Written by Mike Pearlstein, CISSP, CEO of Fusion Computing Limited. Helping Canadian businesses build and manage secure IT infrastructure since 2012 across Toronto, Hamilton and Metro Vancouver.
The Microsoft 365 nonprofit grant is still one of the best deals in Canadian nonprofit IT, and the offer your board remembers is gone. Microsoft retired the Business Premium grant in 2025. Most setup guides still point at a validation process that no longer exists, so organizations renew into the wrong plan or pay full price for licences they could claim at no cost.
This is the 2026 version, carrying the Canadian dollar figures Microsoft actually publishes. It covers what you still get at no cost, what now costs money, how eligibility and validation work after the move to Microsoft direct, and how to turn claimed licences into real protection for donor and financial records.
Short answer: In 2026, eligible Canadian registered charities still get Microsoft 365 Business Basic granted free for up to 300 users. The Business Premium grant ended July 1, 2025, so Business Premium, Business Standard and Office 365 E1 are discount only.
Nonprofit Business Premium is CA$7.50 per user per month on an annual term, against a CA$29.80 commercial list price. Nonprofit Business Standard is CA$4.60 against CA$19.00. Since August 2025 you validate directly with Microsoft rather than through TechSoup.
Claim the granted Basic licences first, add discounted Business Premium for staff who open donor or financial records, then switch on multi-factor authentication and the built-in security controls. Eligibility runs on your CRA registered charity status.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The Microsoft 365 Business Premium grant ended July 1, 2025. Existing grant licences lapse at your next billing anniversary and are not reissued (Microsoft, 2025).
- Microsoft still grants Microsoft 365 Business Basic free for up to 300 users, with discounts of up to 75% on Business Premium and Business Standard.
- Nonprofit Business Premium costs CA$7.50 per user per month on an annual term in Canada, against a CA$29.80 commercial list price (Microsoft, 2026).
- Nonprofit Business Standard costs CA$4.60 per user per month against a CA$19.00 commercial list price (Microsoft, 2026).
- Since August 2025, you validate directly with Microsoft rather than through TechSoup.
- Copilot Chat rides along with the granted Business Basic licences at no extra charge. The paid Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on runs US$25.50 per user per month at the nonprofit discount (Microsoft, 2026).
- 18% of Canadian nonprofits have had a cybersecurity incident and 36% have nobody responsible for cybersecurity (Statistics Canada, 2021).
What is the Microsoft 365 nonprofit grant, and what changed in 2026
According to Microsoft’s nonprofit program updates (2025), the Business Premium grant is discontinued. Granted licences expire on each organization’s next renewal date. The change took effect July 1, 2025, alongside retirement of the Office 365 E1 grant.
“The Microsoft 365 Business Premium grant has been discontinued. Your licenses will expire on your next renewal date and will not renew.”
For years the standard advice was simple. Claim the Business Premium grant, usually described as 10 donated seats, and run the whole organization on it. That offer no longer exists. Microsoft folded both of those grants into a discount, and moved its no-cost tier to a different plan entirely.
The timing matters because grant licences do not vanish on a single date. They expire at each organization’s own renewal, so registered charities are hitting the cutoff in waves across 2025 and 2026. Microsoft will not downgrade you automatically, which means an admin has to act. Miss the renewal and you risk losing access to email and files until someone reassigns licences.
At the other end of the licensing range sits the new enterprise top tier. Our guide to Microsoft 365 E7 for Canadian SMBs explains who actually needs it and who should stay put.
What your charity actually gets now
Per Microsoft (2025), the program grants Business Basic free for up to 300 users. Discounts of up to 75% apply to many paid plans, including Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Business Standard. The granted seat count rose, and that plan drops the desktop apps and the security stack.
