Mission-Aware MSP · Michigan · Since 2015

IT Support That Stretches Your Mission Budget

Non-profits run on tight tech budgets and tighter timelines. We build IT that’s right-sized and grant-friendly — for non-profits across Michigan, whether you run Bloomerang, DonorPerfect, Salesforce NPSP, Little Green Light, Kindful, or another platform.

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The Daily Reality

Common Technology Challenges We Solve

for Non-Profits

We support non-profits across Michigan, and the pain points are remarkably consistent regardless of mission. If any of these sound familiar, you’re not alone — and your generalist IT provider may not understand the specifics of non-profit operations.

Microsoft 365 Non-Profit Licensing Confusion

Microsoft offers free and deeply-discounted licensing for qualified non-profits, but the application process is opaque and the SKU options are bewildering. Most non-profits we meet are paying for licenses they could be getting free, or missing features they’re entitled to.

Donor Data on Personal Devices

Staff and board members access donor records from personal laptops, phones, and tablets — without MDM, without MFA, without any visibility into what happens if a device walks off. Donor PII is sensitive, and your board has an oversight obligation.

Tiny IT Budget, Enterprise Threats

Phishing campaigns and ransomware don’t care that you’re a non-profit — they target every email address in front of them. The right defenses cost real money, and most non-profits we meet have under-invested out of necessity until something bad happens.

Volunteer Turnover, Access Chaos

Volunteers cycle in and out constantly. Without a documented onboarding/offboarding flow, dormant accounts pile up — each one is a security risk. Donor data should not be accessible to someone who hasn’t been involved in 18 months.

Grant Audit on Short Notice

A funder requests a compliance review of your IT controls — or your auditor’s questionnaire asks about cybersecurity practices. You have two weeks to produce documentation you’ve never created, and it has to be defensible.

Multi-Site Coordination Without Multi-Site Staff

Some non-profits run multiple physical locations or chapters with no IT staff at any of them. The expectation is that the network, the printers, the email all work everywhere — and when something breaks at the satellite office, nobody knows what to do.

Mission-Aware by Design

Mission-Aware IT for a Non-Profit

What it actually looks like, day to day

Non-profit IT has to do more with less. Mission-aware means we stretch your tech budget by tapping every non-profit discount, grant program, and free tier you’re entitled to — while still configuring the controls your board, your auditors, and your funders increasingly expect. Cheap and defensible aren’t usually the same thing. We make them the same thing.

  • Microsoft 365 non-profit licensing. We handle the eligibility application, the SKU selection, and the ongoing license management so you’re paying $0 or near-$0 for software you’d otherwise pay $20+ per user per month for.

  • MFA on every system that touches donor or financial data. Email, your donor management platform, accounting, document storage, board portal, remote access. Push-based MFA — not text-message codes, which are no longer considered a reasonable safeguard.

  • Managed EDR on every staff workstation. Endpoint detection that watches for ransomware behavior, blocks it in real time, and gives us a forensics trail if something slips through. Increasingly required by funders and cyber-insurance underwriters.

  • Workstation auto-lock and screen timeout. Reception, shared workstations, and staff offices auto-lock after a short idle period. Donor records and financial data don’t sit visible to whoever walks through.

  • Encrypted, off-site backup with tested restores. Your donor database, financial records, grant documents, and email — backed up nightly, restore tested monthly, with an offline copy that ransomware can’t touch.

  • Data-handling agreements with every vendor that touches donor records. Including us. We sign a confidentiality and data-handling agreement before we onboard a non-profit. Required by most modern grant agreements and donor-privacy policies.

  • Audit logging across systems. When a funder, an auditor, or your board asks who accessed what data and when, you need to be able to answer in minutes. We configure logging so you can.

  • A documented incident response plan. Funders and state regulators are increasingly asking non-profits whether they have one — and the first 72 hours after a breach determine whether your operation can keep functioning. We help you write the plan before you need it.

This is what we mean by mission-aware — we configure your systems with the assumption that they’ll be audited by a funder, reviewed by your board, or breached someday, and we want your non-profit to come out of that scenario still able to deliver on its mission.

What We Actually Do

How We Support Your Non-Profit

Help Desk That Knows Non-Profit Software

Your team calls or emails — we don’t waste time asking what your donor platform is. We know your stack: Bloomerang, DonorPerfect, Salesforce NPSP, Little Green Light, Kindful, QuickBooks Non-Profit, Sage Intacct. We know which vendor escalation path each one needs. Average pickup under 15 minutes during business hours.

Microsoft 365 Non-Profit Setup & Management

We handle the Microsoft non-profit eligibility application, the right license mix (free Business Basic seats, discounted Business Premium, donated tenant credits), and the security baseline. Already on M365 but not sure you’re getting the non-profit pricing you’re entitled to? Free review.

Donor Data Protection & Privacy

Donor records, payment information, and personal data sit at the center of your operation. We configure the controls that funders increasingly require: role-based access, audit logging, encrypted storage, secure file sharing, and clear retention rules. Defensible without being expensive.

Grant Audit & Compliance Documentation

When a funder or auditor asks about your IT controls, you should have artifacts ready — not scrambling to produce them in two weeks. We maintain the documentation you need: control descriptions, vendor list, incident response plan, training records, backup restore evidence.

