How to Claim $2000 in Annual Azure Credits for Your Nonprofit
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The annual Azure grant was formerly $3,500 and was reduced to $2,000 on October 1, 2023.
Nonprofits that are verified with Microsoft are entitled to a free $2000 annual Azure grant from the Microsoft Nonprofit portal. This guide will outline the benefits, application steps, and renewal process.
Azure, Microsoft's cloud platform, differs from Microsoft 365, which offers productivity tools. The Azure grant can help nonprofits with many cloud needs, including hosting websites, applications, and virtual machines (VMs) in a scalable and cost-effective cloud environment.
Your organization must have already been approved by Microsoft in the Nonprofit Portal: https://nonprofit.microsoft.com. If you are not already approved, follow this guide:
Once your organization has a nonprofit-verified tenant, log in to the Nonprofit Portal.
In the top menu bar, navigate to Nonprofit Grants > Annual Azure Grant
Click Apply. Typically, these grants are automatically approved and applied within a day.
This alternate guide can help you through the process in a more visual way.
Note that this annual grant must be manually renewed yearly, and you will receive an email reminder. To ensure you receive a notification from Microsoft a month prior to the expiration, make sure that the person (or people) responsible for renewing the Azure grant:
Has the Billing Admin role from the Users screen in the Admin portal.
Has a Nonprofit Portal license.
Has a license that enables them to receive email, like Business Premium, Business Basic, or Exchange Online.
If you exceed the Azure sponsorship amount, your subscription will be automatically converted to Pay-as-you-go and billed to your credit card. When you renew the Azure sponsorship using the steps above, you must open a ticket with Azure support to convert your subscription from Pay-as-you-go back to a Sponsorship to apply the new credits.
Unlike normal Azure subscriptions, you can't view the balance and billing details of your Azure spending in the Azure portal. Instead, you have a special portal where you can view the balance. Sign in with your Microsoft 365 account that is assigned a "Nonprofit Portal" license the Billing Admin role.
Microsoft sponsorship portal: https://www.microsoftazuresponsorships.com/Balance
