Google or Office 365 for nonprofits (ward and stake use)

Does anyone know if there is an official church stance on the use of services like Google for Nonprofits or Office 365 for wards and stakes? And if it is not a "no use", is there anyone who has had success setting up an account and using it?

Assuming it an "as the spirit leads you" type of thing, and thinking the spirit is leading me here, I'm all in on this as a solution for ward collaboration on notes, projects, planning using shared doc type functionality, groups, conversations, and mock calendars, but am having trouble with getting it going. (We don't intend to use it to replace the LDS tools other official items (e.g. calendars, newsletters, LCR, MLS, etc.), but for those things, specific to the ward or stake where the church is lacking in terms of tools, (e.g. shared notes, content, plans).)

Has anyone else setup an account with either of these for their ward or stake? I am having trouble, because Google and Microsoft vet it based on EID, IRS.org, and or domain and high up (i.e. President/Prophet) approval. I see some have had success with it and I doubt they had to go to that level of effort, so I'm hoping to get some new thoughts out of this medium in regards to these tools, setting them up, and use.

Finally, and in case you were wondering why this would be on my mind, right now I'm swimming in a see of emails with 4 different versions of proposed callings, plans on interviews, source information, ward meeting notes, etc. withno local place for ward records and vital information to caring for the Saints, that I can provide limited access to and use for keeping everyone on the same page.

I am the ward clerk.

P.S. I am part of a brand new ward (just created 2/8/15) and going the normal route Google rejected the application and Microsoft is requesting high level confirmation (seems a bit much). Neither seem to have a clear path to actually speaking with someone and making a case for a nonprofit setup. Again, hoping someone here can help us get over the hurdle, having done it for their ward.

P.P.S. We have thought about a personal account (i.e. hotmail or gmail), but I'd rather, since they have it, take advantage of the nonprofit option. Seems more accurate and transferable in the case of move ins, move outs, reorgs, etc. (Thinking like any organization would that would have data and content and have regular changeover in leadership.)

Please help if you can.

I think you should see the following:

https://www.lds.org/help/support/third- ... e?lang=eng

Good luck.

dfchamplain wrote:I think you should see the following:

https://www.lds.org/help/support/third- ... e?lang=eng

Good luck.

"Due to high costs, the Church does not recommend purchasing this software with budget funds." - Which is not the same as "prohibited".

I don't know who one would contact to get use as a non-profit. All I can suggest is calling Local Unit Support and asking questions. Either that or asking the stake president to talk to the area authority about who to contact.

Out of curosity, which version were you looking at? It looks to me, unless you're going to stick to the on-line (free) version, at 5 users, you'd have paid enough for a retail copy of Office 2013 for the ward PC in two years time. If 10 users, then in under a year.

The Charity version of office that will be church legal is 69.00 form http://ccbtechnology.com/product-catalog/

Site is changing call them.

We have it, and salt lake has receipts.

There is a very specific version we are to use.

russellhltn wrote:I don't know who one would contact to get use as a non-profit. All I can suggest is calling Local Unit Support and asking questions. Either that or asking the stake president to talk to the area authority about who to contact.

Having your bishop talk to your stake president about this is great counsel. IMO I don't foresee individual wards having "nonprofit" access to these products. It would most likely be available for all units or none at all. Just my opinion.

I can see some reasoning for using Google. The church would be able to qualify; however, Google only allows one membership per organization.

"We only allow one membership per organization. However, branches of umbrella organizations that share Employee Identification Numbers (EINs) with their parent organizations are eligible for individual memberships. Branches must indicate that they are applying as a "related organization" during the application process and go through additional screening."

Local units may be considered by Google to be branches of an umbrella organization - only Google could tell you for sure.