If your nonprofit signed up for free Microsoft 365 Business Premium a few years ago, check your renewal date. Microsoft discontinued that grant, and licenses on it expire at the organization’s first renewal on or after July 1, 2025. Microsoft 365 for nonprofits is still a good deal, but the free version is now Business Basic, and that changes what your staff can install and how well your accounts are protected.
Washington, DC has a lot of small nonprofits, associations and advocacy groups running on lean budgets and a few staff laptops. This guide covers what Microsoft currently offers, which plan fits which kind of team, and the security settings we’d turn on before anything else.
What Microsoft 365 for nonprofits includes today
Microsoft’s current nonprofit offers come in two layers: a grant (free) and discounts (paid, but well below commercial pricing).
According to Microsoft’s nonprofit offers page, the grant is Microsoft 365 Business Basic, free for up to 300 users. It includes web and mobile versions of Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Teams, business email on your own domain, 1 TB of OneDrive storage per user, and Copilot Chat.
The paid side is where most small nonprofits end up for at least some staff. Microsoft lists Business Premium at $5.50 per user per month, paid yearly, and says nonprofits can get discounts of up to 75% on many Microsoft 365 offers, including Business Premium and Business Standard. Prices change, so confirm the current number in the Microsoft 365 admin center before you budget.
Here’s the short version:
| Plan | Nonprofit cost | Desktop Office apps | Advanced security (Intune, Defender for Business) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business Basic | Free grant, up to 300 users | No (web and mobile only) | No |
| Business Standard | Discounted | Yes | No |
| Business Premium | Discounted ($5.50/user/month listed, paid yearly) | Yes | Yes |
What happened to the free Business Premium grant?
Microsoft’s nonprofit updates page on Microsoft Learn says the Microsoft 365 Business Premium grant and the Office 365 E1 grant were discontinued as of July 1, 2025. Existing grant licenses expire on the organization’s next renewal date and don’t renew.
The part that catches people out: the switch isn’t automatic. Microsoft says license transitions have to be completed manually in the Microsoft 365 admin center, and it recommends moving users to another offer before the old subscription is cancelled to avoid disruption and data loss.
If you’re not sure where you stand, sign in to the admin center and look under Billing > Your products. You’ll see each subscription, whether it’s a grant or paid, and its renewal or expiration date.
Microsoft’s steps are roughly:
- Add the Business Basic grant (or a discounted paid plan) in the admin center.
- Confirm the new licenses show up in your tenant.
- Select every user on the old Business Premium grant and replace their license.
- Cancel the old grant subscription only after everyone has moved.
That’s fine on paper. In practice, the license swap is the easy part. The harder question is what you lose when people drop from Premium to Basic.
Business Basic vs. Business Premium for a small DC nonprofit
Business Basic is a solid free option for staff who live in the browser: email, Teams calls, shared files, Forms for event sign-ups. For a lot of program staff, that’s genuinely enough.
What Basic doesn’t give you is device management and the stronger security tools. Microsoft’s nonprofit plans and pricing page lists Microsoft Defender for Business, Intune device management and Purview information protection under Business Premium, not Basic. Basic still includes multifactor authentication and automatic spam and malware filtering.
So the real decision usually looks like this:
- Your finance or executive director handles donor records, bank logins and payroll. We’d put that person on Premium almost every time.
- Staff who need desktop Excel or Word for grant reports or budgets need Standard or Premium. The web apps handle most documents, but heavy spreadsheets and some add-ins don’t work well in the browser.
- Program staff and part-timers who mostly use email and Teams can often stay on the free Basic grant.
Mixing plans in one tenant is normal. You don’t have to buy Premium for everyone to protect the accounts that matter most.
One rule to keep in mind: Microsoft says grants are only for paid nonprofit employees and unpaid executive staff, while discounts can also be used for volunteers. Program participants, members and donors aren’t eligible for nonprofit licenses at all.
