Nonprofit and church IT desk
IT Support for Nonprofit Organizations and Churches
Remote help desk and Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace administration for small nonprofits and churches, built around grant licenses, volunteers who come and go, and tight budgets.
- No minimum users
- Month-to-month
- Mon–Fri 8am–8pm ET
Who this is for
For nonprofits and churches with roughly 2 to 50 staff, where the executive director, operations manager or church administrator has become “the IT person” on top of a full job.
A typical setup: Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace on nonprofit pricing, a donor CRM, an online giving page, donated and personal laptops, a shared info@ mailbox, board access and volunteers who change every season. Churches add check-in stations and a livestream PC.
We work remotely, Monday–Friday, 8am–8pm Eastern. If you need someone in the building every Sunday, we’re not the whole answer, but we can run the accounts and devices behind it.
What you get for $49 per user per month
- Unlimited remote help desk tickets, Mon–Fri 8am–8pm ET
- Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace administration
- Managed EDR antivirus and automated patching
- Cloud backup monitoring
- New-hire setup and offboarding
Software we work with
These are the systems small nonprofits and churches run most. We look after the accounts, devices and connections around them, and each vendor supports its own product. We are not affiliated with these vendors.
| Area | Common apps | What we handle | What the vendor handles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Email, files and licensing | Microsoft 365 (Business Basic grant, discounted Business Premium), Google Workspace for Nonprofits | Tenant setup after approval, deciding who needs paid or free seats, MFA, shared mailboxes, shared drives and SharePoint sites, and license reviews so paid seats aren’t left on departed staff. | Eligibility verification, activating grants and discounts, billing and service outages. |
| Donor CRM and fundraising | Bloomerang, Raiser’s Edge NXT, Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud, DonorPerfect, Neon CRM | User access and MFA, sign-in and browser problems, Outlook or Gmail integration, import files that fail on formatting, and removing access when staff leave. | Database bugs, data corrections, gift processing and receipting logic, migrations and product training. |
| Church management and giving | Planning Center, Breeze, online giving pages and kiosks | Admin role reviews, check-in station PCs and iPads, label printers, and separate logins for staff and volunteer teams; kiosk lock-down is scoped separately — ask before onboarding. | Payment processing, giving statements, app features and payouts. |
| Accounting | QuickBooks (Online or Desktop), Aplos | QuickBooks Desktop multi-user and network problems, user access, and checking that the company file is included in your backups. | Fund accounting features, payroll, bank feeds and reports. |
| Donated software and hardware | TechSoup offers, refurbished and donated PCs | Setting up donated or discounted laptops, Windows upgrades, and wiping old machines before they leave; device management enrollment is scoped separately — ask before onboarding. | Eligibility validation, orders and hardware warranty. Microsoft lists Windows 11 Pro grants of up to 50 licenses through TechSoup. |
Problems we fix every week
A volunteer can’t open the shared inbox
Outside Gmail accounts can’t open a Microsoft 365 shared mailbox, and Microsoft’s free seats don’t cover general volunteers. We give regular volunteers a discounted seat or set up a Microsoft 365 group, which Microsoft suggests for outside access.
Paying for licenses nobody uses
We compare assigned licenses with your staff list, remove seats from people who have left, and move part-time staff and board members who only use the browser onto free Business Basic.
A former staffer still has CRM or giving-platform admin
We keep an access list for every system, remove the logins we manage when you tell us someone is leaving, and give you a checklist for the rest, such as the giving platform.
Dozens of tiny failed donations overnight
That pattern usually means card testing. We tell you what to ask your giving platform or web developer for, such as CAPTCHA and rate limits; your finance lead refunds the charges that went through.
QuickBooks Desktop won’t open in multi-user mode
Usually a hosting or firewall setting on the computer that holds the company file.
Read the fix →Donor replies aren’t reaching Outlook
We check Outlook on the web first to split a mailbox problem from a client problem, then trace the message.
