Author: Elizabeth Akinfiieva, Senior Power Platform Developer
MS Dynamics 365 and Power Platform skills can be applied for Nonprofits as well as for commercial projects. Moreover, Microsoft provides discounts on licensing and supports you along the way. So, let’s go through the whole process of these technologies implementation.
The zero-step is when volunteers or nonprofits realize that excel sheets are not enough and there is too much data stored in a chaotic way. Then you decide to implement Microsoft Dynamics or Power Platform custom applications. For this reason, you need to check your eligibility and register a nonprofit organization here. You must have your organization registered officially in your country.
Licensing
Not all services are free, it is usually up to 75% discount on core cloud products and up to 60% discount on premium features.
For small organizations, Office 365 Nonprofit E1 is free,
but for enterprise enterprise-sized, it costs 2$ per user/month (up to 2000 users). So you can use Outlook, Teams, Yammer, Sharepoint with OneDrive storage up to 1TB, MS Form and so on. The number of licences can be increased with the Microsoft Philanthropies grant (invitation only – try to request and wait for approval), but then you need to be sure that at least you use 85% of all granted licences.
Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise license is free for 5 users. There is a discounted pricing of $23.80 per user/month = 75% of the original price.
Up to 300 basic free Office licenses (PowerApps model-driven, power automate free, excel, word), 10 premium – desktop excel, word, power automate desktop.
In order to get Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise 5 licenses – you need to submit a request in this form.
Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit
Microsoft provides OOB applications that are common for almost all volunteering organizations.
Among them are Fundraising and Engagement for Dynamics 365 Sales, Volunteer Management and Volunteer Engagement.
There is a free plan for these apps:
See here how to configure the Cloud for Nonprofit.
Hardware
The discount on MS devices depends on the region.
It is up to an 8% discount on Surface devices. In Germany, the discount is 7% on a Surface Pro 8.
In the USA and Canada, you can get up to 40% off the original retail price on selected refurbished Surface devices.
Talking about Pre-Owned devices, you can contact TechSoup to find really cheap Windows laptops and PC. They have old and new ones. You can find there also some headphones, projectors, and other mobile devices:
Important
While implementing any application and storing personal data – make sure you follow all the rules of data protection. For example, you can store German data only in Germany, rather than anywhere else – even in the European Union. It means you need to select the correct region when creating environments.
Also, you cannot store personal data in your MS Partner’s environments. Use only your Nonprofit.
When working with non-IT volunteers who are going to be end-users – make learning mandatory. Microsoft provides free courses on an MS Learning portal and you can visit Digital Skill Center to find appropriate learning materials for your team.
Any other topics regarding Nonprofits you can find on a FAQs portal.
