Guest post by the Microsoft Citizenship Team

Last week Microsoft announced updates to our nonprofit software donations program to enable more nonprofits around the world to get easier access to the technology they need, when they need it.

We currently provide software donations to more than 40,000 nonprofits each year, but we’re still just getting started and we need your help to reach more. Even if you don’t work at a nonprofit, you can help us spread the word.

Many nonprofit organizations, including some in your local community, are not aware that they can request a donation of Microsoft software, simply by visiting www.microsoft.com/nonprofit. Together, we can ensure nonprofits have access to affordable technology to help them do more with their limited resources.

What you can do to help

There are two easy ways you can help:

1) Share the video above with your colleagues, friends and family to raise awareness of a great resource available to nonprofits. Here’s the YouTube link: http://youtu.be/jvEaOBty6xI

2) Make your cause our cause. Reach out to your favorite nonprofit and make sure they’re aware of the Microsoft donations program.  To make it as easy as possible, we’ve drafted a note below that you can use.

To those who have already helped, a big thank you from everyone at Microsoft!

To my favorite nonprofit:

I think the work you do in our community is amazing.  I know how challenging it is to try to do more with less.

So how can you boost productivity, raise more funds, increase your reach, and deliver new or better services in our community? How about a donation of software from Microsoft? I wanted to make sure you know that eligible nonprofit organizations can request a software donation.  There are still many nonprofits that don’t know about the donations program.  Do you?

Eligible nonprofis can choose from a wide range of Microsoft desktop and server products (including Office and Windows).  Check out www.microsoft.com/nonprofit to see what’s available and learn how to apply.  In fact, if you are in one of these 35 additional countries with a local TechSoup program, you may be able to get technology donations from other companies too, like Cisco, Symantec, or Adobe.

Maybe you already knew all this.  If so, that’s great.  I want you to keep doing good stuff in our community, and know that access to the latest technology can help.  It would be great if you could share this note with other nonprofits too.

By spreading the word, together, we can help millions of nonprofits get access to the technology they need to best serve communities worldwide.

Sincerely,

Your supporter

More information:

• Learn more about the updates to the software donations program.
• Review nonprofit eligibility guidelines and how to apply for a Microsoft software donation.
• Tell us more about your favorite nonprofit by tweeting @msftcitizenship with the hashtag #mycause
• What’s your cause? #Mycause is @nonprofitname – http://bit.ly/NPOlet  @msftcitizenship
• Tell your favorite nonprofit they can get software donations from @msftcitizenship: http://bit.ly/NPOlet

This article originally appeared on the Microsoft Unlimited Potential Blog.

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