That trade-off is the whole story of the 2026 offer. You get far more granted seats than before, on a lighter plan. You pay a discounted rate for the heavier plan that protects sensitive data. The table below shows where each plan landed.
| Plan | 2026 status | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 Business Basic | Granted free, up to 300 users | Web and mobile Office apps, email, Teams, 1 TB OneDrive and free Copilot Chat. No desktop apps and no advanced security. |
| Microsoft 365 Business Premium | Discount only, CA$7.50 per user per month | Desktop Office, plus Defender for Business, Intune, Entra ID P1 and Purview data protection. |
| Microsoft 365 Business Standard | Discount only, CA$4.60 per user per month | Desktop Office and collaboration apps, without the Premium security tooling. |
| Office 365 E1 | Free grant retired July 1, 2025 | Now discount only. Existing grant licences expire at renewal. |
| Old free Business Premium grant | Retired | No longer available to new or renewing organizations. |
For most Canadian nonprofits the practical answer is a mix. Put general staff and volunteers on the free Business Basic seats. Pay the discounted rate for Business Premium on the smaller group who open donor records, financial data or health information. We unpack that split in the budgeting section below.
Microsoft 365 nonprofit pricing in Canada: a 2026 plan comparison
According to Microsoft’s Canadian nonprofit pricing page (2026), Business Premium is CA$7.50 per user per month for eligible nonprofit staff, paid yearly. Business Standard is CA$4.60 on the same annual term. Business Basic stays a grant at no cost for up to 300 users, plus applicable tax.
Those are the numbers most guides leave out. Microsoft advertises the program as discounts of up to 75%, and the published Canadian rates land right on that line. The table below sets each nonprofit rate beside the commercial list price Microsoft publishes for the same plan.
| Plan | Nonprofit rate | Commercial list | Saved per seat, per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business Basic | CA$0.00 granted, to 300 users | CA$9.50 | CA$114.00. |
| Business Standard | CA$4.60 | CA$19.00 | CA$172.80. |
| Business Premium | CA$7.50 | CA$29.80 | CA$267.60. |
All figures are per user per month on an annual term, before tax, as published by Microsoft in 2026. Work the arithmetic on a real tenant and the gap gets concrete. Ten Business Premium seats cost CA$900 a year at the nonprofit rate against CA$3,576 at commercial list, a saving of CA$2,676 for the same licences.
In our experience the paid tier stays small. Most organizations land between 4 and 12 Premium seats, with everyone else sitting comfortably on granted Basic. Fusion Computing recommends pricing that split before anyone touches the tenant, because the seat count drives the renewal quote for the next 3 years.
Eligibility requirements, and how validation works now
Both TechSoup Canada and Microsoft require recognized charitable status. In Canada that means a CRA registered charity or qualified donee. Grants are limited to paid staff and unpaid executive leadership. Discounts extend to all staff and volunteers, while beneficiaries, donors and members are not eligible users.
The big procedural change is who checks your status. As of August 2025, TechSoup no longer performs Microsoft validation. You register and validate directly with Microsoft at nonprofit.microsoft.com. TechSoup Canada still offers other donated and discounted products, with a small administrative fee per item, and the Microsoft eligibility review runs through Microsoft.
How to claim and set up the grant
Microsoft’s nonprofit portal walks a registered charity through validation. It then provisions granted and discounted licences inside the Microsoft 365 admin center. The full path takes 5 steps, and most of the effort lands in the setup after approval rather than the application itself.
- Confirm your status. Gather your CRA registered charity or qualified donee details, including registration number and legal name.
- Register and validate. Apply at nonprofit.microsoft.com and submit for validation. Allow up to 20 business days for Microsoft to review.
- Assign the free Basic licences. Once approved, assign Microsoft 365 Business Basic, up to 300 seats, in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
- Add discounted Premium where it counts. Buy Business Premium at CA$7.50 per user per month for the people who handle donor, financial or health data.
- Migrate and tidy up. Move email and files into the tenant, then retire shared mailboxes and personal accounts so every user has a unique, governed login.
The licences are only half the job. A tenant handed out without configuration is an open tenant, and the security section below covers the controls that turn it into a defended one. For a wider view of the sector you operate in, our guide to IT support for Canadian nonprofits sets the context.
