NFP sponsorship - Microsoft vs. Google

• Go to https://www.google.com/nonprofits/ and click "Get Started".  However, to really get started, you need to log in with a Google account.  (in contrast, Microsoft doesn't require you to have a "Microsoft account").  No big deal, I just use my personal Google account.

• Google asked me to search for your NFP organization.  This is hit and miss, depending on if the NFP had already been 'verified' with Google's 3rd-party partner (named "Percent").  Sounds like a chick-and-egg problem.  My first attempt (search by EIN#) didn't come up with anything.  I had to upload the supporting documents.  After that, I was asked to enter the following:

• The organization website.  This is a mandatory field.  Cannot be left blank or skipped.  A NFP without a website will probably be out of luck here.  In contrast, Microsoft does not require a NFP website in application.

• The organization's name and mission statement.  This is asked even if you found your NFP by search.  Why asking for the mission statement again if the NFP is already verified by Percent (Google's partner)?  The mission statement is part of Percent's verification process.

• The contact person's name and email.  This is also confusing - what email should I use?  In order to start the application, I had to log in with my Google account first.  What email address I should put here?  In fact, this is the biggest caveat.  I'll explain later.

• Submit.

Within a few hours, I got a rejection email.  The wording is very vague - "Unfortunately, XXX(the NFP's name) isn't eligible because either the organization or your affiliation with it couldn't be verified based on the information provided."

This is weird.  The NFP has been established as 501c3 organization for 9 years and filed tax every year.  It definitely meets Google's eligibility requirements.  I reattempted a few times.  Got the same email rejection every time.  But there is no further explanation why it was not eligible.  After researching, someone said the success rate would be higher if the NFP was registered/verified by Percent first.

OK, I gave it a try.  I went straight to Percent website https://causes.poweredbypercent.com/, opened a ticket, uploaded all the supporting documents.  After a few days, I received email from Percent saying the NFP has been verified.  Please note, this "verification" is for Percent only.  It is not for Google.  As Percent partners with other companies to offer sponsorship program.

I went back to Google website to try again.  This time, when I searched for EIN, the NFP came up right away, even with the custom logo I uploaded to the Percent website.  This proves that Google taps into Percent database to retrieve the data.  I thought this time should work.

I was wrong.  I got the exact same rejection email.  At this point, I could rule out the "eligibility" part as the NFP had been verified by Percent in their own database.  So it must be the "affiliation" part.  It looks like the system could not verify if the applicant was affiliated with the NFP or not.  But how could it verify the affiliation with the information provided?  Does it verify by the contact person's email?  Luckily, this NFP already have a business email domain set up (like <business name>.org).  I tried again.  This time I entered the business email in the "contact person's email" field.

Just to clarify:

1. To start the application, you need a Google account.  In my case, I have no other options but to use a personal Google account.  Because the NFP does not have any business account with Google yet.
2. In the application process, I have the option to enter the contact person's email.  It could be any email address, not necessarily Google email.  To be more legit, I entered the NFP's business email address.

In step 2 above, whatever email address you entered, Google will send a verification request to that email.  You'll have to click the "Verify" button in the email to confirm that you received the email.

However, I got the same rejection email again, even with the business email address in the contact filed (and confirmed).  This was the sixth time of failure.  I just couldn't figure out how the system would be able to verify the affiliation with the information it asked.  As an IT veteran, there are only 3 ways to prove you are whom you claimed to be:

• You know something (e.g. password).
• You own something (e.g. an access badge)
• You have some unique things that cannot be easily removed from you (e.g. fingerprints)

Google's verification process didn't ask any of the things above.  Well, business email address could be a potential one, but only if Google can verify that email domain is associated with the business.

The only 'help' is to post a question on Google's community.  But as many users pointed out - No one from Google is actually monitoring the community, especially the NFP community.  99% of the questions were not answered.  I had no choice, but to open a ticket with Percent.  Ironically, this is NOT mentioned in the application process.  I figured it out myself.  After uploading all documents (voided check, drivers license, official documents) and waited for days.  Percent said it was verified and asked me to wait for 24 hours to reapply.  It is worth noting, this is the 2nd time I verified by Percent:

• First time is to verify the NFP's eligibility (501c3)
• Second time is to verify the applicant's 'affiliation' with the NFP

I waited 24 hours, re-applied.  Guess what?  I got the same rejection email again!  I sent email to Percent.  They replied with prescript language saying I had to contact Google.  Creatively, I made a Zoom appointment with Percent to "introduce my NFP".  7:30AM in the morning, I had a video call with a lady in London, UK.  After introducing my NFP and show some interest in Percent's products/services, I casually mentioned "by the way, I was trying to get verified with the Google program...".  The lady was kind enough to look into it and said she would get the right team to help me.  She also admitted that the process could have been better.  When I asked how does the process verify the applicant's affiliation with the NFP because it is logically impossible (without human intervene).  She declined to disclose the information.

