There’s a popular saying ‘There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch’ and that’s often the case when an organisation is offered something for free.
However if you are a charity or non profit organisation you should definitely consider taking advantage of Microsofts free Azure credit offering.
Microsoft offer an annual $3,500 free credit offering (previously $5,000) that you can spend on anything in Azure. It is NOT a requirement for your organisation to be based within the USA for you to be able to claim this.
So what’s the catch? There isn’t one really, other than the fact that once you start using Azure, you’ll be on a slippery slope to a full cloud migration when you see just how good it is.
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What is Azure?
Azure is Microsofts cloud platform, offering more than 200 cloud services to help your business achieve it’s goals.
With over 95% of fortune 500 companies already using Azure, if you haven’t already started using it, then this offer really is worth taking up.
Who can claim Azure charity / non profit donation credits?
The process of claiming the free credits is quite simple, however it’s worth checking the eligibility requirements to ensure your organisation is elgigible.
You can view the full requirements list here, but in summary there are the five key eligibility requirements;
- Organization eligibility – organisations must be a non-profit or non-government organisation with the relevant legal status in their respective country
- Mission eligibility – this gets a little more complicated, but essentially your mission needs to benefit the local community
- User licensing – the offer is only valid for employees and volunteers of the non-profit organisation
- License restrictions – organisations cant be share, transfer, rent or resell non profit licenses or services, this makes sense, however you have to be careful if you have a for profit arm of your company
- Non-discrimination – your organisation shouldn’t have a policy or mission of discriminating against others
How to claim Azure Grant donations for charities / non profits
Once you are happy that your organisation meets the eligibility requirements, the actual process of applying for the Azure Credit Grant is quite simple 3 step process.
- Complete the application form – you can find the application form here
- Await approval – it can take up to 7 days to have your application verified (it usually happens within a few days)
- Apply for the Azure Credit – using the Non Profit Hub you can apply for your $3,500 credit
Make sure to renew your Azure donation each year
It’s worth noting that you must apply for the credit manually every year, which is easy to do from within the Non Profit Hub, but worth putting a reminder in your diary (even though Microsoft will send you email reminders).
You can access the portal here https://nonprofit.microsoft.com/
