Changes In Microsoft Non-Profit License Grants

Microsoft recently announced it is retiring the Business Premium 10 license grant and the E1 license grant that they have previously offered to non-profits.

Licenses are provided on annual terms, and depending on when your annual renewal date is, your licenses will expire any time between 1st May 2026 and 1st July 2026.

Instead, discounted paid for licenses are available for the Business Premium grant subscribers and Business Basic grant licenses can be used to replace the E1 license grant.

These changes apply exclusively to the free licenses and do not impact any paid licenses being used by non-profits and will also not impact the discounted pricing.

Microsoft will continue to provide: 

• Up to 300 granted licenses of Microsoft 365 Business Basic
• Discounts of up to 75% on other Microsoft 365 offers to nonprofits, including Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Office 365 E1

What does this mean to your non-profit?  

Firstly, The Business Premium License Grant

It means that if you currently benefit from the Business Premium grant, you will need to decide what you want to do to retain services.  The Silver Cloud Business has determined there are realistically four options that you can take.  

1. Retain Business Premium Licenses – continue to use Microsoft 365 Business Premium Licenses but pay for them at a discounted rate.  Microsoft non-profit pricing for Business Premium is approx. 75% lower than standard RRP, call us on 01722 411 999 for pricing. This provides the users with the most consistent experience and no loss of services.
2. Switch to Business Standard Licenses – this would provide uses with a similar desktop experience however it would remove a lot of the features in Microsoft 365 cloud, such as the additional security, remove the software management and deployment from Intune and Autopilot. The Microsoft non-profit pricing for Business Standard is approx. 75% lower than standard RRP, call us on 01722 411 999 for pricing, whilst this does provide the desktop applications, it doesn't have the back-end functionality of Business Premium including enhanced security.
3. Switch to the free Business Basic Licenses but purchase Microsoft Office applications  – switch to using the Microsoft 365 Business Basic license grant for the online services but use the Microsoft Desktop Applications that have been purchased through the Microsoft non-profit grant for a one-off fee which is approx. 75% lower than standard RRP, call us on 01722 411 999 for pricing, which will give the users access to the desktop applications as well as online services, however this will reduce some of the available services that could have been used by the organisation.
4. Switch to using Business Basic licenses and the online applications and no longer use desktop applications.  This would allow users to use the online applications and services; however, this would reduce the functionality available to the users, and they would always need to be connected to the internet to work.

NOTE: The Business Premium grant allows non-profits to benefit from additional services such as the desktop applications, Microsoft Intune, Microsoft Autopilot, additional security and information classification.   This is the top tier of services available in the Microsoft Business packages in Microsoft 365 without switching to Enterprise licensing.

What should you do? 

If your non-profit organisation is using the Business Premium licenses, we would strongly recommend retaining this level of service and switching to paying for these licenses taking advantage of the discounted rate from Microsoft.  

The fundamental reason for this is because of the additional services that are not obvious that are provided by using the Business Premium subscription.  Business Premium provides significantly more back-end security and functionality in Microsoft 365 and our view is that you can never have too much security in your IT environment.  Business Premium also provides the mechanism for controlling endpoints in the organisation, allowing for more granular control, including deploying computers and applications.  This means that if a computer is enrolled into your Tenant using Autopilot, it means that if it is lost or stolen then it cannot be used by anyone else.  It is locked to your tenant until it is released.  

Whilst we have provided 4 options to consider, this is purely for transparency, but if your organisation is using the Business Premium grant, realistically, this is the only choice that should be considered due to the functionality and security it provides.

Secondly The E1 License Grant

Microsoft are also retiring the 300 E1 license grant. If your non-profit currently benefits from this grant, don’t worry, while Microsoft is retiring the 300 licenses grant, they are offering an alternate solution to non-profits.  

What should you do?

Your non-profit will need to apply for the Microsoft Business Basic grant and once it has been granted, the E1 licenses can be migrated over to the Business Basic licenses. 

If you would like help or more information about these changes, please call us on 01722 411 999 and we can hopefully answer your questions and help with any grant applications and the migration process.