Nigeria
Donated software for Nigerian nonprofits and churches
Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and the rest of the nonprofit programmes, claimed for your CAC-registered organisation and set up properly.
The vendors give this software away to registered nonprofits, and Nigerian organisations qualify on the same registration they already hold with the Corporate Affairs Commission. Very little of it reaches Nigerian churches and nonprofits, because the path runs through verification bodies most organisations have never heard of, in a process that stalls quietly and tells you nothing.
Tech Citadels does that work. We confirm what your organisation can get, take you through verification, claim the licences in your own name, and then set up the email, website, streaming and giving tools on top of them. We are a Nigerian and American firm working in both places, so neither the paperwork nor the time zones are new to us.
Written for Nigeria specifically. The programmes are worldwide; the paperwork is not. This page covers the Nigerian route, including what to do when a verification goes quiet.
We check what Nigeria can actually get
Programme availability differs by country and changes without much announcement. We confirm which of the Microsoft, Google and other nonprofit programmes are open to a Nigerian organisation today, and which of them are worth your time.
We take you through verification
Nigerian organisations are usually verified through TechSoup, which operates here with Nigerian civil society partners, and through Goodstack, which Google uses to check nonprofit status. We prepare the documents, submit them, and follow up when a review goes quiet.
We claim the licences in your name
Every licence is registered to your organisation, never to us. You own them whether or not you stay with us afterwards.
We set it up and stay on
Email on your own domain, the website, streaming, the giving platform and the security basics, then a fixed monthly plan sized for Nigerian nonprofit and church budgets.
Before you apply
What a Nigerian organisation needs
Four things decide whether an application goes through. None of them are about size: a forty member church with its paperwork in order gets further than a large one without it.
Your CAC registration
Most Nigerian nonprofits and churches are registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission as Incorporated Trustees, which is the registration the vendor programmes are checked against. We work with the certificate and the IT number you already hold.
Named people in real roles
A board or council of trustees that meets, and named people responsible for finance and administration. The programmes are granted to organisations rather than to individuals, and the checks look for that.
A domain, or the willingness to get one
An organisation running on personal Gmail accounts can still qualify, but the useful version of these programmes needs your own domain. Setting that up is part of the work rather than a prerequisite you have to solve alone.
A mission you can state plainly
Who you serve and what changes because of your work, in language a reviewer outside Nigeria will understand. Applications are refused more often for being vague than for being small.
If you are missing one of these, apply anyway and say so. We will send back the short list of what to put in place first, which is cheaper for you than paying us to discover it.
Stuck in verification
Why these applications stall
If you are already weeks into a TechSoup or Google verification with no answer, it is usually one of these four. We can take it over from wherever it stopped.
The name does not match
The name on the application has to match the CAC certificate exactly, including the form of the words. A reviewer who cannot line the two up will not usually explain that this is the problem.
The document does not show what the reviewer expects
Reviewers outside Nigeria are reading a Nigerian certificate against a checklist written for a dozen countries. The document can be entirely valid and still fail to show them the field they are looking for.
The email domain undermines the application
An application for an organisation, submitted from a personal address, invites the reviewer to treat it as an individual request. This one is avoidable and we fix it early.
It simply went quiet
Some submissions sit without any decision and without any notification. They usually need a follow-up through the right channel rather than a second application, which can make things worse.
Tech Citadels is an independent provider. We are not affiliated with TechSoup, Goodstack, Microsoft or Google, we cannot overrule a vendor decision, and nobody honest can promise you an approval. What we can do is make sure the application says what the reviewer needs to see, and keep following it up.
Questions
Asked by Nigerian organisations
The questions that come up before an application, answered plainly.
- Can a Nigerian nonprofit get Microsoft 365 for free?
- Microsoft runs donated and discounted nonprofit offers that registered Nigerian organisations can apply for, and the software itself is donated rather than sold. What it costs you is the work of qualifying, claiming and running it, which is what we charge for. We confirm exactly which offers are open to your organisation before you commit to anything.
- Is Google for Nonprofits available in Nigeria?
- Google runs its nonprofit programme in Nigeria, and Nigerian organisations are validated through Goodstack, the partner Google uses to check nonprofit status. Which parts of the programme you can use, including the advertising grant, depends on the country and on your organisation, so we check it rather than assume it.
- Does a church registered with the CAC qualify?
- Churches registered as Incorporated Trustees hold the kind of registration these programmes are checked against. Some vendors apply conditions to religious organisations, usually about serving the whole community rather than only members, and we tell you plainly where your organisation stands before applying.
- What is TechSoup Nigeria, and do we have to go through it?
- TechSoup validates nonprofit status for a large number of software donation programmes and operates in Nigeria alongside Nigerian civil society organisations. For several programmes it is the route to verification. We handle the registration and the paperwork on your behalf.
- Our TechSoup or Google verification has been stuck for weeks. Can you help?
- Yes, and this is one of the more common reasons organisations come to us. Reviews stall over a mismatched name, a document that does not show what the reviewer expects, or a submission that simply went quiet. We find out which of those it is, fix the submission and follow it up until it moves.
- Do we need a Nigerian bank account or a foreign card?
- The donated programmes do not require you to pay the vendor, so the usual card problem does not arise for the licences themselves. Where a paid add-on or a cloud service is genuinely needed, we tell you before it is set up and work out the payment route with you rather than leaving you with a failed transaction.
- We are in Nigeria but our leadership is in the diaspora. Does that matter?
- No. The registration that matters is the organisation's, and we work with Nigerian organisations whose boards, donors or founders sit in the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. We are used to working across those time zones because we do it already.
- What does it cost?
- A one-time setup fee and a fixed monthly care plan, both sized to your organisation and to what is actually left to do. We share the numbers when we reply to your application, before any commitment.