Read the fix →Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace nonprofit offers: what is free now
Microsoft’s current offers page no longer lists the free Business Premium grant many small nonprofits used. As of October 2026, Microsoft and Google publish these prices for eligible organizations:
| Plan | Nonprofit price (vendor-published) | Good fit for |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 Business Basic | Free for up to 300 users (grant) | Paid staff and board members who work in the browser and on phones |
| Microsoft 365 Business Premium | $5.50 per user per month, billed yearly | Staff whose laptops hold donor data; includes Intune device management |
| Google Workspace for Nonprofits | $0 per user | Most small teams already working in Gmail |
| Google Workspace Business Standard (nonprofit) | $3.50 per user per month (1-year commitment) or $4.20 monthly | Meeting recordings and 2 TB of storage per user |
| Google Workspace Business Plus (nonprofit) | $6.16 per user per month (1-year commitment) or $7.40 monthly | Vault retention and advanced endpoint management |
You can mix license types in one Microsoft tenant: Business Premium for the few people who handle donor records on laptops, and free Business Basic for the rest of your paid staff and board. Check who counts first: Microsoft allows granted (free) licenses only for paid employees and unpaid executive staff such as board members and officers; other volunteers can use discounted licenses.
Churches need one more check: Google requires IRS recognition of 501(c)(3) status even though churches are automatically tax exempt, though a church under a parent organization’s group exemption, such as a denomination’s, may still qualify. Still choosing a platform? Our Microsoft 365 vs. Google Workspace comparison covers the trade-offs.
Volunteers, board members and shared accounts
One password shared by a rotating group of volunteers is the weak spot to fix first: nobody notices when it leaks, and you can’t remove one person without locking everyone out.
Shared mailboxes in Microsoft 365
- A shared mailbox (info@, volunteers@, prayer@) holds up to 50 GB without its own license.
- Microsoft says to block direct sign-in to the shared mailbox account; people open it through their own licensed account.
- It supports up to 25 people, and it can’t be shared with outside addresses such as a volunteer’s personal Gmail.
So a regular volunteer who works in the shared mailbox needs a discounted license, since Microsoft’s free seats don’t cover general volunteers. For outside helpers on personal Gmail, Microsoft suggests a Microsoft 365 group instead. Either way, you can cut off one person’s access the day they leave.
Google Workspace
With $0 seats on Google Workspace for Nonprofits, there’s no budget reason to share a login. Put volunteer accounts in their own organizational unit with stricter sharing settings.
Board members
Board members often run board business from personal email. A board group address and a shared drive or SharePoint site for board packets keep minutes and financials in the organization’s account.
We set this up as part of Microsoft 365 administration or Google Workspace management.
Offboarding staff and volunteers without losing donor history
With constant turnover, the risk runs both ways: a former staffer who still has CRM access, or a deleted account that took years of donor correspondence with it. Know how each platform treats a departing user before you delete anything (our IT support for startups page lists the steps that end active sessions):
- Microsoft 365: block sign-in and reset the password. To keep the mail, convert it to a shared mailbox while the license is still assigned, then remove the license only if the mailbox is under 50 GB. Don’t delete the user account; it anchors the shared mailbox. Remove a license without converting and Microsoft keeps email, contacts and calendar for 30 days, then deletes them permanently.
- Google Workspace: deleting a user deletes their Gmail. Transfer Drive files and the primary calendar during deletion, or suspend the account; on editions that offer it, an Archived User license keeps the data. Deleted users can be restored for 20 days.
| System | What to remove or hand over | Who usually does it |
|---|---|---|
| Donor CRM | Deactivate the user, reassign open tasks and donor portfolios | We deactivate the user with your CRM admin; your team reassigns tasks and portfolios |
| Giving platform and payment processor | Remove admin roles, confirm who can change payout bank details | You, using our checklist |
| Social media, website, domain registrar | Change shared passwords, remove personal logins from admin roles | We do it where we hold access |
IT support for churches: getting ready for Sunday on a weekday
Church IT has a hard deadline every week, and our support hours are Monday–Friday, so the goal is a setup that doesn’t need a phone call during the service.
