Forum Discussion
Copilot nonprofit grant proposal/request/suggestion
Having recently attended Microsoft 365 Community Conference in Florida I came away with a far better understanding of how Copilot could be so useful in the nonprofit sector but that the cost is real block for nonprofits I deal with so wanted to share (partial) email I sent to try to spread the word a bit ..
"Whilst I’m pretty up on things in the 365 area, I did find the various (!) sessions on Copilot very useful to me in moving my somewhat sceptical pre-conference thoughts on AI/Copilot in general 🙄 to a realisation of just how useful this could be, especially with the Copilot for Microsoft 365 integration with tenant data, to all of course but especially to SMB’s and nonprofits that I deal with. It’s a fantastic new tool across the spectrum of 365 apps and with SMB’s and nonprofits having little if any internal IT resources to help, I believe it can prove to be of major benefit to them, providing the knowledge, data and reporting that traditionally they’d turn to IT folks for and that’s not counting the productivity and AI benefits outlined throughout the conference on top.
My wave of enthusiasm for Copilot is tempered however with the realisation of the significant cost of Copilot ($30 / month / user) as that even at the corporate level must be a tough call to justify but for SMB’s it’s vastly worse with their limited financial resources to try and come up with decent ROI details and for nonprofits, who I mainly now work with these days, it’s effectively impossible to consider, even to the extent that I doubt many will even get the chance to look at or use it at all!
Given that Microsoft do a great job with providing the various offers and grants for nonprofits currently (the two main nonprofits I work with currently benefit tremendously from the Business Basic licences across the board, the 10 user Business Premium grant and the Azure $2000 / annum amongst everything) so it would be so useful if say a 10 or even 5 user licence for Copilot could be provided on a grant basis (as with the Business Premium) so that nonprofits could at least get a chance to try Copilot with then perhaps a reduced price for them on a licence basis over and beyond the initial 5/10 grant ones."
I don't know what others think, especially Microsoft :), but does this strike a chord with anyone?
Thanks - Derek Papworth
4 Replies
I'm so glad you got the chance to attend the Microsoft 365 Community Conference and that you have a better understanding of the value Copilot for Microsoft 365 can provide.
After discussing this with the product team, while there aren't any discounts or grants available for nonprofits on Copilot for Microsoft 365, they believe there is a lot of value that nonprofits can realize with the product as it is. Additionally, Microsoft Copilot is provided for free with existing Microsoft 365 offers (including nonprofit donation offers).
Microsoft Copilot is a great introduction into the power of Generational AI and can streamline operations and workflows for nonprofits. For more information on what Microsoft Copilot can do, please visit Microsoft Copilot | Microsoft AI.
Thank you,
- Hi MeenahKhosraw
Thanks for the thoughts but with respect I'm not sure I agree with the points the product team discussed with you.
All of the benefits and productivity gains that Copilot can bring that I gleaned from the various sessions I attended at the conference come from Copilot for Microsoft 365 and the great integration and enhancements that Microsoft have bought to the LLM.
The use of Copilot within the various apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc), the ability to post-analyse Teams meetings/content and especially the adding of company data (OneDrive, Sharepoint document libraries, lists, etc) is all based on having that $30/user/month license which is NOT (currently :)) provided for free with existing 365 offers for nonprofits.
And I'm not sure where the "lot of value" can be realised with the free offering of Copilot which is merely the chat access to ChatGPT with no integration with apps, meeting, internal data etc., and if there is value then surely that applies to SMB's and Enterprises too so why would they want to purchase Copilot for 365?
I hope folks can look at this again as nonprofits (and many smaller SMBs I believe) are definitely going to be somewhat "left behind" as this becomes widely adopted so fingers crossed! 🙂
Best regards,
Derek- apurva55
Microsoft
Thank you for reaching out and sharing your feedback on Copilot for Microsoft 365, Derek. Thanks also for the work that you do to support and advocate for nonprofits. We're glad you had a good experience at the Microsoft 365 Community Conference in Orlando and saw some of the potential of what Copilot could do to help nonprofits move their missions forward.
We certainly don't want to leave nonprofits behind during this exciting wave of AI and, while we're unable to provide a grant or discount on the licensing cost of Copilot for Microsoft 365, we do believe that the free version of Microsoft Copilot is very powerful. For example, you can see how a Florida nonprofit, Agape Source used it to improve their web chat and help more people (Microsoft Customer Story-Florida nonprofit Agape Source scales to support more newcomers through AI-powered web chat, Microsoft Copilot).
We also know that the licensing cost of AI is only part of the cost associated with any nonprofit's AI transformation journey. With that in mind, we have many deployment, adoption, and training programs designed to support customers and partners be successful in using AI - with more on the way.
I know this isn't the answer you were hoping for - but I do hope you reconsider how the free version of Microsoft Copilot can be useful to the nonprofits you work with who don't have the budget today for Copilot for Microsoft 365.
Apurva Chandra
Microsoft
Modern Work Lead | Tech for Social Impact
- I agree with your points here Derek, thanks for sharing. I'm hoping in the near future grants or at least discounts will be made available - the benefits to small nonprofits would be great.
