In this blogpost on Microsoft Office 365 for Nonprofits, MS Philanthropies General Manager Justin Spelhaug writes their donations to nonprofits exceeded their 70,000 organization goal over the last 18 months, reaching 90,000 donations. They are planning to triple the number of nonprofits Microsoft reaches with the “transformational power of the cloud” to more than 300,000 over the next three years.
“According to a 2017 Digital NGO Member Survey by NetHope, most nongovernmental organizations reported they do not have a comprehensive digital strategy. Many have a strong desire to adopt the latest technology, but struggle to envision, design and deploy technology to optimize their missions. Nearly half of nonprofits say their infrastructure is barely keeping up.
…we’re announcing the formation of Microsoft’s Technology for Social Impact group, dedicated to serving the world’s nonprofit organizations. This new team will build the kind of robust ecosystem that today works so well for businesses, to help nonprofits move to the cloud and provide the support they need. We will continue to donate and discount cloud services for nonprofits. And today, we are sharing details of two new offers, available early 2018, to bring value to the nonprofit community – Microsoft 365 for Nonprofits, a complete, intelligent solution, including Office 365, Windows 10, and Enterprise Mobility + Security; and 10% discounts on Surface Books and Surface Pros.”
On the MS for Nonprofits website a basic new white paper on strategically moving to the cloud while maintaining security hopes “to inspire a dialogue on digital transformation across nonprofit, government, and private-sector leaders” The white paper is a collaboration with NetHope.org “…Nonprofits have moved from storing blue binders full of analog data in physical warehouses to flooding their data warehouses with digital files. This data bogs them down and drains critical resources from the mission. The tragedy is that this data could enable greater impact if only the organization had a way to uncover and distribute the insights hidden within— insights that can and should be drivers of innovation. What’s needed is for the entire organization to take a step back, evaluate its approach to IT, and invest in a longer-term strategy that connects people, process, and technology in such a way that each project builds on past successes to deliver ever-greater impact.”
I hope these resources inspire you to check out our video on Office 365. If you have questions on storing and accessing data we have many resources available to help you think through your process.