
Ask HN: GSuite / Office365 Alternatives for Non-501(c)(3) Nonprofits - andrew_
Please humor some quick background: I&#x27;m on the board of a very small neighborhood advocacy association in an incorporated city in Florida, and trying to bring them into the digital age. The association is voluntary, with minimal dues income at $10 &#x2F; household. Our dues are mainly allocated to put on a yearly neighborhood picnic and to pay for expenses related to the larger advocacy that the association board and members participate in. Our neighborhood is bordered by several &quot;historic designation&quot; neighborhoods, which makes ours a target for developers looking to churn maximum profit per acre. Most of our advocacy and work goes towards keeping the neighborhood an actual neighborhood, pedestrian and bike friendly, keeping green spaces green, and welcoming to families both new and legacy. It&#x27;s a non-intrusive, well-intentioned group of people mostly on their own dime and time.<p>We&#x27;ve gone through the arduous review and appeal process with both Microsoft and Google but was ultimately denied the free to use, nonprofit account, as we&#x27;re a Florida State-registered and validated nonprofit, and not 501(c)(3) federally registered. We&#x27;ve explored the paid route, but would cost the dues of 36 households, when only 22 participate presently. We can&#x27;t get corporate sponsors as we haven&#x27;t found any willing to donate with no federal write-off. We can&#x27;t register as a 501(c)(3) because the registration process and yearly requirements are cost-prohibitive. We can&#x27;t get grants to pay for registration because we have to be registered to apply. It&#x27;s a tough chicken and egg situation.<p>What we&#x27;re in need of:
- An [email] account for 5 board officers
- Collaborative cloud storage
- Groups &#x2F; Forums that residents can subscribe to
- Email lists<p>I&#x27;ve so far been unable to find services that will cater to state-registered, but not federally registered (501(c)(3)), nonprofits for these needs. Mixing services is not ideal, but would still be a welcomed last resort.
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tracker1
Have you considered just _not_ doing domain mail, and just keeping a
relatively small website that lists the board's emails, and just use
personal/individual/free accounts? It makes sharing a bit more of a pain, and
group lists not nearly as good, but it may be easier.

There's OwnCloud and similar, not to mention mail-in-a-box solutions. Most of
which could be done on a $5-10/month digital ocean, linode or similar
environment. For that matter, a small ISP hosting account may get you 90% of
the way for less than $20/month total.

It kind of depends on your own technical expertise and how much time you can
dedicate vs. a paid solution.

Edit:

Take a look at Cloudron on DO for an example. I'd probably do the mid-range
$15 droplet, or the $10 one.

[https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/cloudron](https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/cloudron)

~~~
vmurthy
> Most of which could be done on a $5-10/month digital ocean, linode or
> similar environment

@OP, Second this. Write to sponsorships@digitalocean.com and see if you can
get a few more dollars off [0]. Worst case, you might end up having to shell
out 2-3$ per month. It's certainly worth your time isn't it :-). Plus, good
karma!

[https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/is-
there-a-...](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/is-there-a-
discount-promo-for-non-profit-organizations-or-charities)

~~~
Aperocky
Alternatively, you can order a domain and register it with Amazon Route 53 and
store your website in S3 buckets - that way its even cheaper than having a
droplet, the downside being that you wouldn't be able to have a back-end. It
doesn't sound like you need back-end logic though.

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dejan
Hi Andrew,

We will gladly sponsor you with email services - migadu.com regardless of your
status. No cloud storage though and no documents/spreadsheets.
Groups/forums/email lists are coming soon by the end of the year. Calendar is
due in a few weeks.

~~~
andrew_
Very generous, thank you. I'll look into Migadu's services. What's the best
way to follow up?

~~~
dejan
email :) contact at migadu dot com

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jen729w
Can you clarify your actual budget? Or is it $0?

For email, I found Migadu [0] this year and love them. It’s ~$50/year, but for
that you get unlimited mailboxes. The limit is on how many emails/day you
send. This might suit your needs?

