1980 to 1989: The Rise of Personal Computers and Personal Software - The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering - page 214

charitable and public service projects. In order to provide software and equipment
to charitable groups at lower than retail prices, the major vendors need to make
their products available via donations for charitable licensing. A number of major
companies participate with TechSoup in aiding charitable organizations by means
of donations. Among the companies that support charities are Microsoft, Cisco,
Symantec, Sun, and Adobe.
TechSoup Global now has a network of partner groups in 40 countries, and it
offers a number of services, including recycled and refurbished computers, train-
ing, manuals, and other assistance all aimed specifically at other nonprofits and
charitable groups.
Just as computers and software have become the main operating tools of busi-
ness and government, they are also vital to charitable organizations. For example,
every charity needs a database of the clients it supports and the donors who con-
tribute. All charities have to keep normal financial records, which in many ways
are more burdensome than the financial records of profit-making companies. Non-
profit taxation is remarkably complicated. (Intuit has a special version of Quick-
Books for nonprofit groups.)
Overall, TechSoup Global has provided assistance to more than 197,000 char-
itable and nonprofit organizations with a combined retail value of software and
computers that approaches $3.5 billion.
Without the donations and assistance of TechSoup and other charitable support
groups such as Freelanthropy, many charities and nonprofits would probably not
be able to support as many people as they do because manual methods of record-
keeping would not be sufficient. Charitable groups and nonprofits need software
and computers as much as Fortune 500 companies do, but in general they have
very small budgets and depend on volunteer software and support personnel.
TechSoup Global also provides some specialized services to large organiza-
tions that provide grants and funding to charities and nonprofits. Many of these are
located in other countries, and TechSoup helps in ascertaining if their legal status
is equivalent to nonprofits in the United States. This is called equivalency determ-
ination .
Needless to say, the groups that offer grants, the vendors who donate software
and computers, and tax authorities such as the IRS want to be sure that the recip-
ients of grants, donated software, and donated computers are authentic charities
and nonprofit organizations.