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500 GBs of data inaccessible on 365 for Nonprofits
I manage a U.S. nonprofit that was using Microsoft 365 Business Premium through Microsoft’s nonprofit grant program. About a week ago, we suddenly lost access to our Microsoft 365 services. After investigating, I learned that Microsoft had announced the discontinuation of the Business Premium grant program. However, we never received any notification that our grant was ending or that our services would be terminated. What makes this especially confusing is that we continued receiving Microsoft’s regular invoices showing Business Premium licenses with a $0 balance as recently as May 21, 2026. The most serious issue is that approximately 500 GB of organizational data stored in OneDrive is now inaccessible. We have: Searched our email records and cannot find any termination notice. Opened support cases with Microsoft: no success in resolving the issue through regular recovery options. Asked for recovery options thru escalation paths: no response yet. Questions: Has anyone gone through a similar nonprofit grant termination? Does Microsoft retain OneDrive data for a period after nonprofit license termination? Are there escalation paths beyond frontline support for data recovery? Has anyone successfully regained access to a tenant after a grant-related shutdown? Any advice or experiences would be greatly appreciated.
Interesting question posed to me yesterday
Since MS's Nonprofit Global Leaders Summit, I have been talking to many people in our organisation about the benefits of Gen AI and trying to allay fears that it is going to take their jobs. However, yesterday a person getting started with her career asked me an excellent and very valid question that I did not know how to answer. I thought I would bring it to this community to see if anyone had thoughts or ideas on how to respond to it. This person is a creative person. The question: "I understand that AI can help me do my job. However, I get immense job and self-satisfaction from the creative process and knowing that I am the one who created the content, design, whatever it might be. If I offload that to AI, where does the job satisfaction come in?" Thoughts?Tech and AI for Nonprofits webinar
Want to know how your nonprofit organization can thrive through AI? Check out this webinar on January 16th from 8:00-10:00 AM Pacific as subject matter experts share the latest on tech and AI, success stories, best practices, and practical guidance. Save the date and register for the event here: Tech and AI for NonprofitsCopilot Products: Breakdown
We've seen a lot of copilot demos in the last couple of days: here's what the products are and what they do: 1. Microsoft Copilot: Formerly Bing chat has access to the internet but not your email or calendar 2. Microsoft 365 Copilot: Everything in MS copilot plus access your 365 email, calendar, etc. 3. Microsoft CoPilot Studio: low code interface to customize virtual power agents that enable customization of your AI Community and Microsoft team- please add or correct!
Microsoft 365 Copilot: free 30-day trial
Starting July 2026, Microsoft is rolling out a free 30-day trial of Microsoft 365 Copilot (Premium) for small and medium-sized organisations (up to 300 users). Users from eligible organisations will be able to start the trial directly from Copilot Chat and will receive full access to the premium version of Copilot. For nonprofits, this is a great opportunity to evaluate whether the paid version of Copilot delivers real value before purchasing any licences. We recommend having AI usage guidelines in place before starting the trial, and initially running the trial with a small group. Putting some structure around the trial will help you clearly assess the outcomes and make a more informed decision about next steps. A few things worth noting about the trial: No payment information is required. The ability for users to start a trial will be enabled by default, but admins can disable this option via the Microsoft 365 Admin Centre. Microsoft 365 Copilot connects to your Microsoft 365 content (such as emails, documents, and calendar) to personalise its responses. After 30 days, users will need a paid licence to continue using the premium features.Integrate MS AI into our 3rd party app
Is there a way to integrate AI (copilot) into our 3rd party app? Our app is used by large number of users to access technical content. They have to navigate through tons of content which is not very efficient. The AI for example could based on the user profile, push matching content on the top. This is just one example, there are many more. I am not sure whether MS NP division has any dedicated team who collaborate with NP organisations like us on such needs, is there a way to contact someone there? Luckily, I found this community while looking for ways to contact MS. I can already see some interesting discussions in different sections.The very first organizational adoption of AI steps ... your experience!
I've been reflecting on what I'm hearing about nonprofit AI adoption from leaders in the early stages of the journey. That critical first step is to understand and listen to staff concerns about how AI might change their jobs and other real or perceived concerns. * Fear of job of obsoletism due to “offloading” tasks to the AI - that their job might go away or be revert from full-time to part-time contract work. * Discomfort over the rapid pace of change and perceived steep learning curve while being overwhelmed with current workloads. * Worry about the impersonal nature of AI, which might diminish human interaction and decision-making in professional settings. * Concerns about losing their sense of purpose and job satisfaction. Once people put their hands on the tech, they realize that some of these are a perception. I've also heard concerns at this stage - something along the lines of "It takes too much to experiment, I could just write the **bleep** email myself in less time." I think that is more about habit change and acquiring a new skill. What concerns are you hearing and how have you addressed them?
