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 one of the best deals in Canadian charity IT, but the offer your board remembers is gone. Microsoft retired the free Business Premium grant in 2025, and most setup guides still point you at a validation process that no longer exists. The result is a lot of charities renewing into the wrong plan, or paying for licences they could get free.
This is the 2026 version. It covers what your charity still gets for free, what now costs money, how eligibility and validation work after the move to Microsoft direct, and how to turn the licences you claim into real protection for donor, financial, and client data.
Short answer: In 2026, eligible Canadian registered charities can still get Microsoft 365 Business Basic granted free for up to 300 users. The free Business Premium grant ended on July 1, 2025, so Business Premium, Business Standard, and Office 365 E1 are now discount only, up to 75% off. Since August 2025 you validate your charity directly with Microsoft, not through TechSoup.
Claim the free Basic licences first, add discounted Business Premium for staff who handle donor or financial data, then turn on multi-factor authentication and the built-in security controls. Eligibility runs on your CRA registered charity status.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The free Microsoft 365 Business Premium grant ended on July 1, 2025; existing grant licences expire at your next renewal and will not renew (Microsoft, 2025).
- Microsoft still grants Microsoft 365 Business Basic free for up to 300 users, and discounts Business Premium and Standard up to 75% for eligible charities.
- Since August 2025, charities validate eligibility directly with Microsoft, not through TechSoup.
- 18% of Canadian nonprofits have had a cybersecurity incident and 36% have nobody responsible for cybersecurity (Statistics Canada, 2021).
- The average Canadian data breach reached CA$6.98 million in 2025, and organizations using security automation paid CA$5.19 million versus CA$8.53 million without it (IBM, 2025).
What changed: the Microsoft 365 nonprofit grant in 2026
According to Microsoft’s official nonprofit program updates, the Microsoft 365 Business Premium grant has been discontinued, and granted licences expire on each organization’s next renewal date and will not renew. The change took effect on July 1, 2025, alongside the retirement of the free Office 365 E1 grant.
For years the standard advice was simple: claim the free Business Premium grant, usually described as 10 free seats, and run your whole charity on it. That offer no longer exists. Microsoft folded the free Business Premium and Office 365 E1 grants into a discount, and shifted its free 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 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.
What your charity actually gets now
Per Microsoft, the program now grants Microsoft 365 Business Basic free for up to 300 users, and offers discounts of up to 75% on many paid plans, including Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Business Standard. The free seat count went up from the old grant, but the free plan no longer includes the desktop apps or the security stack.
That trade-off is the whole story of the 2026 offer. You get far more free seats than before, on a lighter plan, and 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; no desktop apps, no advanced security |
| Microsoft 365 Business Premium | Discount only, up to 75% off | Desktop Office, plus Defender for Business, Intune, Entra ID P1, and Purview data protection |
| Microsoft 365 Business Standard | Discount only, up to 75% off | 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 charities |
For most Canadian charities the practical answer is a mix. Put general staff and volunteers on the free Business Basic seats, and 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.
Are you eligible, and how validation works now
Both TechSoup Canada and Microsoft require recognized charitable status to access nonprofit offers. 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 now register and validate your charity directly with Microsoft at nonprofit.microsoft.com. TechSoup Canada still offers other donated and discounted products, with a small administrative fee per item, but 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, then provisions granted and discounted licences inside the Microsoft 365 admin center. The full path takes 5 steps, and most of the effort is in the setup after approval, not the application itself.
- Confirm your status. Gather your CRA registered charity or qualified donee details, including your 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, to staff and volunteers in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
- Add discounted Premium where it counts. Buy Business Premium at the nonprofit discount for the users 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 section below covers the controls that turn it into a defended one. For a wider view of the sector you are operating in, our guide to IT support for Canadian nonprofits sets the context.
Turn the grant into real security
According to Microsoft, Microsoft 365 Business Premium is a complete security solution for up to 300 users, bundling Microsoft Defender for Business, Intune device management, Entra ID P1 conditional access, and Purview data protection. The free Basic plan does not include those 4 capabilities, which is the main reason charities buy discounted Premium seats for sensitive roles.
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, stolen or reused passwords. The advanced controls, conditional access, endpoint protection, device management, and data loss prevention, ship with Business Premium and need a deliberate setup. The checklist below maps the 8 moves that matter most for a charity.
| # | Control to turn on | Plan | Done? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Multi-factor authentication for every user | All plans | □ |
| 2 | Unique logins; retire shared mailboxes and accounts | All plans | □ |
| 3 | Conditional access policies (Entra ID P1) | Premium | □ |
| 4 | Microsoft Defender for Business: antivirus and EDR | Premium | □ |
| 5 | Intune: enforce device encryption and screen lock | Premium | □ |
| 6 | Purview sensitivity labels and DLP on donor data | Premium | □ |
| 7 | Review sharing links; limit 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, but it is not a backup, so item 8 needs a separate tool. And oversharing through Copilot or loose sharing links can leak donor records even inside a well-licensed tenant, a risk we cover 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 of the CA$55,000 that 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 do their work in email, Teams, and the web apps, so the free Business Basic grant covers them at no cost for up to 300 users. The discounted Business Premium licences then go to the smaller group whose role touches sensitive records: finance, fundraising leadership, and anyone with admin rights.
Across Canada’s roughly 85,000 registered charities, that split usually means paying for a handful of Premium seats rather than the whole organization. Track the licence grants and discounts as in-kind technology support in your funder reporting, the same way you would record any donated service. 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 →
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CISSP-Certified • Microsoft Solutions Partner • CompTIA Managed Services Trustmark • 50 Best Managed IT Companies (2024)
Related Resources
- IT support for Canadian nonprofits
- Donor data protection for Canadian nonprofits
- Bill 194 and Ontario non-profits
- Best IT Providers for Canadian Nonprofits (2026)
- Microsoft 365 Copilot oversharing for Canadian SMBs
- PIPEDA compliance checklist
- Building an IT budget for a small Canadian organization
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 on July 1, 2025, so Business Premium, Business Standard, and Office 365 E1 are now discount only, up to 75% off. Most charities run a mix of free Basic seats and a few discounted Premium seats.
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, but 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 your charity directly with Microsoft at nonprofit.microsoft.com. TechSoup Canada still offers other donated and discounted products for a small administrative fee, but 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.
What is the difference between Business Basic and Business Premium for a nonprofit?
Business Basic is the free granted plan: web and mobile Office apps, email, Teams, and 1 TB of OneDrive, with no desktop apps and no advanced security. Business Premium is discount only and adds desktop Office plus the security stack, Defender for Business, Intune, Entra ID P1, and Purview. The security is why most charities pay for Premium on sensitive roles.
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, conditional access, Defender for Business endpoint protection, Intune device management, and Purview data loss prevention, require Business Premium, which charities buy at the nonprofit discount.
How much should a nonprofit budget now that the free Premium grant ended?
Budget for discounted Business Premium on the staff who handle donor, financial, or health data, and use the free Business Basic grant for everyone else. For most charities that means paying for a handful of Premium seats rather than the whole organization, which keeps the cost well within 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, but it is not the offer from 2 years ago. The free plan is now Business Basic for up to 300 users, and the security-rich Business Premium is discounted rather than free. Claim the free seats, pay the discount where the data risk lives, turn on MFA and the built-in controls, and you protect donor trust on a budget a charity can carry.