First of all, you cannot subscribe the free plan directly.  You'll have to activate a paid plan with trial period first.  I followed the onscreen prompt, entered the NFP size (2-9 persons).  Google recommend the plan "Google Workspace Business Plus".  Again, free plan is not an option here.  OK, I had no choice but to choose the "Business Plus" plan.  During the process, it asked me to do the following:

1. Purchase a DNS domain or verify(transfer) an existing domain the NFP owns.  This is not very friendly for the NFPs who do not own an domain.  In my case, the NFP has its business domain on Microsoft Azure and Office 365.  The NFP decided to purchase a new domain just to test drive the Google Workspace features.  For privacy, let's say the new domain is foobar.org.
2. Create an admin account, with the domain (e.g. admin@foobar.org).

Here comes another confusion.  When applying for the NFP sponsorship with Google, the Google account (my personal Gmail account) is designated as the admin account.  However, when activate the product (Google Workspace plan), I cannot use my personal account.  I'll have to use a business domain account (e.g. admin@foobar.org, instead of jsmith@gmail.com).  So, there are two admins:

• The admin who manages the sponsorship, activate the products.
• The admin who manages the Workspace features, such as creating users, manage plans and storage, etc.

But in Google's online help, it doesn't (clearly) indicate when to use which admin.  It is a trial-and-err process.

I activated the "Business Plus" plan (with regular price).  Then I had to go back to the sponsorship page to request for the NFP discount (either a free plan or a discounted paid plan).  Why so complicated?  Why can't I just choose a NFP discounted plan directly?

I submitted the request.  But it didn't give me any option to choose a discounted plan.  It just said "We received your NFP discount plan request.  It is under review.  We will get back to you".  Seriously?  I spent almost a week, verified with Percent twice to get to this point.  You sent me an email to invite me activate Nonprofit products.  Now not only I had to activate a regular price product first, but you'd have to review again (for the 3rd time) to validate I'm eligible for NFP price?

However, depending on your situation, you have to take different routes:

• If you're happy with your current plan (which was activated before with regular price) but you want a NFP discount, you'll have to "Contact Google Workspace support and let them know you are looking to enable the nonprofit discount for your existing Google Workspace edition. Support will walk you through next steps".  Seriously?  For a software giant like Google, this cannot be done with a few clicks like scenario #2 below?  Customers have to contact support that requires human intervene?
• If you want to switch to another plan, you need to log in as Workspace admin and change the plan.  This is my case because I wanted the NFP free plan instead of the discounted "Business Plus" plan.

However, when I logged into Workspace admin console, NFP free plan is not an option.  Only (discounted) paid plans are available.

I had no choice, but to contact Workspace support.  Here are the interesting (yet frustrating) facts:

• I had to switch from "Business Plus" plan to "Business Starter" plan first.  Why?  I don't know.  As a programmer for years, the only explanation I can think of is - instead of rewrite the code to improve customer experience, let's just ask customers to take the trouble and deal with it.
• Support said he couldn't do it for me.  I had to do it myself.  OK, I switched from Business Plus plan to Business Starter plan (with annual pay).
• Then support said it couldn't be annual pay, it had to be flexible pay (monthly pay).  Hmm... why didn't you tell me earlier?  Again, I don't understand why it matters since my ultimate goal is NFP free plan.
• Then in the verification process, support said my Workspace admin is not on the list of the sponsorship admin.  He asked me to add the Workspace admin to the sponsorship admin list.  I don't know why but I did that to satisfy him.  But this should not be the best practice.  The Workforce admin is a technical role that handles the functions and features of Google Workspace.  A technical role should not be given the organizational admin rights to change sponsorship (more of business relationship).
• After all these, the support said the free NFP plan was handled by a different team.  He would have to transfer the request to that team to handle.  They'd get back to me when necessary.

What else I can say?  Don't get me wrong.  Google is a great company and I'm very satisfied with their personal products, such as Gmail, Google Voice, Google Photos, etc.  But this NFP sponsorship program, even though exists for year, was poorly designed.  There is a lot of work to do, both internally and externally to be on par with other competitors (like Microsoft).  As a matter of fact, some NFP customer with 800+ users was talking about shifting to Microsoft 365 because of this.

Just to give you an idea, I'm a IT professional with many technical certifications: Cisco CCIE, Microsoft MCSE, Oracle DBA, VMware VCP, etc.  My specialty is to set up, test, demonstrate, integrate, troubleshoot complex systems, like global data/voice networks, large scale applications, database, middleware, etc.  If something seems 'complicated' to me, it is not just complicated.  It is VERY complicated and doesn't make sense at all.