Managed IT for Nonprofits

Yes. Microsoft offers Microsoft 365 Business Basic free for up to 300 users to qualifying nonprofits, plus Business Premium at a steep discount through their nonprofit program administered via TechSoup. Eligibility generally requires 501(c)(3) status and isn't automatic just because you're a nonprofit — there's a validation process. I help organizations confirm eligibility, get registered, and get everything licensed correctly the first time, so you're not leaving savings on the table or accidentally paying full commercial price for something you qualify to get free or discounted.

Clean offboarding and role-based access controls are the whole answer. When access lives in cloud accounts instead of physical devices — a volunteer's own laptop, say — a volunteer leaving is a five-minute change: disable the account, and every door they had access to closes at once. Without that structure, you're relying on someone remembering to change a shared password, which almost never actually happens consistently. I set that structure up once, tie it to your onboarding process, and it just runs from there.

At minimum: donor contact and payment information, employee records, and financial data. Depending on your mission, you may also be holding client or beneficiary data — health information, immigration status, or domestic violence records, for example — that's sometimes more sensitive than anything a for-profit business handles, and a breach involving it can do real harm to the people you serve, not just embarrass the organization. I help nonprofits think through what they're actually holding, which is often more than the board realizes, before deciding what level of protection each category needs.

Yes. Every organization's size, budget, and needs are different, so let's talk about your situation directly rather than quoting a number in the abstract. I work with nonprofits throughout Lane County and understand what a nonprofit budget actually looks like — grant cycles, board approval processes, volunteer labor instead of paid staff — and I'm not going to sell you enterprise tools sized for a company ten times your size.

You get me, not a call center — someone who already knows nonprofit budgets aren't the same as business budgets and won't push tools you don't need. I've spent over 40 years in IT, running Ask Erik Computer Services since 2006 and working with Lane County organizations since bringing the business to Eugene in 2017. I'm a Microsoft Partner, AI-certified, and a BNI Hall of Fame member. I understand nonprofit boards because I've served on one myself, as a founding board member of the Seal Beach Police Foundation. I document everything, explain it in plain English, and plan ahead so your board isn't blindsided by a technology problem at the worst possible time — or asked to approve emergency spending for something that could've been caught months earlier.