Security settings to check after any license change
Whenever a nonprofit’s licenses change, we look at security again, because a downgrade can quietly switch off protections people assumed were still running.
Turn on multifactor authentication for every account
MFA is included in every plan, Basic too. A stolen password is still one of the most common ways small organizations lose an email account, and MFA blocks most of those attempts. Shared mailboxes like info@ or donations@ need attention too: make sure nobody signs in to them directly with a shared password.
Review mail forwarding rules
When we audit a new client’s Microsoft 365, old forwarding rules are one of the first things we look for. An attacker who gets into a mailbox will often set up a rule that quietly copies mail to an outside address. For a nonprofit, that can mean donor emails or wire instructions leaving the building without anyone noticing. Our guide on what to do if you click a phishing link walks through the first steps if you suspect that’s already happened.
Know where your donor data lives
If staff save donor spreadsheets to personal OneDrive folders or email them around, the license you pick matters less than the habit. Shared SharePoint libraries with clear permissions are easier to protect and easier to hand over when staff leave, which happens a lot at small nonprofits. Our SharePoint and Microsoft 365 services page covers how we set those up.
Remove accounts for people who’ve left
Volunteers and former staff with active logins are a common gap. Every active account is another password someone could guess or phish. A quick quarterly review of users in the admin center fixes most of it.
Don’t forget backups
Microsoft 365 keeps your data available, but deleted items and overwritten files only stay recoverable for limited retention periods. If a grant file or board folder gets deleted and nobody notices for months, you may not get it back. A separate backup and recovery plan covers that gap.
How DC nonprofits usually handle this
Most of the small nonprofits we talk to don’t have an IT person. The executive director or an operations manager ends up as the Microsoft 365 admin by default, and license changes like the 2025 grant retirement land on their desk with an email they may not have read closely.
That’s a big part of why we built our IT support for nonprofits around practical basics: the right license for each person, MFA everywhere, clean admin accounts and backups that actually get tested. We support nonprofits across Washington, DC and Northern Virginia from our Fairfax office, and we’ve been doing this work since 2020.
If you’d like a second set of eyes, we offer a free Microsoft 365 security scan (normally $1,500). We’ll check your licenses, MFA coverage, forwarding rules, admin accounts and sharing settings, and tell you in plain language what to fix first. If you’d rather talk in person, you can ask for a free 1-hour onsite visit instead. Call us at (703) 340-1110.
Frequently asked questions
Is Microsoft 365 still free for nonprofits?
Partly. Microsoft offers Microsoft 365 Business Basic as a free grant for up to 300 users. It includes web and mobile Office apps, Teams, business email and 1 TB of OneDrive storage per user. Desktop apps and advanced security need a discounted paid plan.
What happened to the free Microsoft 365 Business Premium grant for nonprofits?
Microsoft discontinued it as of July 1, 2025. Existing grant licenses expire at the organization’s next renewal date and don’t renew. Microsoft recommends moving users to Business Basic or another nonprofit offer in the Microsoft 365 admin center before the old subscription is cancelled.
How much does Microsoft 365 Business Premium cost for nonprofits?
Microsoft lists Business Premium for nonprofits at $5.50 per user per month, paid yearly, and says nonprofits can get discounts of up to 75% on many Microsoft 365 offers. Check the current price in the Microsoft 365 admin center before budgeting, since pricing can change.
Can volunteers use nonprofit Microsoft 365 licenses?
Volunteers can use discounted nonprofit licenses, but not granted (free) ones. Microsoft says grants are only for paid nonprofit employees and unpaid executive staff. Program participants, members and donors aren’t eligible for nonprofit licenses.
Is Business Basic secure enough for a small nonprofit?
It can be for staff who mainly use email and Teams, as long as multifactor authentication is on for every account. Basic doesn’t include Intune device management or Defender for Business, so staff who handle donor records, payroll or finances are usually better on Business Premium.