Website funding and discounts for Canadian charities

Charities routinely run on software that actively works against them, because the budget conversation ends before it starts. Often the money is available and nobody went looking. Here is what is actually out there for Canadian organisations.

Free and heavily discounted software

Google for Nonprofits. Free Google Workspace, which covers email on your own domain, shared drives and calendars. It also includes Google Ad Grants: US$10,000 per month in Google Ads credit. That last one is the single most underused resource in the Canadian charitable sector. It has real strings attached, including a minimum click-through rate and a properly structured account, but it is free traffic to your site every month.

TechSoup Canada. Donated and heavily discounted software for registered charities and non-profits. Microsoft, Adobe, Intuit and others. Registration takes some paperwork but it is a one-time cost for ongoing access.

Microsoft for Nonprofits. Free Microsoft 365 licences for a set number of users, plus discounted Azure credits.

Cloudflare Project Galileo. Free security and CDN services for organisations working in the public interest.

Where the money comes from

Grant programmes change often, so treat this as a starting point rather than a current list, and always check the funder’s own site before planning around it.

• Canada Digital Adoption Program. Has funded digital work for small businesses. Check current status, as federal programmes are periodically restructured or wound down.
• Provincial and municipal programmes. In Alberta, community foundations and municipal grants regularly fund capacity building, which is often where software fits.
• Community foundations. Many Canadian cities have one, and they fund operational capacity rather than only programmes. A website that lets you take donations online is a capacity project.
• Your existing funders. The most overlooked source. If a funder already supports your programme work, a conversation about the systems that deliver it is rarely unwelcome.

How to make the ask land

Funders do not fund websites. They fund outcomes. The application that works looks like this:

Our volunteer coordinator spends six hours a week manually transcribing sign-up forms into a spreadsheet. That is 300 hours a year, which is a third of a staff position. A booking system would return those hours to programme delivery.

The application that does not work says “we need a new website because ours looks dated.”

Tie the request to hours saved, donations enabled, or people reached. Get a written quote to attach. Most developers, us included, will provide one for a grant application without charging for it.

What to prioritise on a tight budget

If you can only fix one thing, fix the thing that costs you money every week. In our experience, for most small charities that order is:

1. Donations that work on a phone. If your donate button is broken on mobile, nothing else matters. Most donations start on a phone.
2. The manual process eating staff hours. Sign-ups, registrations, roster management. This is where automation pays for itself fastest.
3. Being findable. Local search, a Google Business Profile, and pages that answer what people actually search for.
4. How the site looks. Genuinely last. A plain site that loads fast and takes donations beats a beautiful one that does neither.

Ask about reduced rates

Beyond grants, many developers offer reduced rates to charities and non-profits without advertising it. We do, and it is applied to the quote rather than requiring an application. The worst that happens when you ask is a no.

If you are working out what is worth building first, describe the problem and you will get an honest read, including when the answer is that you should not spend the money yet.