As a Microsoft employee, I'm also strongly encouraged to donate to the charities of my choice. Microsoft will match all of my donations, dollar for dollar, with no preferences (I know people who've had Microsoft match their donations to the EFF and FSF).
Worked at a non-profit for a while, and we had quite a few free licenses that were bought at the MS company store and then donated to us. They were a little tricky in their conditions, but nothing beats free for expensive licences.
For the record: http://techsoup.org is an organization that makes it easy for non-profits to get cheap/free software licenses and hardware. They've worked out deals with many major companies, not just Microsoft.
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For what it's worth:
As a Microsoft employee, I'm also strongly encouraged to donate to the charities of my choice. Microsoft will match all of my donations, dollar for dollar, with no preferences (I know people who've had Microsoft match their donations to the EFF and FSF).
Worked at a non-profit for a while, and we had quite a few free licenses that were bought at the MS company store and then donated to us. They were a little tricky in their conditions, but nothing beats free for expensive licences.
For the record: http://techsoup.org is an organization that makes it easy for non-profits to get cheap/free software licenses and hardware. They've worked out deals with many major companies, not just Microsoft.
Here's a list of their most popular software that you can get through TechSoup: http://www.techsoup.org/stock/Default.asp?cg=lnav&visit=...