Nonprofit IT support for everything but the mission
Express IT Solutions runs the technology side of nonprofits: the network, Microsoft 365 on the nonprofit licensing Microsoft offers eligible organizations, donor and client records handled with care, backups with tested restores, access that ends when people move on. The mission stays with your people; the price is a flat monthly number a grant writer can put in a budget.
The work runs from Syracuse, New York, where we have handled business IT since 2005, for human services agencies, foundations, associations and arts organizations across Central New York. The same team keeps power plant clients across the country ready for start day.
Nonprofit IT support is the management of a nonprofit organization’s technology layer: the office network and firewall, Microsoft 365 on the nonprofit licensing Microsoft offers eligible organizations, donor and client records behind named accounts and multi-factor authentication, backups with tested restores, accounts that end when staff and volunteers move on, vendor access and monitoring. The provider runs and documents that layer for a flat monthly price a grant budget can carry, while the mission, the programs and the donor relationships stay with the organization.
The side of the organization no grant ever funds
A nonprofit runs on two kinds of work, and only one of them makes the annual report. The other kind, the router nobody remembers installing, the donor database, the laptop that arrived four years into its life, belongs to whoever objected least: usually the operations manager, or the executive director, at night, between grant reports.
That is not negligence; it is arithmetic. An organization funded to run programs has no hours left for IT, so IT becomes a part-time job, and the gaps are where the trouble grows. Closing that gap for a number that holds still is what an IT company for nonprofits is for, and the engagement runs on the same bones as our managed IT services.
On the infrastructure side of the mission, deliberately
The mission belongs to the people who carry it. Which programs run, how donors are stewarded, what goes in front of the board: your calls, and an IT provider with opinions about them should worry you. We promise the opposite, in writing, before anyone logs into anything.
What we take on is everything underneath the work: network and firewall, Microsoft 365 and the identity behind every login, backups and the proof they restore, vendor access, monitoring. And program records get a specific kind of care: what a housing program or a food pantry keeps can be as sensitive as anything in a clinic, so access runs on need-to-know, devices get encrypted, and offboarding provably ends access. The security layer runs the way our cybersecurity practice runs it everywhere, sized to a nonprofit budget.
Your staff, your volunteers, your board.
One accountable IT team, on one standard.
Microsoft 365 nonprofit licensing is real money
Microsoft runs a nonprofit program with genuinely discounted Microsoft 365 plans for eligible organizations, and in some cases granted licenses that cost nothing. It is real money, routinely missed: full commercial rates paid for seats Microsoft would discount, or granted licenses claimed years ago and never configured.
Two honest caveats. Eligibility is Microsoft’s decision, through its own validation, and nobody can promise it in advance, including us; and the terms change, so the right mix of granted and discounted plans gets checked, not assumed. For eligible organizations we do the part that takes time: registration, plans chosen against what people actually do, mail and files moved in cleanly, and the tenant configured the way it should have been on day one. The deeper practice lives on our Microsoft 365 support page; the Microsoft 365 nonprofit setup review is a sensible first project.
If any of these sound like your organization
Common arrangements, because each works right up until it matters.
- Everyone knows the password to the shared inbox.
Staff, the intern, a volunteer from two seasons ago. Nobody can say who read what.
- The donor list is an export on somebody’s desktop.
The system of record is wherever the last mail merge happened. One stolen laptop turns a spreadsheet into a disclosure.
- A staffer got a text from the executive director. It was not the executive director.
Gift cards, changed payment details, an urgent favor. The scam is built on helpful people.
- Every computer in the office was donated, and it shows.
Hand-me-down machines stretched past their lives, until the oldest one quits during the busiest week of the year.
- The auditor asked who has access to what.
The honest answer took three weeks to reconstruct. It should be a page someone prints.
- You suspect you are overpaying for Microsoft 365. You may also be underusing it.
Full commercial rates on some seats, granted licenses nobody set up on others.
First engagements usually start with the three that sting most. Name yours on a scoping call.
Three failures we prepare nonprofits for
The development director’s mailbox, working for someone else
A phishing email gets a password, and the mailbox keeps behaving normally. Weeks later donors receive payment requests and gift card asks that read exactly right, because the attacker has read every real thread and a quiet inbox rule hides the replies.
Donors burned at the exact point of trust the organization lives on, and a giving season spent on apology calls instead of asks.
MFA on every mailbox, alerts when a new forwarding or inbox rule appears, and one procedure that never gets skipped: anything that moves money or buys gift cards gets confirmed by voice. Check your own tenant with our Microsoft 365 inbox rule fraud walkthrough.
The grant report due Friday, the server down Tuesday
Years of program data, outcomes and financials live on one aging machine in a closet, and it picks reporting week to fail. The backup, if there is one, has never been watched restoring.
A funder deadline missed for a hardware reason is still a missed deadline, and the next application carries the explanation.
Data moved off the one machine into a backed-up arrangement, restores proven on a calendar, monitoring that flags a failing disk weeks early, and maintenance scheduled around your reporting calendar, never during it.
The case manager who left in March
It is August and the login still works: email syncing to a personal phone, the client files one password away. Nobody decided that. Nobody decided anything.