How much cloud storage do you need? I’d be using the free tiers at
Dropbox/OneDrive/etc., or some sort of P2P solution based off my own server. I
use Resilio Sync and it’s great.

Good luck finding solutions to the rest. Sounds like something really
worthwhile you’re doing there.

[0]:
[https://www.migadu.com/en/index.html](https://www.migadu.com/en/index.html)

~~~
andrew_
Our budget for digital services is $0 at present. All available funds are
already allocated.

The free, individual tier for Google Drive is currently being used, but we've
run into some management issues with that. Some of our members aren't exactly
tech-savvy and have issues with getting off of AOL (for example) or linking an
AOL account for Google Drive access. Managing access when the board rotates is
also an issue. And allowing everyone to use one login isn't an option - we
absolutely have to track who is modifying what.

~~~
joezydeco
I'd say you have to up your dues to the point where you can get and keep
501(c)(3) registration. You'll want that for fundraising when you eventually
need to fight off these developers that are closing in.

Google Apps for nonprofits is a cinch once you have that registration.

If your residents can't afford any of this, they probably can't afford to hold
the developers at bay. Best of luck.

~~~
andrew_
Thank you for the well-wishes. We've been fairly successful thanks to some
tenacious members with an excellent knowledge of local ordinances and the
willingness to attend council and planning meetings.

We just had our bi-annual meeting last night and the discussion around raising
dues was raised. The motion did not pass however, as our most active residents
are also the least wealthy. It's an odd dynamic but they are good people.

------
m0zg
Raise the dues by about $5 and pay for GSuite? You aren't going to "advocate"
much against real estate developers without paying tens of thousands of
dollars to a lawyer anyway, so maybe you should revise your cost structure
even more dramatically.

Source: our neighborhood's HOA spent $53K on legal fees to disallow the
construction of a 4 story retirement home right across the road from us. This
took 2 years and we lost: the other side can just wait you out. Yearly dues
were raised from $300 to $450 to pay for this fail.

~~~
andrew_
> Raise the dues by about $5 and pay for GSuite?

Not helpful and not in the spirit of Ask HN. Please read the other comments
(there's only 23 to scan) on why we cannot raise the dues, it's been
addressed.

Your's is a very subjective take. We've actually been very successful
historically, without having to engage attorneys and going through city
channels. When making a statement like that, remember that your experiences
are not a universal truth.

------
Nextgrid
You should ask FastMail - maybe they’d be willing to do something for a non-
profit even though you don’t fit the “standard” non-profit requirements.

~~~
andrew_
I had contacted them and received a swift "no, sorry." But thank you for the
suggestion.

------
dawg-
Hey, I work in nonprofit admin and have never encountered this issue. Your
best bet is coming up with the $600 to file as a 501(c)3, because this issue
with email is not going to be the last time you run into problems without it.

Have you ever done any fundraising campaigns or events? I think you would be
surprised how much the people in your city, even people outside of your
neighborhood, might be willing to donate some money to keep livable, walkable
communities from being overrun by development.

------
ishfuseini
Maybe Zoho might be a good fit? [https://www.zoho.com/](https://www.zoho.com/)

~~~
andrew_
Thanks for the suggestion. I had a cursory look at them but their interface
wasn't exactly clear for nonprofits. For example, I couldn't figure out how to
get email going for the org. I'll give their support a shout and give them a
second look.

~~~
vmurthy
We have used Zoho at our for-profit (free-tier - up to 25 people) with 5 GB
Mailbox. We've had some issues when the HR tried to reach out to potential
candidates and sent out some marketing emails. We were blocked and informed
that it looks like spam. Do confirm with them before taking the plunge. Good
luck!

~~~
andrew_
How did you configure your free tier? We're being told that the org account is
on a 30 day trial.

~~~
vmurthy
To give you some more info: We had signed up in 2016 timeframe when they had a
more generous free tier. The one that I see now has 5 users [0]. Also, the
startup is in India. Perhaps they're offering different tiers depending on the
country?

[0] [https://www.zoho.com/mail/zohomail-
pricing.html](https://www.zoho.com/mail/zohomail-pricing.html)

