Connections

While some individuals and organizations donate their earnings to support non-profits, others donate their services and/or products.

TechSoup Stock is an online product donation service that connects nonprofits with technology product donations from more than twenty-five leading corporate and nonprofit technology partners.

Simply put, that translates to popular software available for your organization … for pennies on the dollar. (Technically, the software is free; your only cost is an admin fee to cover restocking, etc.)

We’ve been using TechSoup at the national office for years, and over the course of that time, they have saved us into the thousands of dollars. Your most obvious benefit will likely be the Microsoft Office suite (currently available for $24) and, for those who utilize them, Microsoft Server software and licenses.

To utilize TechSoup, requires the following …

1. Setting up a user account
2. Qualifying your organization

* Due to the nature of our services and their registration guidelines, you must register with an organization type of “Religious Activites”. Sadly that makes us ineligible for donations from, most notably, Adobe. (click here for details)

** For some reason Microsoft is not listed as one of the companies available to “faith-based” organizations; however, their license does not state that, and we have had no problem getting approved for purchases.

If you find yourself in the need for software not available through TechSoup, I’ve found CDW.com/nonprofit to be a great alternative. You can often get software/hardware at a price significantly below retail. Our account manager, Kevin Schmidt can be contacted directly at (312) 705-8845 or kevinsc@cdw.com, and as always, the more centers that use CDW, the bigger our discount.