If your UK charity is still running on shared spreadsheets, personal email accounts, and a prayer, you can claim up to 300 free Microsoft 365 Business Basic licences through the Microsoft Nonprofit Programme. You will get Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, and web-based Office apps at no cost. You will not get desktop Office apps, advanced security, or device management — those require paid upgrades. This guide covers eligibility, what the free tier actually includes, what it does not, and how to get your team set up without hiring a consultant.
What the Microsoft Nonprofit Programme Actually Offers in 2026
UK Small Charity Digital Adoption Barriers
Primary barriers to digital adoption among small UK charities from the 2025 Charity Digital Skills Report
Source: Charity Digital Skills Report, 2025
The programme changed materially in July 2025. Microsoft discontinued its free grants for Business Premium and Office 365 E1 licences. What remains is up to 300 free Microsoft 365 Business Basic licences per eligible charity, plus discounts of up to 75 per cent on paid plans.
Business Basic is the web-and-mobile tier. You get browser-based Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. You get Teams for video calls and chat. You get SharePoint for shared documents. You get OneDrive with 1 TB of cloud storage per user. You get Exchange Online for proper organisational email (yourname@yourcharity.org.uk rather than yourcharity@gmail.com).
What you do not get: desktop Office applications, Microsoft Defender for Business, Intune device management, or Copilot AI features. Those sit on paid tiers — Business Premium starts at roughly £5.60 per user per month after the nonprofit discount, which is still a fraction of the standard commercial rate.
For a charity with 15 staff, that means the core productivity suite is free. If you need desktop apps and security tooling, budget around £1,000 per year for the entire team on the discounted Business Premium tier.
Who Qualifies
Eligibility is more specific than charities sometimes expect. Your organisation must be registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales, the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR), the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland (CCNI), or hold HMRC charitable tax-exempt status. Annual revenue must be under £3.5 million. The organisation must have been operating for at least one year.
Political organisations, professional and trade associations, and government bodies do not qualify. Schools and universities have separate Microsoft education programmes with different terms.
The validation process takes three to ten business days. You register on Microsoft's nonprofit portal, provide your charity registration number, and Microsoft's verification partner (currently Percent) checks your status against the relevant regulator's public register.
Step-by-Step Setup for a Small Charity
Register on the Microsoft Nonprofit Portal. Go to nonprofit.microsoft.com, create an account using your charity's details, and submit your registration number. Wait for validation — this is the slowest part, typically five to seven working days.
Claim your Business Basic licences. Once validated, you can assign up to 300 Business Basic licences from the Microsoft 365 admin centre. For a charity with 10 to 30 staff, this is straightforward — assign a licence to each person who needs it.
Set up your organisational email. If you own a domain (yourcharity.org.uk), connect it through the admin centre so your team gets professional email addresses. If you are still using Gmail or Outlook.com addresses, this step alone transforms how funders and partners perceive your organisation.
Create your SharePoint team site. This replaces the shared drive or Dropbox folder. Create a single team site, organise it by function (fundraising, operations, programmes), and migrate your key documents. You do not need to move everything on day one — start with the files your team accesses weekly.
Switch on Teams. Teams replaces the chain of internal emails. Set up channels for each working group and agree as a team that internal communication happens in Teams, not email. Email remains for external contacts.
Brief your team. The biggest barrier to adoption in charities is not technology — it is habit. Run a 30-minute session showing the three things that change: where to find files (SharePoint), how to talk to colleagues (Teams), and where personal drafts live (OneDrive). That is the entire training requirement for the basics.
What the Free Tier Cannot Do
Be honest about the gaps. Business Basic does not include desktop Office apps — your team uses Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in the browser only. For the majority of charity work, this is perfectly adequate. If your finance lead needs advanced Excel features like Power Query or complex macros, they will need a paid licence.
There is no built-in device security. If your staff use personal laptops (common in charities), you have no way to enforce encryption or remotely wipe a lost device without upgrading to Business Premium or adding Intune separately. For charities handling sensitive beneficiary data, this is a gap worth taking seriously.
Copilot AI features are not included on any nonprofit tier at present. If you have read about getting Microsoft 365 Copilot working for a small UK team, the licensing requirements are steeper than the free nonprofit offering covers.
Google for Nonprofits: The Alternative Worth Considering
Google offers its own nonprofit programme. Eligible UK charities get Google Workspace Business Plus at a discounted rate of roughly £4.20 per user per month plus VAT — note that this is not free, unlike Microsoft's Business Basic tier.
Google Workspace is stronger for real-time collaboration on documents and works well if your team already lives in Chrome. Microsoft's free tier is stronger if your charity uses Windows devices, needs offline access to files via OneDrive sync, or wants organisational email on a platform that funders and local authorities are already familiar with.
If your team is split between Mac and Windows, or between office-based and remote volunteers, the deciding factor is usually email. Microsoft gives you Exchange-based email on the free tier. Google charges for its equivalent. For a charity counting every pound, that tips the balance.
The Numbers That Matter
Annual Cost Comparison: Microsoft 365 Nonprofit vs Commercial vs Google (20 Users)
Estimated annual costs in GBP for a 20-user charity comparing free Microsoft 365 Business Basic, discounted Business Premium, commercial rates, and Google Workspace
Source: Microsoft Nonprofit Programme and Google for Nonprofits pricing, February 2026
The 2025 Charity Digital Skills Report found that 68 per cent of small charities are still in the early stages of digital adoption. Sixty-nine per cent cite finances as the primary barrier. Forty-four per cent have a digital strategy — down from 50 per cent two years earlier.
Free Microsoft 365 licences do not solve the strategy gap, but they remove the financial excuse. A charity with 20 staff saves roughly £2,400 per year on productivity software by using Business Basic instead of paying for Google Workspace. That is real money in the charity sector.
The setup cost is zero if you handle it internally. If you bring in a consultant to migrate email and configure SharePoint, budget £500 to £1,500 depending on complexity. For charities already exploring how Gemini Workspace compares to Microsoft 365 Copilot on pricing, the nonprofit programme changes the maths entirely — the base platform is free.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Do not sign up with a personal Microsoft account. Use an account created specifically for your charity. Mixing personal and organisational accounts creates permissions chaos that is painful to untangle later.
Do not skip the domain setup. Running Teams and SharePoint on a @yourcharity.onmicrosoft.com address works technically but looks unprofessional. Connect your own domain from the start.
Do not try to migrate everything at once. Pick one workflow — internal communication or document sharing — and move that first. Once your team is comfortable, tackle the next one.
Do not ignore the July 2025 changes. If your charity previously had free Business Premium or E1 licences, those grants have ended. Check your admin centre to confirm which tier you are now on. You may have been downgraded without realising it.
Do not assume the free tier covers compliance obligations. If your charity handles sensitive personal data — safeguarding records, health information, financial details of vulnerable beneficiaries — Business Basic's security may not be sufficient. Review your data protection obligations before deciding whether the free tier meets your needs, or whether the discounted Business Premium is the responsible choice.
