IT for charities and non profit organisations
In a charity, every pound spent on technology is a pound not spent on the cause. That shapes every recommendation we make.
Logic Networks works with charities, community organisations, social enterprises and other non profits across London and the rest of the UK.
The constraints are different from a business. Funding is restricted and often tied to a project. Staff numbers rise and fall with grants. A large part of the workforce may be volunteers with their own devices. And the data held about beneficiaries is frequently more sensitive than anything a commercial client would hold.
We will tell you where you are eligible for discounted or donated licensing, and where a cheaper approach would do the job.
Charity licensing discounts are substantial and frequently unclaimed.
Many organisations are eligible for donated or heavily reduced Microsoft licences and do not know it. Checking costs nothing and the saving is permanent.
- Discounted and donated licensing checked and claimed
- Costs that can be reported against a grant
- Volunteer and personal devices handled properly
- Beneficiary data protected and accounted for
What we do for charities
Four areas, with the licensing review almost always first.
The licensing work often pays for a large part of everything else, which is why we start there rather than with a proposal.
Licensing and cost review
Often the first saving, and it is permanent.
We check what you are eligible for, what you are currently paying and what is assigned to people who have moved on.
Charities routinely pay commercial prices for licences available to them at a fraction of the cost, or for nothing at all. The check takes an hour and the saving recurs every year.
Support that does not need an internal expert
No volunteer holding it together.
Help for staff and volunteers from a team that knows your setup, so nobody’s unpaid time is absorbed by technology.
In many charities the person who handles IT is a trustee or a volunteer doing it as a favour. That arrangement works until it stops, usually without notice.
Protecting beneficiary data
Proportionate, and written down.
Access limited by role rather than granted to everybody, sign in protected, and a record of what you hold, why and for how long.
This is not only a compliance matter. A breach involving service users damages the trust the organisation depends on, which is harder to repair than any system.
Devices for a changing team
Including the ones you did not buy.
Managing a mixture of purchased, donated and personal equipment, with work data kept separate on devices the organisation does not own.
The separation matters most when a volunteer stops. We remove the work side and leave their own material untouched, which is both correct and the only version people will accept.
How charities usually work with us
Three arrangements, and the first one costs very little.
We are conscious that a monthly commitment is harder to justify from restricted funding than a one off piece of work, so each of these stands alone.
Tell us how you are funded and we will say which one is easiest to defend to your trustees.
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A review and a licence check
What you have, what you are paying and what you are eligible for. Frequently produces a saving that funds the next step.
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A funded project
A defined piece of work with a fixed cost, suitable for a grant application or a restricted fund. Scoped, dated and reportable.
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An ongoing arrangement
A fixed monthly cost based on users and devices, which can be included in core costs and adjusted as the team changes.
When charities call us
The trigger is usually funding or people. A grant that requires modernisation, a funder asking about data protection, or the departure of the one person who knew how everything worked.
If you are writing a bid and need a costed piece of work to include, that is a legitimate reason to contact us and we are used to it.
- A funder has asked how you protect the data you hold
- A grant requires a technology element and needs a costing
- The volunteer or trustee who handled IT is stepping back
- Staff numbers have changed and the licences have not
- Two offices or services each do things their own way
- Something went wrong and the trustees have asked questions
What we need from you
Three things, and the first one is what unlocks the discounts.
Where something is missing, we help produce it. A charity working from an incomplete picture is the normal starting point, not an unusual one.
Your registration details
Charity number and registered details, which is what licensing programmes check eligibility against. This is the first thing we ask for.
Someone who can decide
A manager or trustee who can approve a cost without waiting for the next full board meeting, even if larger decisions go there.
Access and ownership
The domain and the licences in the charity’s name rather than in a former volunteer’s personal account. This is a common and fixable problem.
What we usually find in a charity in the first month
These are the items that come up most often, and several of them save money rather than costing it.
- Commercial licence prices being paid where charity pricing was available
- Licences assigned to staff and volunteers who have moved on
- The domain registered to a person rather than to the organisation
- Beneficiary records reachable by everybody rather than by role
- Personal data kept far longer than any policy requires
- A shared login used by several volunteers
- Case notes held in a spreadsheet on one person’s machine
- No written record of what data is held and why
Our steps for working together
We start with the parts that save money, because in a charity that is what makes the rest possible.
- A conversation What you do, who uses your systems and what is causing difficulty.
- Licensing and cost check Eligibility confirmed, unused licences identified, and the annual saving stated before anything else is discussed.
- A review of the environment Devices, accounts, data, backup and who can reach what.
- A plan you can take to trustees In priority order, with each item costed separately so parts can be funded separately.
- The work, in fundable pieces So a delay in one grant does not stop everything.
- A rhythm afterwards A periodic review of licences against headcount, which is where charity costs drift fastest.
Volunteers, and why they need thinking about separately
Volunteers are the part of charity technology that standard advice ignores. They come and go more often than staff, they usually use their own equipment, and they frequently need access to the same records as paid employees.
The unsafe shortcut is a shared login that everybody uses. It is easy to set up and it removes any possibility of knowing who did what, which is exactly the thing a funder or a regulator will ask about.
The workable arrangement has four parts. Each volunteer has their own account, because accounts are cheap or free compared with the risk. Access is granted by role, so a befriending volunteer does not see financial records. Work email and files are kept in a container on their own phone that can be removed on its own. And there is a date in the calendar when the access ends, set when it is granted rather than decided later.
Setting that up takes a morning for a small organisation. It converts the most common weak point in a charity into something you can describe accurately on a form.
Reporting to funders and trustees
- Costs itemised So a restricted fund can pay for the part it is meant to pay for.
- Work described in plain words Written for a trustee rather than for an engineer.
- Data protection questions answered What you hold, who can reach it and how long you keep it.
- Before and after Where a saving was made, the figure and where it came from.
- Nothing overstated We will not describe a routine change as a transformation in a report you have to sign.
What good looks like for a charity
You are paying charity prices, and only for people who are here. No volunteer is holding the organisation’s technology together as a favour. Beneficiary records are reachable by the people who need them and nobody else. You can answer a funder’s data question in an afternoon. And when somebody leaves, their access ends without anybody having to remember.
Related services
Most charities start with the licensing review and take one other piece of work alongside it.
- Microsoft 365 for the licensing, mail and files
- Cybersecurity for protecting the data you hold
- IT support so nobody internal carries it
- Backup and recovery for records you cannot afford to lose
- Websites for donations, applications and referrals
Articles and news for charities
Practical notes on licensing, data and cost, written for managers and trustees rather than for engineers.
The first hour after a suspected email compromise
What to do, in order, when you think somebody has got into a mailbox. Written to be followed by whoever is in the office at the time.
Read the articleThe five security controls worth putting in place first
Security spending often starts at the wrong end. These five controls remove the largest share of everyday risk and cost the least.
Read the articleTurning on multi factor authentication without stopping work
The single change that prevents most account takeovers, and how to introduce it across a team of thirty people in a fortnight.
Read the articleTalk to us about your organisation
Tell us what you do, how many staff and volunteers use your systems and what is causing difficulty. We will check your licensing first, then come back with a costed plan you can take to your trustees.
If you are writing a funding bid, tell us the deadline.