Microsoft 365 Copilot for nonprofits: what a paid Copilot licence requires
According to Microsoft’s offers page for nonprofits (2026), Copilot Chat is included in a Microsoft 365 subscription at no extra charge. The full Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on is discounted to US$25.50 per user per month, paid yearly, and it requires an existing Microsoft 365 subscription underneath it.
That prerequisite is the part boards miss. Copilot is an add-on rather than a plan, so a granted Business Basic seat has to stay in place for the add-on to attach. Budget the base licence and the Copilot licence together, or the quote will come back short.
The free tier is more useful than most nonprofits realize. Copilot Chat rides along with the granted Basic licences at no cost, which means an organization running entirely on the grant already has web-grounded AI chat for every staff member. Our engineers found that covers most day-to-day drafting work long before anyone needs the paid add-on.
For the Canadian dollar detail on the paid tiers and the July 2026 repricing, see our breakdown of Microsoft 365 Copilot pricing in Canada.
Turn the grant into real security
According to Microsoft (2026), Business Premium is a complete security solution for up to 300 users. It bundles Microsoft Defender for Business, Intune device management, Entra ID P1 conditional access and Purview data protection. The free Basic plan omits those 4 capabilities, which is why sensitive roles get discounted Premium seats.
Licences do not protect anyone until they are switched on. Multi-factor authentication is free on every plan, including Basic, and it blocks the most common attack path of stolen or reused passwords. The advanced controls ship with Business Premium and need a deliberate setup. The checklist below maps the 8 moves that matter most.
| # | Control to turn on | Plan | Done? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Multi-factor authentication for every user. | All plans. | □ |
| 2 | Unique logins, replacing shared mailboxes and accounts. | All plans. | □ |
| 3 | Conditional access policies via Entra ID P1. | Premium. | □ |
| 4 | Microsoft Defender for Business antivirus and EDR. | Premium. | □ |
| 5 | Intune enforcement of device encryption and screen lock. | Premium. | □ |
| 6 | Purview sensitivity labels and DLP on donor data. | Premium. | □ |
| 7 | Review of sharing links and Copilot file access. | All plans. | □ |
| 8 | Independent, tested backups of Microsoft 365 data. | Add-on. | □ |
Two of these deserve a flag. Microsoft 365 keeps your data available, and it is not a backup, so item 8 needs a separate tool. Oversharing through Copilot or loose sharing links can leak donor records even inside a well-licensed tenant, a risk we track in our note on Copilot oversharing for Canadian SMBs.
Want a second set of eyes on your new tenant? Book a Microsoft 365 security review. →
Budgeting Microsoft 365 on a nonprofit budget
Canadian nonprofits spend roughly CA$21,000 a year on cyber prevention, about half the CA$55,000 comparable businesses spend, according to Imagine Canada drawing on Statistics Canada 2021 data. With the free Business Premium grant gone, the goal is to spend that thin budget where the data risk is highest.
The cleanest approach is to tier your seats. Most staff and volunteers work in email, Teams and the web apps, so the free Business Basic grant covers them at no cost for up to 300 users. Discounted Business Premium then goes to the smaller group whose role touches sensitive records.
Against Canada’s roughly 85,000 registered charities, that split usually means paying for a handful of Premium seats rather than the whole organization. At CA$7.50 per seat, 8 Premium licences run CA$720 a year, which is 3% of that CA$21,000 prevention budget. Track the grants and discounts as in-kind technology support in your funder reporting.
Fusion Computing tracks renewal dates as the real deadline here, because the grant lapse and the budget cycle rarely line up. For a wider framework on planning this spend, see our guide to building an IT budget.
Stretching a nonprofit budget? Get in touch about grant setup and tiering. →
TRUSTED BY CANADIAN ORGANIZATIONS SINCE 2012.
CISSP-led • Microsoft Solutions Partner • CompTIA Managed Services Trustmark • 50 Best Managed IT Companies (2024).
Related Resources
- IT support for Canadian nonprofits. The service pillar behind this guide.
- Donor data protection for Canadian nonprofits. What Purview labels protect once Premium is live.
- Bill 194 and Ontario non-profits. Where provincial obligations bite.
