SBA

IT’s for Charity

This article is primarily aimed at a specific type of Manx organisation - those which are registered as charities with the Isle of Man General Registry and whose charitable objective is something most of us would recognise as a worthwhile charitable purpose - helping society in some way that is not merely as a not for profit outsourcing of services otherwise normally delivered by the public sector.  

As I’ve commented previously one of the great strengths of the Isle of Man is that so many people are engaged in community initiatives for the benefit of others - as a closely-connected society we are rich in charities and their supporters. I haven’t counted up the exact number in the Index of Registered Isle of Man Charities but it looks to be over five hundred organisations, small and large, many of which have need of IT. For some that requirement will be simply a few licenses for Microsoft Office and a suitable antivirus package, whilst others will have a need for “enterprise IT” including server software, relational databases, specialist CRM systems, computer-aided design software (CAD), email marketing, online shopping / sales systems, cloud computing etc. 

All this stuff, as any IT manager will tell you, is expensive. A single license for Microsoft Office Professional Plus retails at close to £400 including VAT. If your charity needs something fancier such as Autodesk 3D CAD software so it can design prostheses for people to replace missing body parts then a single user subscription would set you back well over £2K per annum, and heaven (or a major donor) help you if you need SQL Server Enterprise Core Edition - the charity’s treasurer is going to swallow deeply at signing off £20K+ for a bit of database software.  

It’s no surprise that good commercial software is expensive, it takes a huge amount of effort by very talented and highly-paid technologists to produce good software, so someone has to pay. It’s hard for charities to justify the expense, so many either use free open-source software (which is often just as good), or they limit themselves by not paying for these expensive technologies which might help them deliver more / better services, or they risk prosecution for copyright infringement by using unlicensed software (especially if the charity doesn’t have ready access to people who understand IT procurement).

Technology companies are, however, human !!! and sympathetic to the needs and cash constraints of good causes. How does Microsoft Office Professional Plus for £34 + VAT sound, or top-end Autodesk CAD for £85 + VAT? SQL Server Enterprise Core Edition for a couple of grand? Most large technology companies have schemes whereby recognised charities may obtain their otherwise eye-wateringly expensive products for next to nothing, or even totally free. 

For the technology companies administering these discount / giveaway schemes is a cost in itself - they need a process to ensure that the applicant is genuinely a charitable organisation, and of course many of the technology manufacturers are American but supply their products globally. It would be unreasonable to expect Autodesk or Google to have much knowledge of validating that a Manx charity is indeed a charity, and not just Steve Burrows Incorporated or whoever trying to pull a fast one and get software on the cheap.

Enter TT-Exchange and TechSoup - and my personal thanks to Andy Kirk at Island IT for pointing these out to me when I was looking for software for a charity recently. 

Starting with TechSoup. Originally founded in San Francisco, TechSoup is essentially a not-for-profit middleman providing donated technology to worthy not-for-profit organisations. It acts as a validation and distribution conduit for the technology suppliers, receiving donated technologies from the suppliers, and validating the applications from charities wishing to benefit from those donations. Being an American not-for-profit it is unsurprisingly well connected with US technology suppliers, and many of the biggest have partnered with TechSoup to administer their charitable giveaway schemes. So far so good, for the Americans, however the world is a big place and TechSoup have the same problem as other US organisations - how to validate that a small charity in Ghana, Cameroon or the Isle of Man is indeed a worthy recipient. 

TechSoup solved that local footprint and knowledge problem by creating or partnering with regional organisations around the world. One such organisation is UK-based TT-Exchange, which basically seems to do the same thing as TechSoup in providing a conduit between tech providers and has its own range of partnerships in addition to being the UK partner for TechSoup. TT-Exchange is an arm of Technology Trust, which itself is a UK registered charity providing a range of tech-enabled services to other UK registered charities, including foreign exchange and UK gift-aid services.

What’s this got to do with us on the Isle of Man? Very simply, Technology Trust and TT-Exchange’s definition of a “UK” charity includes charities registered on the Charities Registers in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Once a Manx charity has registered with and been accepted by TT-Exchange it is accepted as qualifying for the technology donation schemes of most of the major technology providers, including Adobe, Amazon, Autodesk, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Symantec etc., either directly through the partnerships established by Technology Trust, or through the TT-Exchange relationship with TechSoup. There is a charge for most software - typically around ten percent of the list price - but it is an “administration charge” which covers the validation of the charity as qualifying for a particular technology supplier’s donation requirements and the registration of the software licensing with the manufacturer. 

The TechSoup and TT-Exchange technology donation schemes are not limited to software. Some hardware is available, albeit not as heavily discounted because hardware costs more to make and ship, and probably more importantly the TechSoup and TT-Exchange catalogues include free or subsidised Cloud Computing services. For example TT-Exchange are currently providing a $2000 credit from Amazon Web Services for £151. That’s a lot of cloud computing power at an amazingly low cost. Microsoft Office 365 subscriptions - the “In The Cloud” version of Microsoft Office, are not available through the TechSoup - TT-Exchange programme, but they are available through Technology Trust which seems to have a local UK deal with Microsoft. Similarly, the full Not-For-Profit edition of Google GSuite (GMail, Google Drive, Google Apps, Google Groups etc.) is available for free as soon as TT-Exchange have validated that the beneficiary is a genuine and qualifying Manx charity.

There you have it - Manx charities registered on the Isle of Man Charities Register can obtain the same treatment and discounts for technology as UK charities, simply by registering with TT-Exchange. Anyone who has worked in the charity sector will tell you that cost is always a factor - Information Technology is expensive and for most charities the cost of commercial technology products is a barrier. 

Thanks again to Andy Kirk who saved me a bucket of effort by pointing out TT-Exchange when I was looking to buy some new tech for one of the charities I help with. I found it very easy to register with TT-Exchange and direct them to the Isle of Man Charities Register so that they could see our charity registration and approve us - it was simple, quick and unequivocal. Hopefully other volunteers or staff involved in sorting out the tech needs of our local charities will find that this helps them. Links are:

TechSoup Global http://meet.techsoup.org/

Technology Trust https://www.technology-trust.org/

TT-Exchange https://www.tt-exchange.org/