Configure Microsoft 365 for Nonprofit

This page will outline the first steps and best settings for configuring Microsoft 365 for your nonprofit.

🏁 Prerequisites

Once your nonprofit has been approved for Microsoft 365 nonprofit licensing, you can continue through this process. You can verify your organization's nonprofit status with Microsoft using this guide.

Get Free Microsoft 365 Nonprofit Licenses

Follow these step-by-step instructions to provision licenses for your organization. This will provide you with access to a variety of Microsoft 365 services and tools.

  • Go to the Microsoft 365 admin portal by visiting admin.microsoft.com and sign in using your administrator account credentials.

  • In the left-hand menu, click on "Billing." This will take you to the billing overview page.

  • Within the billing overview, click on "Purchase services" from the top navigation menu.

  • On the Purchase Services page, you'll see a list of available services and licenses for your organization. Search or scroll for the licenses that are designated for nonprofits and are FREE, which include:

    • Microsoft 365 Business Premium (Nonprofit Staff Pricing) Donation - 10 free

    • Microsoft 365 Business Basic (Nonprofit Staff Pricing) - 300 free

    • Microsoft Fabric (Free) (Nonprofit Staff Pricing) - Unlimited for free

    • Dynamics 365 Customer Voice USL (Nonprofit Staff Pricing) - Unlimited for free

    • Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit Basic (Nonprofit Staff Pricing) - 1 free

    • Power Apps per app plan (1 app or website) (Nonprofit Staff Pricing) 10 seat donation - 10 free

  • Click on the licenses you want to add to your nonprofit organization.

  • Once you are satisfied with your selections, click the "Next" or "Purchase" button (the wording may vary depending on the options you've chosen).

Assign Licenses to Users

After purchasing licenses, you'll need to assign them to specific users within your nonprofit organization.

  • Go to the "Licenses" section in the Microsoft 365 admin portal

  • Select a license

  • Click "Assign licenses" to choose which users should get that license.

You can also assign licenses directly to users from the Users screen of the Microsoft Admin portal.

🌎 Add your Domain

Your domain operates a lot of the key features within Microsoft 365. Adding your domain is the very first step to properly configuring Microsoft 365.

Follow this guide to add your domain in Microsoft 365: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/setup/add-domain?view=o365-worldwide

📧 Email Protection

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 - Good Heart Tech strongly recommends adding this to enhance email security. This adds Anti-Phishing, Safe Attachments, and Safe Links functionality and is included in several M365 packages. To enable these features in a few easy clicks:

🔗 DNS Email Security

See this guide for more information on how to protect you Microsoft 365 environment using DNS email send validation technologies like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC:

Email Sender Validation Using DNS (SPF, DKIM, & DMARC)

🎨 Personalization

Adding logos and personalizing your tenant is not just for a great user experience. It also increases security by letting users know they are signing into the right place.

Adding a Logo & Theme for Microsoft 365

Customize the top bar/theme for 365 via the admin center

Add Logo To Azure AD

Add graphics and support message to the sign-in screen via Azure from this screen:

  • For the sign-in background, create an image that is 1920x1080 pixels and place the logo in the middle. Upload that for the background.

  • For the company logo, save a small version of the logo and upload it.

💬 Setup Microsoft Teams

Add default meeting policy in teams admin center to allow sharing and joining from everyone

📂 Setup SharePoint

🔑 Security Settings

The MOST critical security setting: Enable Multi-factor authentication (MFA)

Security Defaults are enabled by default for all new Microsoft tenants. Find out more here:

Nonprofit Admin Guide to Enforcing MFA in Microsoft 365

Other Security Settings

💻 Endpoint Settings

Sign in to the Intune portal: https://endpoint.microsoft.com/

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