Records about vulnerable people reachable by someone with no duty to the organization: the finding a funder, an insurer or an auditor cannot overlook.
Offboarding as a checklist, run the day the role ends: sessions revoked, passwords reset, mail delegated, confirmed in writing.
What our team handles at a nonprofit
Plain descriptions. The specifics come out on the first call anyway.
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Microsoft 365, with the nonprofit licensing done right
The tenant, the mailboxes, the files and the identity behind every login, with the licensing question settled first: nonprofit program registration handled for eligible organizations, the seat mix kept honest as people come and go. Configuration follows our Microsoft 365 support practice.
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Security for donor and client records
Access on need-to-know rather than convenience, encryption on the machines that leave the building, defenses tuned for the gift card and payment scams aimed at nonprofit staff, and logging that answers who touched what. Run by our cybersecurity practice.
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Managed IT with a number that holds still
Monitoring, patching, helpdesk, backups with tested restores, documentation kept current: the whole layer for a flat monthly per-user price in writing, a line a grant writer can carry across a fiscal year. The bones are our managed IT services.
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Projects, moves and multi-program sites
A new program site brought online, an office move, the thrift store and the admin office behaving like one network instead of two improvisations. Scoped on paper, under our business IT services practice.
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The hand-me-down fleet, and a refresh plan
An inventory of what you actually run, donated machines wiped and assessed before they touch the network, and replacements spread across budget years instead of bought in a panic. Hardware comes through our computer sales practice.
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On-site, when remote will not do
Most fixes happen remotely. For cabling, hardware swaps and the printer that runs the appeal mailing, we come to you: all of Upstate New York, within 50 miles of Syracuse no questions asked, and farther by planned visit.
Tell us which of these the organization is missing. The conversation is free and specific, the price in writing.
When the board asks who has access to what
Sooner or later the question arrives, from a board member, the annual audit, an insurer or a funder’s security questionnaire: who can reach the donor file, where do the backups go, what happens when someone leaves. Answered from documentation, it reads off a page, and we keep that page current as part of operations: the asset inventory, the access map, the backup and restore log, the offboarding confirmations.
The same discipline reaches the budget: our published plans run $65, $80 and $99 per user per month, in writing before work starts, so the technology line in the next application is a number, not a guess.
Word for word from public Google reviews. Names as the reviewers published them.
“Express provides excellent service, we’ve been with them for years. They are always responsive to whatever issues we might have. Great work, always totally pleased.”
“I have always had good experiences with this team. They listen to the problem and take the time to go over it with you if you need or want them to. Very good experience and reasonable.”
Straight answers for executive directors and operations managers
The questions we actually get asked.
Do nonprofits get Microsoft 365 discounts, and can you set that up?
Yes to both, with one caveat: eligibility is decided by Microsoft, through its own validation, so nobody can promise it in advance. The program offers discounted plans, and in some cases granted licenses. For organizations that qualify, we handle registration, pick the right plans, migrate mail and files, and configure the tenant properly: MFA on every account, shared program mailboxes, retention set on purpose.
Our budget is tiny. Can you work with that honestly?
Sometimes the honest answer is that full managed coverage is more than a small organization needs, and we say so on the first call. Published plans run $65, $80 and $99 per user per month, priced by headcount, so a six-person organization pays for six seats. Project and hourly work is a normal way to start.
Volunteers come and go constantly. How do you handle their access?
Named accounts, least access, an end date. A volunteer who needs email or a file gets an account of their own, scoped to the program they serve and shut off when the season ends. What we work to retire is the shared login, because a password everyone knows is not a password.
A funder sent us a security questionnaire. Can you help us answer it?
Yes, from documentation rather than memory. Funders, insurers and auditors ask precise questions: which endpoint protection, what encryption, backup cadence, who holds admin. We keep that documentation current as part of operations, so answers read off a page. We do not hand out certifications; the controls get built so you answer from evidence.
Half our staff is hybrid or in the field. Does that change anything?
No, that is the arrangement we expect. The work runs remote first: identity and MFA travel with the person, files live in Microsoft 365 rather than on an office machine, and support reaches the field as easily as the office. On-site visits cover the physical work: all of Upstate New York, within 50 miles of Syracuse no questions asked.
What does nonprofit IT support cost?
Hourly for project work, or a flat monthly rate, with the price in writing before work starts. Published plans run $65, $80 and $99 per user per month; what each includes is on the MSP packages page. The flat number goes into a grant budget as a line item.
The cheapest week to fix any of this is a quiet one
Every failure on this page is cheap to prevent and expensive to live through, and the difference is decided in a quiet week between grant cycles. The scoping call is specific: what you run, where it is weak, what we would do first, a price in writing a board can read. If your setup is sound, you will hear that too.
Book a scoping call
A few fields now, a straight recommendation on the call.
Three required fields. A person at our Fayetteville office reads it.
Tell us what the organization runs on.
How many staff and volunteers, which donor database you live in, whether anything still sits on a machine in a closet, and what failed last month. Enough for a straight recommendation and a price in writing, usually on the first call.
Fayetteville, NY 13066
Syracuse, NY 13202
help@expresssupport.com