Shelter
In today’s digitally connected world, keeping personal data secure is a paramount concern for all organisations. But nowhere is this...
Read moreAfter working with the charity and not-for-profit (NfP) sector for over 30 years’, we are acutely aware of the challenges that charities face – both big and small.
We are seeing our customers being tasked with supporting a more mobile and agile workforce based on the most up-to-date solutions, but similarly being asked to work within shrinking budgets due to fundraising and ongoing challenges.
Leveraging our trusted and strategic relationships with key vendors, we establish frameworks and agreements that help charity customers reduce expenditure and benefit from economies of scale, irrespective of their size. We provide tailored licensing support across a range of software vendors as well as offering technical expertise and guidance from our Infrastructure and Cloud Teams to ultimately provide a solution that is fit for purpose, futureproof and in budget.
We are able to help organisations identify how existing services could be streamlined to optimise performance and reduce costs as well as to help design ‘cloud-first’ solutions using key technologies such as Office 365 and Azure.
See below for some of the customers we’re already working with to deliver transformative change.
For the past few years, Cats Protection have been busy on a journey to go digital by rethinking the backend architecture, introducing cloud-based collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams and reducing the amount of paper that flows through the charity. The digital transformation has proceeded gradually, increasing efficiency for nearly 1,000 staff and 11,000 volunteers as they rescue and rehome thousands of cats and educate the public on how to care for them properly. But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the initiative accelerated.
Read the case studyWe chose Adobe Sign to enable e-signatures and make it possible to do all the paperwork online instead of sending it back and forth through the post — so cats can get into their forever homes faster.
There’s little doubt the events of the past few months, which have led to a huge proportion of people working from home for weeks on end, will forever change the way that charities operate.
Almost overnight organisations had to shift to home working. Unprepared for the sudden change, many patched up this problem by using old second-hand or donated equipment, or asking staff and volunteers to use their own devices in order to keep costs down and find a quick-fix solution. But with new ways of working come new realisations and demands for staff, volunteers and the communities they serve, creating the possibility of a new kind of pandemic should charities fail to respond and adapt.
Our eBook takes a look at why transitioning temporary remote working to a more permanent fixture could enable charities to recover and secure future success. We’ll explore the need to change and the implications of staying stuck in old ways.
The outbreak of COVID-19 has created a lot of new challenges for all organisations, both in the UK and around the globe. Many have had to make difficult decisions, whether that is asking staff to work from home, putting them on furlough, or having to close their doors completely in this time of uncertainty.
There is support out there to help, from new technologies, to guidance, to funding, however it is not always easy to find or to know where to turn for this assistance. In this episode we will explore the challenges that are being faced on a daily basis during this crisis by charities and not-for-profit organisations in the UK and how we are able to help and support them and each other.
To discuss this we are joined by Vincent Richardson (International CTO for Tech for Social Impact at Microsoft Philanthropies), Rosie Slater-Carr (CIO at British Red Cross), Megan Griffith Gray (Director of Strategy and Transformation at NCVO) and Greg Dean (Charities Sector Sales Manager at Phoenix).
Listen nowEnable your organisation to digitally transform, accelerate its mission and drive greater impact.
Microsoft have introduced their Tech for Social Impact (TSI) Team who are dedicated to supporting organisations in the charity sector on their journey towards digital transformation. However, for many of our customers in this sector it is not always clear as to how they can leverage some of the non-profit offers from Microsoft in order to support their cloud strategies. Over the last couple of years Microsoft have offered those in this sector $3,500 credit in their Azure tenancy, Office 365 E1 licences free of charge and Office 365 Business Essentials free of charge.
Learn more about how Microsoft can support your charityWe partner with both world-leading partners and technology specific start-ups to ensure we can offer the best solution for your strategies and budgets.
We work tirelessly to ensure we are on the relevant framework agreements to enable you to procure your IT in the most appropriate way. Our current framework arrangements are listed below.