Microsoft recently announced they are providing 10 free licenses of Microsoft 365 Business for qualified nonprofits as of September 1st. Microsoft 365 Business is an expansion of the Office 365 Business Premium, which includes the familiar Office 365 services of Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams along with the desktop version of Office ProPlus software.
What wasn’t clearly highlighted was the removal of the 50 donated licenses of their popular Enterprise Mobility and Security bundle knows as EMS. Microsoft removed the 50 seat donation, but reduced the price for non-profits from $2.50/license to $2.20/license per user per month.
Microsoft 365 adds on some additional security features found in the EMS bundle and an upgrade license of Windows 10 for those organizations still running Windows 7, 8 or 8.1.
You can read the full listing of features here: https://nonprofits.tsi.microsoft.com/crash-course-in-Microsoft-365-Business/
We’ve been assured that those organizations that have previously received the 50-seat donation of EMS will keep it in perpetuity, but we have not confirmed that organizations will be able to get renewals.
Microsoft originally added in the 50 donated licenses of EMS as an offset for reducing the Azure sponsorship from $5,000/annually to $3,500/annually. The $1,500 reduction was reallocated or reassigned as 50 licenses of EMS. Now the donation has further evolved to remove that donation and be replaced with 10 licenses of Microsoft Business.
Microsoft for Nonprofits has updated their website https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/nonprofits to provide information about the various solutions, partnerships and support options that are available. Content is still being updated to reflect the current offerings, and as of this article publish date EMS is still listed as being $2.50 and some FAQs still refer to the 50 free licenses.
We appreciate Microsoft’s continuing commitment to the nonprofit sector but we were disappointed to learn that Microsoft is reducing its support for EMS which provides critical cybersecurity for nonprofit organizations.
Community IT actively supports thousands of seats of Office 365 and has a depth of expertise in assisting non-profits organizations configuring, migrating and adopting Microsoft’s Cloud Solutions. Please reach out if you have questions about how to best leverage Microsoft’s Cloud Solutions for your organization, or are a client with further questions on EMS donated licenses.
Community IT is committed to improving cybersecurity for nonprofit organizations.
