Office 365 nonprofit and charity licensing: Microsoft allows charity businesses to use their Office 365 platform for free!

Office 365 is Microsoft’s suite of applications for office use, which includes Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel and more. Those running charity and non-profit organisations can download it free of charge, assuming they fulfill some simple requirements. Here we’ll explain how to get an Office 365 nonprofit or charity license.

Requirements

Firstly, there are just a few specifications in order to take advantage of this:

• The business must be registered with the UK Charity Commission or registered with HM Revenue & Customs as tax exempt.
• You’ll need evidence of your charity mission statement.

There are some other details but the above two are critical. You can find more information about eligibility here.

What you’ll get

Microsoft offer a total of five free of charge and reduced price options to charities, however only two of these are totally cost-free (and Microsoft do suggest a donation for these):

1. Office 365 Nonprofit Business Essentials, limited to 300 users
2. Office 365 Nonprofit E1, unlimited users

Unfortunately neither of these gives you the ability to download the apps to use on your computer. However documents can be edited and stored online. Use of either of the above options will also get you 50GB business class email with Exchange Online and a whole host of online features.

If you already have MS Office installed (Office 2013 and higher supported) then you can link up these accounts to benefit from the free features.
Full details of what’s included can be found here.

If you are a charity or non profit organisation and would like some help with acquiring and setting up your free version of Office 365,  just ask Beaming.