Requirements for a small charity

[jmak]

I'm helping out a small charity who have identified that they want to take advantage of cloud computing (they need a secure way of sharing and storing data and are nowhere near big enough to have a server or pay someone to manage it).

 

I'm planning to advise them that they should have a separate account for the Global Admin. Does that mean they need to pay for an additional O365 subscription, or can they have a separate account/login for a single user (subscriber)? For the size of the organisation, it's a potentially significant protein of the cost.

 

Also, as I have my own O365 tenancy, can I be an admin on their tenancy or is that only a thing for Microsoft partners?

[Foresthippy]

I believe the basic version of O365 is free for non-profits.

[Ditto]

Have you considered Workspace for non-profits? https://www.google.com/nonprofits/offerings/workspace/. If the transition away from MS is bearable, the admin is pretty easy to pick up in my experience.

[Ditto]

I believe the basic version of O365 is free for non-profits.

It is, for up to 300 users which is plenty for many small charities but it is quite limited. https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/nonprofit/plans-and-pricing?activetab=tab%3aprimaryr1, but it is quite limited. For up to 10 users, Microsoft 365 Business Premium is potentially a solution?

How big is the charity?

 

***Edited with a more appropriate UK link ***

Edited October 6, 2021 by Ditto

[Oaktech]

Worth noting Google Workspace is free for registered charities...

 

https://www.google.com/nonprofits/offerings/workspace/#!#workspace-pricing

[jmak]

Thanks for all the replies.

 

My preference for my own use and what I've recommended for schools is Workspace, but I presented both and we're only talking about around 10 users who're all Microsoft users and this is something they do in their spare time so the learning curve isn't worth it for them.

 

The main aims of this work are to improve resilience (risk of data loss) and to improve data accessibility for better collaboration. It might be worth migrating their email onto O365, but that's not urgent and while I'm happy to help them, I don't want to take on more than necessary.

 

The organisation has about 15 people who do some work for them (all unpaid) and about 350 members. MS and Google are now fussier than they used to be about non-profits and you have to be registered with the charities commission to be eligible nowadays - pretty sure being registered with HMRC as a non-profit used to be enough. They're currently discussing whether it's worth registering with the charities commission, as it's quite a significant amount of work.

 

They also want to redevelop their website, but fortunately there's another volunteer who does that for a living! I just want to make sure that the data is stored properly so that they can make some of it available through the new website. The other project they want to do is set up a membership database, but there's a database expert available - personally I don't think building something in Access is worth it for around 350 members, but I'm keeping that debate separate.

[Ditto]

Do you know if the charities income is more than £5000 per year or is it a charity that just use volunteers to provide a service? You're right about registering a charity being a fair bit of work, and some would be on-going. At >£5k, I believe you have to register, but the upside is, as you suggest, it's easier to get non-profits accounts set up.

[rpwillis]

I'm planning to advise them that they should have a separate account for the Global Admin. Does that mean they need to pay for an additional O365 subscription, or can they have a separate account/login for a single user (subscriber)? For the size of the organisation, it's a potentially significant protein of the cost.

 

You can create users without assigning any licenses and you can still give them admin roles. We use this for our admin accounts.

[jmak]

I'm not on the charity's board, so I'm currently not getting involved in discussions about whether or not they should get charitable status. I have made them aware that free stuff is available from Microsoft if they do choose to go that way.