TechSoup's Microsoft Nonprofit Licensing Things To Note

Continuing from my prior post about the huge TechSoup Microsoft announcement for Churches ...

Here are a few nuggets that I've found helpful to note.  Mainly I'm putting them here on my blog so I can refer back to them in the future ... if others benefit that's a BONUS! ;-)

The limitations of the TechSoup Microsoft Software Program can be summarized down to the following:

Within a 2yr window which starts with your 1st purchase...

You can purchase up to 50 licenses per Title Group across 10 Title Groups max...this includes server cals.
You can purchase 5 server software licenses
No, you can not renew Software Assurance via TechSoup. You must use an authorized charity reseller for renewals.  However, in most cases it'll be cheaper just to purchase again from TechSoup unless you're over the above quanity limits.
After your 2yr window, your licensing allotment resets to zero.

If you want the read the full monte, TechSoup has a great page explaining the above in detail along with handy purchasing examples http://www.techsoup.org/support/articles-and-how-tos/microsoft-eligibility#allotments

TechSoup Microsoft software includes Software Assurance ... which is awesome!
Basically, that'll give you upgrade rights for 2 years, usually home use rights for employees, and online training resources.

I'll update this with other helpful nuggets I or other church IT peers uncover...so if you have nugget to share leave a comment below :-)

Comments

[Weave]

Thanks for this. I hadn't heard about this program before, but I'm a bit confused. You talk about purchasing it, but the link to Microsoft says it is a donation. Is it a case that it's free from Microsoft but we have to pay Techsoup for their cost in administering the program?

[Jason Powell]

Yeah - I think it's a bit misleading to say it's donated software then you find out you have to pay an admin fee to TechSoup. So I'm just going to call it a purchase since that's what it actually is :-)