Multi-Location & Volunteer Networking

Many non-profits run multiple physical sites or chapters with no IT staff at any of them. We build networks that work the same way at every location, with central monitoring so a satellite office issue gets caught from our office — not after a volunteer can’t access the donor system.

Donor Database & Financial Backup

Your donor records aren’t just data — they’re the relationships that fund your mission. Hourly snapshots of your donor database, financial records, grant documents, and email, encrypted off-site, with a tested restore process. If ransomware hits, you’re back up while another organization is still waiting for help.

Vendor Coordination So Your Director Stops Being IT

Donor platform, accounting software, M365, ISP, phone, grant management, fundraising tools — when something goes wrong, the executive director shouldn’t be on hold with six vendors. We’re the one phone number, and we chase everything else.

Strategic IT Planning Within Budget Reality

Quarterly reviews so your IT decisions stop being last-minute panic. Hardware refresh planning, security roadmap, cyber-insurance and grant compliance, budget forecasting, and a clear path for what’s next — sized to a non-profit budget, not an enterprise one.

Why Firms Choose Us

We Stretch Your Mission Budget

“Non-profits run on tight budgets and tighter timelines — we build IT that’s right-sized and grant-friendly from the start.”

  • 15-minute response time, not next-business-day. When a major donor event is hours away and the email system isn’t working, “we’ll have someone reach out tomorrow” is not an acceptable answer.

  • Local presence in Petoskey. When a problem really does need a person on-site — like an aging server that won’t boot — we’re a short drive away. We support Michigan from Michigan.

  • Mission-aware technicians, not generalists. Our team understands non-profit operational reality — tight budgets, volunteer turnover, grant compliance, donor privacy. We don’t hand off your tickets to a help desk in another time zone.

  • Serving Michigan since 2015. A decade of staying in this market, working with non-profits through every Microsoft licensing change, the rise of cloud donor platforms, and the post-2020 shift to hybrid operations. We’ve seen the failure modes and built the runbooks.

  • A signed Master Services Agreement and data-handling agreement before we touch anything. Non-profits need to know what they’re getting, what’s covered, and have agreements that satisfy funders and donors. Our agreements are clear, and we sign them before the first ticket.

  • We own the outcome, not just the ticket. Our job is to keep your non-profit running its mission — not to close tickets and bill add-ons. If something needs more attention than a quick fix, we say so and handle it.

Questions We Hear All The Time

Non-Profit IT Support — FAQs

In nearly every case, yes. We support non-profits running Bloomerang, DonorPerfect, Salesforce NPSP, Little Green Light, Kindful, NeonCRM, and others. We don’t replace your platform — we make it run better, document it, manage its updates, and serve as your support contact when issues arise. We coordinate directly with your vendor’s support team so you don’t have to.

Yes. We sign a data-handling and confidentiality agreement with every non-profit we onboard, before we touch any system that processes donor or financial data. Most modern grant agreements and donor-privacy policies require you to have one with every third-party vendor — and if your current IT provider hasn’t signed one with you, that’s a compliance gap.

Funders and auditors are increasingly asking about IT controls — particularly federal grants, foundation grants over a certain size, and any grant involving regulated data. We configure systems to meet what most funders currently expect (MFA, EDR, backup, training, incident response plan) and maintain the documentation you’d need to produce if asked. We are not auditors or compliance officers and don’t provide legal advice on specific grant requirements; we configure controls that align with what most modern funders expect.

Yes. Microsoft offers free and deeply-discounted licensing for qualified 501(c)(3) non-profits, and we handle the entire process — eligibility verification, application, SKU selection (free Business Basic seats, discounted Business Premium, Power Platform, Defender add-ons), and ongoing license management. Most non-profits we meet are paying for licenses they could be getting free.

Major events, end-of-year giving pushes, and live fundraising campaigns are when systems get stress-tested. We design redundancy into every non-profit network — failover internet, monitoring that fires when load gets high, and on-call coverage during your high-stakes windows. Tell us the date; we’ll be ready.

Yes. Whether you run one office, multiple chapters, satellite locations, or a hybrid of staff and home-based volunteers, we build secure, consistent access to your donor system, M365, and shared resources. Central monitoring catches issues at any location before they become someone’s emergency.

Our help desk answers in under 15 minutes during business hours. For after-hours emergencies — major event night, end-of-year giving push, board meeting — we have an on-call escalation path. Most non-emergency tickets are resolved within the same business day.

Yes. Cyber insurance underwriters and modern funders increasingly require the same set of documented controls — MFA, EDR, backup, incident response plan, employee training. We configure your systems to meet those standards and provide the documentation both insurance renewals and grant applications ask for. If a breach does occur, we work alongside your breach counsel and provide the logging artifacts they need.

Pricing depends on the size of your team and what you’re already running. We work hard to stretch non-profit budgets — including tapping every Microsoft non-profit discount, donated software credit, and discounted vendor tier you’re entitled to. Most small-to-mid-size non-profits fall in a predictable monthly range that includes monitoring, help desk, security, and backup. Free 15-minute consultation to scope what your operation actually needs.

Ready When You Are

Stop Spending Your Mission Budget on IT Surprises.

Start Running the Mission.

Schedule a free 30-minute discovery call. We’ll listen to what’s driving the inquiry, tell you honestly whether we’re a fit, and if we are, we’ll put together a transition plan that doesn’t disrupt your mission.

Real Humans, Real Conversations

844-959-5040

Northern Technology Services · Petoskey, MI · Serving Michigan since 2015