"Best" M365 Edition for small, non-profit counseling center

[britechguy]

Since M365 is not my area of specialty, and Microsoft makes "edition comparison shopping" somewhat challenging, I thought I'd ask here first.

A small, local counseling center that must have HIPAA compliance is at the stage where they need to upgrade both their hardware and software. There are fewer than 10 employees, and they currently have a mixed environment (where one machine *still* has Windows 7 Pro - eeek) where Windows 10 and Windows 11 machines are on the network. They only really use MS-Word and Excel regularly, with occasional use of PowerPoint. They do not use Outlook. Their therapy notes system is brand new and is cloud based, so nothing is stored locally and it was provided by a company that specializes in this arena (and HIPAA compliance).

Given that most M365 subscriptions I know of cover "a block" of seats and can be shared, I presume one that they would use does, too. But I am not feeling like digging in to the details without a bit of guidance first, so I'm asking for some from those in the know.

 

[callthatgirl]

Setup an account at TechSoup, they can probably get it for free, any edition. TechSoup is the partner for NP's for Microsoft and other tech. It's not fun to setup but once done, they don't have to pay. I charge for my time to setup.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Microsoft donates a lot for non profits, there are certain licenses that are either 100% FREE for non profits, or...deeply discounted for non profits. Nearly 50% of our MSP clients are non profits that we've been the IT support for for a long time.

Microsoft 365 Nonprofit Solutions | Microsoft Nonprofits

Explore Microsoft 365 nonprofit solutions and technology to help your organization come together and collaborate securely anywhere on any device.

www.microsoft.com

To keep it quick and easy, you apply directly through Microsoft in a link found in the above page. Client needs to have their tax free EIN handy and some basic info like annual budget. Many years ago non profits went through TechSoup to get their Microsoft discounted software (and other brands of software also)...but Microsoft added this page above which has the direct link to apply. Clients can still apply through TechSoup, which will take longer...only to have TechSoup send them the above link after all that toil. So...just go to the above link, which..has a section "Get started, register"....which takes you here....

https://nonprofit.microsoft.com/getting-started

M365 Business Basic for non profits...online "online" heavy apps, email, and can download Teams/OneDrive, FREE for up to 300
M365 Business Standard...$3.00/user/month. Has the Office apps, as well as email, Teams/OneDrive. Does not included added security features or AzureP1 or other things that HIPAA compliance desires to see.
M365 Business Premium for non profits, which is the license we focus on. FREE for users 1-10, $5.50/user/month for users 11 upwards. Takes Business Standard, and adds AzureP1, MEM/InTune, Defender added layers of security and other things desirable towards HIPAA compliance.

I'll skip the E3 and E5 flavors since they're for much larger orgs.

Also, if you scroll down to the bottom of this link....you'll see some added perks for non profits...worth checking out.

Compare Microsoft 365 Nonprofit Plans | Microsoft 365

Explore how Microsoft 365 with Microsoft Teams can help your nonprofit improve cybersecurity, reduce costs, and empower employees to work from anywhere.

www.microsoft.com

When filling out the application, like opening any new Microsoft 365 tenant, you'll get asked what your domain is, to end up with a "blahblah".onmicrosoft.com account. That "blah blah"...I make it the clients actual domain name. It "can" technically be anything. You'll have a spot to fill in the admin user account for this tenant, such as "admin@blahblah.onmicrosoft.com". MUST document what this user ID and password is. Once you have this, you start setting up the entire tenant, adding licenses, changing the domain to a formal domain utilizing your access to the clients DNS control panel (probably at their domain registrar, could be somewhere else). But to help your client...you'll need access to their DNS cpanel...so make sure you get that.

Probably the license I would use is the M365 Business Premium free for 1-10. I know you said they do not use Outlook, however, IMO...striving for that HIPAA compliance, may want to migrate their email to 365..they can still use the web browser. I do have a small non profit client who insists on keeping their email at Google Workplace, but I have them on M365BizPrem for everything else. There is a slight loss in some functionality when email is also not at 365...but overall, it still works great for them and after 3 years I think they're ready to move their email to 365.

Microsoft also has a special license to upgrade "Home" to "pro" for a low price if the client has M365 Biz Premium (if I recall it's just 65 bucks), if it's Win7 Pro, the freebie online upgrade to 10 still works.

I do a lot of these, I'm happy to help you, do some remote time with you, emails, phone calls, etc.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Stonecat has it nailed, and you start with those 10 free Business Premium seats and go from there.

 

[britechguy]

My sincere thanks to all who've replied. This center is small and will likely remain so, so I imagine those 10 free licenses will be all they will need (actually fewer, at the moment) for the foreseeable future.

I am glad to see that Microsoft has a "direct portal" for non-profits to apply for these licenses now. Anything that cuts out additional entities and steps is a benefit, in my opinion.

TechSoup still clearly serves a purpose as a clearinghouse for other vendors as well as Microsoft, though. But in this case the focus really is only on Microsoft and M365 specifically. It has recently come to my attention through my interactions on several blind technology forums that the day has finally arrived when Outlook and Word under M365 have several small, but distinct, divergences from Office 2016, and that probably means from all the old-style installed versions of Office. That being the case, there will only be more to come, so for organizations the time to jump to M365 for the long term has definitely arrived.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

And I forgot to add in my blurb above, even with non profit licenses, those who resell 365 licenses can still order and provision those licenses, so you collect $ on them, and even build your credits with MS with the free ones. I provision those through our PAX8 CSP all the time.

 

[britechguy]

Given that my typical demographic is home and very small mom n' pop businesses, I have never gotten into the license reselling game. This client is one that I came upon via another client who works for them.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Given that my typical demographic is home and very small mom n' pop businesses, I have never gotten into the license reselling game. This client is one that I came upon via another client who works for them.

Pax8 makes it easy, even if you don't have an automated billing system. They also provide support should you need it.

 

[HCHTech]

They also provide support should you n

This is the real value-add. We use AppRiver instead of Pax8, but the support idea is the same. We don't need it often, but when you do, the thought of starting that process with MS directly makes me nauseous. With Appriver, we just call them up, explain the problem and they take it from there. Absolutely worth every penny they charge.

 

[Sky-Knight]

This is the real value-add. We use AppRiver instead of Pax8, but the support idea is the same. We don't need it often, but when you do, the thought of starting that process with MS directly makes me nauseous. With Appriver, we just call them up, explain the problem and they take it from there. Absolutely worth every penny they charge.

Dumb part is... when I open a ticket with Pax8, it also opens a ticket with MS, and the latter is typically what sorts it. Most of the time I just open a ticket with MS to start, 30min later I have help on the phone.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Dumb part is... when I open a ticket with Pax8, it also opens a ticket with MS, and the latter is typically what sorts it. Most of the time I just open a ticket with MS to start, 30min later I have help on the phone.

To be honest..even though MS outsources 365 support to India....like you stated, they quickly call you back and usually get it solved.
We used to use AppRiver many years ago for other services they provided, but they take too much off the commision for 365 via their CSP to keep for themselves. PAX8 gives 60% more. PAX8 also offers another tier of CSP that is similar to AppRiver, it's more like a referral program, if you bring a customer to PAX8 under this program, customer uses PAX8 for all their support, you get ...I think it's 11%, might be 9%, margins...for the life of that customer. And the customer never has to call you again, it's more like a referral program. Sorta similar to the AppRiver program...I think their margins are 10% for their regular CSP.