Frequently Asked Questions

You will need to register an individual TechSoup Canada user account as a first step to register your organization with us (for free!). Individual accounts that do not have a registered organization will not be able to access offers through our catalogue.

An organizational TechSoup Canada account provides you with access to the Technology Donations Program and validation tokens (required for some of the programs we validate, such as Google for Nonprofits). With an organizational account, you can:

1. Edit your Personal Profile anytime you’d like, such as your password and contact email (password resets are sent to this email)
2. Review your organization details and see what products your organization is eligible to request. You can view these details in the "Organization Details" section of your account.
3. Access nonprofit offers through our catalogue.
4. Generate and use validation tokens (for programs such as Google for Nonprofits)
5. If you are eligible for the Microsoft Software Donations program, you can track your Microsoft allotment by viewing the "My Microsoft Donations Centre" section of your account.
6. See your order request history.

Once you have registered your organization, our team will use the information provided to verify your organization's eligiblity for the offers in our Program. Your account will be qualified once the review is complete.

The qualification process takes 5-10 business days. During this time, your account status will be listed as “Not Started.” you will not be able to place orders through the catalog or generate validation tokens.

We will reach out by email if we need additional information or documents. Please keep an eye out for email from us. If we have all the information we need, you will receive an email confirming your account is qualified.

If you’d like to update your password or contact email (password resets are sent to this email), you can log into your account and edit it anytime you want!

Log into your account and use the icon in the top-right to navigate to your Your Account page.
Click on Edit Profile to change your settings.

If you’d like to update the information on the Organization Details section of your account - such as your organization’s software delivery email or mailing address - you can send an email at customerservice@techsoup.ca with the changes you would like to make to the account.

We may need to confirm the changes are authorized by the organization before applying them to your account.

The product pages for our offers will have more information about the products in our catalog, such as how long the license will be active, if there are additional subscription fees, and a brief overview of the features. You can also find more information about the system requirements under the “Systems requirements” tab.

Access to discounted rates means that after you pay the admin fee to TechSoup Canada, you will also need to pay a subscription fee directly to the software maker. The product page in our catalogue will specify when an additional fee is required on top of the admin fee.

After purchasing an offer for access to discounted rates, you will receive an email within 2-5 days with instructions on how to set up your discounted subscription with the software company.  

Some examples of offers for access to discounted rates include Adobe Cloud, Zoom, and Wix.

If you are looking for a product that is no longer available in our catalogue, chances are it has been replaced by another offer, or it has been discontinued. We do not currently offer any products in the Donations Program that are not explicitly listed in our catalogue.

Hopefully soon! As a donation program, availability of licenses depends on our donor partners. We don’t have timelines on when products will return to our catalogue. We can guarantee that we will update the website immediately when we get new stock, and send short emails through our Product Alert mailing list when products come back into stock. Signing up for Product Alert is your safest bet to stay on top of things.

You can't, sorry. The offers in our program are licensed directly to your organization, and cannot be transferred to an individual or another organization.

Our donor partners, such as Microsoft, Adobe, Autodesk and others, understand that your organization is on a mission and they would like to help. They offer their software and hardware through our Technology Donations Program as a way to help you save money and equip your organization with the best, most up-to-date technology, so that you can redirect your resources on what matters: your mission. For this reason, your software and hardware products are donations to your organization (think of them as restricted funds!) and should be used solely by your organization.

The admin fee for any given offer is listed on the product page in the catalogue. GST/HST is not included in the listed admin fee, however will be applied during checkout.

Our “Access to Discounted Rate” offers will require that after you pay the admin fee to TechSoup Canada, you will then pay a subscription fee directly to the donor partner. For more details on Access to Discounted Rates, please refer to the section of this FAQ, “What does it mean when a product is “access to discounted rates?”
 

Your eligibility for a specific product depends on whether or not your organization’s mission, annual expenses and status as a charity or nonprofit complies with the donor partners’ eligibility criteria. Since each donor partner has their own set of restrictions on who can access their products, your organization may or may not be eligible.

If you feel your organization’s information needs to be re-evaluated, feel free to email us. Please send any supplemental documentation you have about your requested update so we can complete it for you!

If your organization is not eligible for specific donors or the TechSoup Canada program as a whole, please refer to our More Nonprofit Deals page for a list of free or discounted software and services available to nonprofits and charities outside of our program.

