At Mavidea, one of the areas we specialize in is helping non-profit organizations get the most out of their investment in technology. Typically, the non-profits that we deal with (which are numerous) scrutinize every penny they spend. Each dollar that goes toward operational costs is a dollar that they cannot spend on their mission. To that end, we work very hard to make sure that we squeeze every bit of value out of each penny that our non-profit clients spend on technology. It breaks my heart when I go into a non-profit organization to discuss their technology and find out that they are unaware of the existence of some common programs (like Microsoft’s software donation or Google’s grant) which can add tremendous value to their organizations for a very low cost. Microsoft software, for instance, is available to qualifying non-profit organizations through their charity program for free. An admin fee is charged by Microsoft’s partner, TechSoup.org, but the software itself is free.
The reason for this blog post is that Microsoft has changed its policy toward software donations. Until this year, non-profits were limited to one donation request per year. Further, they were limited to 6 titles. Microsoft has changed this policy, allowing qualifying non-profits to request up to 10 titles. In addition, these requests can be made as needed rather than only once per year.
TechSoup is not limited to software from Microsoft. Several companies have partnered with TechSoup to provide technology to non-profits at little or no cost. Their mission is: providing nonprofits and libraries with technology that empowers them to fulfill their missions and serve their communities. They are in a unique position to understand the benefits of technology on a non-profit organization…. as they are one themselves. You can register your non-profit and get more information about TechSoup on their website. You can get more information about Microsoft’s charity program on the Microsoft’s Citizenship Blog.
Did you know that Microsoft also offers non-profit pricing on its cloud-based Office 365 services? Read our CTO’s post for more information.
