Monday, March 09, 2015

Office 365 for Nonprofit Organizations



This weekend I had the privilege to work with Southern Cross Animal Rescue of Laurel, MS on becoming digitally enabled.  This is an organization that I was introduced to through a friend.  While exploring options with them I found that Microsoft has some pleasant surprises for non-profits with their Office 365 offerings.





While Microsoft in general has treated nonprofits well, with Office 365 they've taken it to the next level.  An organization can setup a trial account and go through a process for Microsoft to verify that the non-profit is indeed a valid 501(c)(3) organization.  Once the process is confirmed, Microsoft donates certain tiers of access.

For SCAR of MS, this means that they are now able to get E1 tier services donated directly by Microsoft. These Office 365 services are built directly off of Microsoft's Enterprise products that nonprofit organizations may already be using.  Advanced features may still be purchased at steeply discounted rates and seamlessly integrated on a per-user basis alongside the donated users.

I'll be following SCAR's progress and posting lessons learned as they mature with these digital capabilities.

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