exchange Online, get the flexibility to communicate with team members wherever they are with Microsoft Teams and get access to multi-authoring in documents and spreadsheets with SharePoint Online, as well as use Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel, Word and One Drive.
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10 Power Apps licences per App/User
Microsoft Power Apps is a low/no code solution from Microsoft where you can build custom apps and allow others to use them to record, store and access data, such as surveys, or to streamline business activities like recording and approving expenses. Microsoft has donated up to 10 licences per charity, with additional licences available at a heavily discounted rate.
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Microsoft Azure Credit of $2,000 USD
As a UK registered charity you’re entitled to an annual credit of $2,000 USD to use to run servers in Microsoft’s Data Centre. This can help provide several benefits from availability and scalability to extended Windows Updates for older versions of Windows Server Operating Systems.
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50 Microsoft Windows 11 (or 10) licences
Your charity can get donations of up to 50 licences for Microsoft Windows 11 (or 10), with options to purchase additional licences through Cloud Services Providers like mhance.
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Power BI grants
Power BI is Microsoft’s Cloud-based reporting tool. It allows you to connect to multiple data sources, such as Dynamics 365, Excel spreadsheets and a range of other Microsoft and Third-Party data services together, giving you complete visibility of your data. The desktop version of Power BI is available via a grant from Microsoft or get Power BI Pro for $3 per user per month.
Microsoft changes these offers from time to time, so it is always useful checking what is new and what you can get on the Nonprofit Offers website. By using the products shown above, your charity can streamline processes and improve productivity – but they are only beneficial if you know how to use them. To this end, Microsoft has a few tools available to make sure you get the most out of the technologies that you use within your charity. Specifically for the charity sector, Microsoft has released its Digital Skills Centre which is designed to help you make the most of the tools that Microsoft is offering. There are live Microsoft training courses available on the Nonprofit Training website as well as courses available as part of the Microsoft Viva Learning platform.