- Livestream and presentation PC: Windows restarts for updates outside active hours (one daily window of up to 18 hours), so we set them around service times, turn off Get me up to date (it allows restarts even during active hours), and test the stream on Thursday or Friday.
- Check-in stations: in Planning Center Check-Ins, an editor sets up each station PC or iPad once, so volunteers running check-in don’t need their own logins. Stations can be locked to an event or location; label printers get reserved network addresses so they don’t drop off between Sundays.
- Guest Wi-Fi: kept separate from the office network where giving records and the finance PC live.
Before Easter, Christmas and other big services, restart the livestream and presentation PCs early that week so no update restart is pending, test them, then use Settings > Windows Update > Pause updates until after the service. Book a test run with us while we’re available.
The nonprofit IT calendar: getting ready for year-end giving
Most nonprofits’ busiest IT stretch runs from Giving Tuesday (the Tuesday after Thanksgiving) to December 31, when appeals go out and giving pages are busiest. Plan backward:
| When | What to get done |
|---|---|
| October | Check SPF, DKIM and DMARC on the domain your appeals come from, including mail your CRM or email tool sends. |
| Early November | Make a small test gift on every giving form and ask your vendor which card-testing protections are on. |
| Mid-December to January 1 | Freeze website, giving-page and DNS changes, and confirm two people can sign in to each admin account. |
| January | Send yourself a test batch of year-end receipts or giving statements before the full run. |
Donor data and online-giving security
Your giving processor holds the card numbers. Your job is protecting the accounts that can see donor records or change where money goes. In order of impact:
- MFA on every admin login: email, CRM, giving platform, payment processor and domain registrar. A stolen password alone then isn’t enough.
- Watch for card testing: bursts of tiny donations and failed payments with nonsense names mean someone is testing stolen cards on your form. CAPTCHA, rate limits and fraud rules stop it; on a giving platform or plugin, the vendor or web developer usually has to add them. Refund charges that went through to help avoid disputes.
- Keep card and bank details out of email and spreadsheets. If a donor emails them, delete the message and send the giving page link.
- Authenticate your email domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC so appeals in your name are harder to spoof. Google requires all three from bulk senders to Gmail. Our email security and 2FA setup covers this.
- Back up Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace data separately. Your CRM vendor backs up its own database, not your mailboxes and shared files.
Some nonprofits also hold health, counseling or case-management records with their own legal rules. This page is general guidance, not legal advice, and we don’t claim any compliance certification. Our team includes engineers in the United States and overseas. If your compliance policy or a funder’s requirements limit where support staff can be located, raise it before onboarding so we can tell you plainly whether we’re a fit.
Managed IT services for nonprofits: what the plan covers
The Business Support Plan is $49 per user per month, month-to-month, with no minimum users and no setup fee, which matters when your budget follows grant cycles.
Worked example: a food pantry with five staff and a volunteer coordinator who has her own account is 6 users: 6 × $49 = $294 per month.
Covered: unlimited remote help desk tickets; Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace administration (adding and removing users, password resets, security setup); managed EDR antivirus; automated Windows patching and tune-ups; cloud backup monitoring; and new-hire setup and offboarding. Laptop enrollment in device management and check-in kiosk lock-down are scoped separately — ask before onboarding.
Not covered: on-site work (arranged separately as a paid add-on through a vetted local partner technician; see on-site IT support), hardware and parts, software licenses, and bugs inside a vendor’s own application, such as your CRM. Full terms are on the Business Support Plan page.
Who does the work
Requests go to a US-managed support team with engineers in the United States and overseas, Monday–Friday, 8am–8pm Eastern. We keep notes on your tenant, CRM and volunteer setup.
- Every remote session needs your approval, and you can end it at any time.
