Understanding Microsoft donation limits

Quantity and Frequency of Microsoft Requests

Microsoft provides nonprofits  with an allotment of product donations that can be requested per two-year period. Your organisation's first donation request after 27 July 2011 marks the beginning of its recurring two-year cycles. Within a two-year period, each eligible nonprofit  may request:

• Products from up to 10 of the title groups, with a 50-license maximum for desktop and operating systems or license-only title groups (see below for more details)
• A maximum of five server products, regardless of title group (see below for more details)

There is no limit to the number of times an organisation can make a Microsoft donation request within the two-year cycle as long as they have not used up their full allotment.

After two years, a new cycle begins, and the allotment is reset.

The sections below explain what title groups are and how the maximum allotments in a two-year cycle work.

About Title Groups

A title group consists of all products that serve essentially the same purpose. For example, all Windows operating system products are in one title group, including Windows XP Professional, Windows Vista Business, Windows 7 Professional, and Windows 7 Enterprise in all languages and in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

A product's title group appears near the top of the detailed product description page.

Click here to see the list of Microsoft title groups.

About the Maximum of 10 Title Groups

An organisation can request products from a maximum of 10 title groups. For example, if an organisation requests Office Professional Plus, Visio, Windows Server, and Windows Server client access licenses, it will have requested 4 of the 10 allotted title groups.

About the License Maximum Within a Title Group

An organisation can request a maximum of 50 licenses per title group within a two-year period for applications that run on an individual computer (for example a desktop or laptop PC) and for client access licenses (CALs), management licenses, and other licenses that provide for connection to or management of a server application.

The maximum number of licenses applies to the combination of all products within the title group. For example, if an organisation requests 10 Office Professional Plus products in English, 10 in Spanish, 10 in French, and 10 Office for Mac, it will have requested 40 products from the Office Suite title group and will have 10 licenses still available to request within that title group.

The 50-license allotment usually allows an organisation to install a particular type of product on up to 50 computers. However, organisations that run multiple Windows operating systems on a single computer generally can install only as many instances of the product as they have licenses; see Volume License Agreement and Product Use Rights.

Since there is an overall maximum of five server products over the two-year period, this 50-license maximum does not apply to servers.

About the Maximum Allotment of Server Products

An organisation can request a maximum of five server products altogether within a two-year period. The server products can be in a single title group, or they can be in up to 5 title groups, as long as the overall maximum of 10 title groups is not exceeded in the two-year period.

For example, an organisation may request any one of the following:

• Five products in the Windows Server title group
• One product in the Windows Server title group, two products in the Exchange Server title group, and one product in the Small Business Server Premium title group
• Three products in the Small Business Server Premium title group and two products in the SQL Server title group

Some servers require management licenses or client access licenses (CALs) in order to work with their network of computers. Management and access licenses are separate items and are in title groups with a 50-license maximum.

About the Two-Year Cycle

Your organisation’s Microsoft two-year donation cycle begins when your organisation places its first request for Microsoft product donations. If your organisation requested any Microsoft donations prior to 27 July 2011, its cycle was reset, and its new cycle begins on the date of its first Microsoft donation request after 27 July 2011.

Your organisation's cycle will run for two years from this initial start date. It will then be immediately reset and run for another two years, and so on. For example, if an organisation's first cycle starts on 12 October 2011, its new cycle will begin on 12 October 2013, at which point the organisation has a new allotment.

Microsoft Donation Centre

Registered organisations can check the Microsoft Donation Centre page to see the dates for their two-year cycle and how much of their total allotment is still available to them (you must be logged in to see this page). This page is accessible through a link on the My requests page. (If there is no such link on the your My requests pages, the organisation is not eligible for Microsoft donations through DonorTec.)

Examples

The following examples can help explain how the various allotments work together.

Organisation A

Organisation A has requested 10 Office Professional Plus products in English, 10 in Spanish, 10 in French, and 10 Office for Mac. They also requested 10 Windows 7 licenses in English, 10 Windows 7 licenses in Spanish, and 10 Windows Vista licenses in French.

• They have requested from 2 of 10 title groups and can request from 8 more.
• In the Office Suite title group, they have requested 40 licenses and can request up to 10 more.
• In the Windows Desktop Operating Systems title group, they have requested 30 licenses and can request up to 20 more.

Organisation B

Organisation B has requested 1 Project Server, 29 Project Server CALs, 10 Project Professional, 20 Project Standard.

• They have requested from 3 of 10 title groups and can request from 7 more.
• In the Project Server CAL title group, they requested 29 licenses and can request up to 21 more.
• In the Project Desktop title group, they 30 products (10 Project Professional and 20 Project Standard) and can request up to 20 more.
• They have requested one server product and can request up to four more.

Organisation C

Organisation C has requested 50 Office Professional Plus products, 1 Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition, 1 Exchange Server 2010 Standard Edition, 50 Core CAL Suites and 15 Windows Remote Desktop Services User CALs.

• They have requested from 5 of 10 title groups and can request from 5 more.
• In the Office Suite and Core CAL Suite title groups, they have requested 50 licenses and cannot request any more.
• In the Windows Terminal Services CAL title group, they have requested 15 licenses and can request up to 35 more.
• They have requested two server products and can request up to three more.

Organisation D

Organisation D has requested 4 Windows Server products and 50 Windows Server CALs. They also requested 1 System Centre Essentials server, 4 System Centre Essentials server management license suites, and 50 System Centre Essentials client management licenses.

• They have requested from 5 of 10 title groups and can request from 5 more.
• They have requested the maximum allotment of licenses from these title groups: Windows Server CAL and System Centre Client Management Suite.
• In the System Centre Essentials Server ML Suite title group, they requested 4 license suites. They could technically request up to 44 additional license suites, but they have only 4 servers to be managed.
• They have requested the maximum server allotment (four Windows Servers and one System Centre Essentials server).