- Best IT Providers for Canadian Nonprofits (2026). How to pick a partner for the migration.
- Copilot oversharing for Canadian SMBs. Read before licensing Copilot.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot pricing in Canada. Canadian dollar detail on the paid tiers.
- PIPEDA compliance checklist. The privacy baseline donor data sits under.
- Building an IT budget. Planning the spend around the renewal.
- Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365 for Canadian organizations. If you are still choosing a platform.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Microsoft 365 nonprofit grant still free in 2026?
Partly. Microsoft still grants Microsoft 365 Business Basic free for up to 300 users to eligible registered charities. The free Business Premium grant ended July 1, 2025, so Business Premium, Business Standard and Office 365 E1 are discount only. Most organizations run a mix of free Basic seats and a few discounted Premium seats.
How much does Microsoft 365 Business Premium cost for a Canadian nonprofit?
Microsoft publishes CA$7.50 per user per month, paid yearly, for eligible nonprofit staff in Canada, before tax. The commercial list price for the same plan is CA$29.80, so each seat saves CA$267.60 a year. Business Standard is CA$4.60 against a CA$19.00 list price. Ten Premium seats cost CA$900 a year at the nonprofit rate.
What happened to the free Microsoft 365 Business Premium grant?
Microsoft discontinued it. Granted Business Premium licences expire on each organization’s next renewal date and will not renew, with the change effective July 1, 2025. Microsoft does not downgrade tenants automatically, so an admin has to move users to the free Business Basic grant or buy discounted Premium seats before the licences lapse.
Is my Canadian charity eligible for the grant?
If you are a CRA registered charity or qualified donee with recognized charitable status, yes. Granted licences are limited to paid staff and unpaid executive leadership. Discounts extend to all staff and volunteers, while beneficiaries, donors and members are not eligible users. Microsoft confirms your status during validation.
Do I still validate through TechSoup?
No. As of August 2025, TechSoup no longer performs Microsoft validation. You register and validate directly with Microsoft at nonprofit.microsoft.com. TechSoup Canada still offers other donated and discounted products for a small administrative fee, and the Microsoft eligibility review now runs through Microsoft.
How long does Microsoft nonprofit validation take?
Plan for up to 20 business days from when you submit your application at nonprofit.microsoft.com. Because granted licences expire at your renewal date, start the process well ahead of that date rather than the week it is due, so a slow review does not interrupt email or file access.
Can a nonprofit get Microsoft 365 Copilot at a discount?
Yes. Microsoft discounts the Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on to US$25.50 per user per month, paid yearly, for eligible nonprofits. The add-on requires an existing Microsoft 365 subscription underneath it, so budget the base licence alongside it. Copilot Chat is included at no extra charge with the granted Business Basic seats.
What is the difference between Business Basic and Business Premium for a nonprofit?
Business Basic is the free granted plan at CA$0: web and mobile Office apps, email, Teams, 1 TB of OneDrive and free Copilot Chat, with no desktop apps and no advanced security. Business Premium costs CA$7.50 per user per month and adds desktop Office plus Defender for Business, Intune, Entra ID P1 and Purview. The security is why sensitive roles get Premium.
Does the grant include security features like MFA?
Multi-factor authentication is free on every Microsoft 365 plan, including the granted Business Basic, and you should turn it on for all users. The advanced controls, meaning conditional access, Defender for Business endpoint protection, Intune device management and Purview data loss prevention, require Business Premium at CA$7.50 per user per month.
How much should a nonprofit budget now that the free Premium grant ended?
Budget discounted Business Premium at CA$7.50 per user per month for the staff who handle donor, financial or health data, and use the free Business Basic grant for everyone else. Eight Premium seats run CA$720 a year, which sits inside a typical Canadian nonprofit cyber budget of about CA$21,000 a year.
The bottom line
The Microsoft 365 nonprofit offer is still generous in 2026, and it is a different offer from 2 years ago. The free plan is Business Basic for up to 300 users. Business Premium is CA$7.50 per user per month rather than free. Claim the free seats, pay the discount where the data risk lives, and switch on the controls.