- Our engineers use MFA on our own tools, and remote sessions are logged.
- The tenant and admin accounts stay yours, so you can remove our access at any time.
- What we set up is documented for whoever comes next.
Your first 30 days
Week 1: Inventory
List every account and who holds admin rights (tenant, domain registrar, CRM, giving platform, social media, website), and which licenses are free, discounted or full price.
Week 2: Lock the front door
Turn on MFA everywhere, set up shared mailboxes properly, and close accounts for people who have left.
Week 3: Devices and data
Check encryption and updates on staff laptops, confirm Microsoft 365 or Google data is backed up, and review the CRM user list with your development lead. Device management enrollment, if you’ve added it to the scope, happens here.
Week 4: Hand over
The executive director (and, for churches, the administrator or treasurer) gets a one-page access map, an offboarding checklist and a renewals calendar.
Frequently asked questions
Is Microsoft 365 still free for nonprofits?
Partly. Microsoft’s current nonprofit offers page lists Microsoft 365 Business Basic free for up to 300 users, with email, 1 TB of OneDrive storage per user and the web and mobile Office apps. Those free (granted) seats are for paid staff and unpaid executives such as board members; other volunteers qualify for discounted licenses. Business Premium, which adds Intune device management, is $5.50 per user per month, billed yearly. The free Business Premium grant is no longer listed.
Is Google Workspace free for nonprofits?
Yes, for eligible organizations. Google Workspace for Nonprofits costs $0 per user and includes 100 TB of storage shared across the organization and 150-participant video meetings. Discounted Business Standard and Business Plus editions are available if you need recordings or more storage per person. Google verifies eligibility through Goodstack, which Google says usually takes 3 to 5 business days and sometimes up to 14, and the free and discounted Business editions are capped at 2,000 users.
Can churches get nonprofit pricing on Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace?
Often, but check the paperwork first. Microsoft requires recognized nonprofit legal status and a mission that benefits the community, and says church members can’t claim offers as individuals. Google notes that churches are automatically tax exempt, yet still requires IRS recognition of 501(c)(3) status for Google for Nonprofits; a church covered by a parent organization’s group exemption, such as a denomination’s, may still qualify. If your church never applied for an IRS determination letter, settle that before planning around free Google seats.
How much does IT support cost for a small nonprofit?
On our Business Support Plan it’s $49 per user per month, with no minimum users and no setup fee, so 6 users, regular volunteers with accounts included, pay 6 × $49 = $294 a month. Software licenses and hardware aren’t included, and on-site visits are a separate paid add-on. Because it’s month-to-month, you can adjust when a grant starts or ends.
Does a small nonprofit need managed IT services?
Not always. A handful of staff with someone who keeps MFA, licenses and offboarding in order can get by, with one-off problems fixed as they come up. Managed IT services start to pay off when nobody clearly owns admin access, staff and volunteers turn over every season, or a funder or cyber insurer asks how donor data is protected. Look for a plan that covers the help desk, Microsoft 365 or Google administration and offboarding, without a long contract.
Can you fix problems in our donor database?
We help with what sits around it: sign-in and MFA trouble, browser problems, email integration with Outlook or Gmail, imports that fail because of file formatting, and access for new or departing staff. Bugs, data corrections and gift-processing questions go to the vendor, such as Bloomerang, Blackbaud for Raiser’s Edge NXT, Salesforce, DonorPerfect or Neon One. We can help you gather the details their support team will ask for.
Do you provide IT support for churches on Sundays?
No. Our hours are Monday through Friday, 8am to 8pm Eastern. For churches that means preparing during the week: updates scheduled outside service times, a test of the livestream and check-in stations on Thursday or Friday, and a simple written fallback for the volunteer team. Before Easter, Christmas and other large services, book a test run with us earlier in the week.
See whether we’re a fit in 20 minutes
Tell us how many people you have and what you use. We’ll tell you plainly what the $49/user plan covers for you and what it doesn’t.