Since your eligibility for the product depends on whether or not your mission, annual expenses and status as a charity or nonprofit complies with the donor partner’s eligibility criteria, we recommend that you review your organization’s current details and make sure everything is up-to-date.

If your organization’s details aren’t up-to-date, please let us know what information needs to be updated by email.

If your organization is not eligible for specific donors or the TechSoup Canada program as a whole, please refer to our More Nonprofit Deals page for a list of free or discounted software and services available to nonprofits and charities outside of our program.

First, make sure you’re logged into your TechSoup Canada account. Click on the Browse Catalogue button to view our products. You can filter by ‘Donor or Company’, ‘Category’, ‘Media Format’, ‘Platform’ and ‘Language.

When you see a product you’d like to order, edit the quantity of this product you would like to order and click the “Add to cart” button. You can view the items in your cart at any time by clicking the cart icon at the top, right-hand side of the site. Once you have finished selecting items, you can proceed to checkout.

You can order anytime and as often as you’d like, as long as it’s within your allotment for that program. Please see our How Much Can I Order? page for more information on allotments and order cycles.

You can pay using any Visa or MasterCard. You can also pay using your PayPal account.

During the checkout process, on the Delivery and Payment Options page, you will be offered the payment method PayPal Website Payments Standard. 

This option will redirect you to PayPal’s secure website to complete your payment. Please note: you do not need a PayPal account to proceed with the checkout.

You may be given the option of logging into a PayPal account to complete your payment. You can choose to Pay with Debit or Credit Card, which is available if you do not have a PayPal account.

If PayPal rejects your credit card, it is most likely because the billing address entered does not match what your credit card company has on file. Please try processing your payment again, but make sure the billing address you enter matches your credit card statement.

Consider using a prepaid credit card. They are widely available at retailers, grocery, and convenience stores. You can purchase a prepaid Mastercard and VISA cards and use them as you would a normal credit card.

Please note: due to COVID-19, we are not accepting cheques for the time being. If your organization is tax-exempt, please call us before placing your order. We will be happy to assist you!

As we are a donation program, we cannot invoice for product orders or accept payments for out of stock items. If you are looking to order a product that is listed as “Out of Stock,” please sign up for our Product Alerts to get notifications on product availability and new products in our catalogue!

For software: we cannot exchange your products, even if it is a case of having ordered the wrong product. 

Refunds are approved by software companies in rare situations where there is a technical problem with the license. 

If you would like to request a refund, please send us an email with an explanation of why your organization would like a refund. We cannot guarantee that your refund will be approved, but we can escalate to the software company.

Refunds will be issued by the method from which the order was made (credit card, PayPal, or cheque).

For hardware: please see Cisco’s FAQ and CNB Computer’s Program Guidelines for more information on how to return your order.

You can expect to receive an email with your activation instructions within 2-5 business days of placing your order. 

This email will be sent to the organization email address on your account. You can view this information by going to the Organization Details section of your TechSoup Canada account. 

Remember to check your organization email’s inbox, and Spam/Junk filter if your email does not arrive in your inbox within this period.

If it has been more than 5 business days since you paid for your order, please email us and provide the Order # for the order in question.

You can view your order history and determine your Order # by going to the Request History section of your TechSoup Canada account or by looking for the Order # on your Invoice.

Our account management team can support you from your account creation process, all the way to your product installation. Anything beyond that is beyond our level of expertise. If you have specific questions about your product, such as configuration, feature sets, and product support, we recommend that you contact the software company directly.

We follow the philosophy of “teach someone to fish, and you’ll feed them for a lifetime.” Our goal is to create content that will equip you and your colleagues with the knowledge to help yourselves!

We create and curate content on nonprofit technology under our Grow Your Skills menu (blogs, e-newsletters, webinars, and courses!) and through TechSoup Connect, a global network of chapters hosted by volunteers who offer free online and in-person events about tech for good. For more information on these resources or if there is a specific topic you would like us to cover in our content, see our Contact Us page for more details.

A validation token is a unique code that your organization can use to access products and services intended for nonprofits. You only need a validation token when you are specifically asked to provide a validation token.

Have questions about your token and what you can use with it? Please see our Validation Token FAQ page.

First, make sure your TechSoup Canada account is qualified: use the profile icon on the top-right to navigate to Your Account. Check that your organization status is Qualified. If not, email us for support.

If your account is qualified, and you receive an error message when Adding a new token, please email us with a screenshot of the error message. 

Finally, if your account is qualified but a new token does not appear when clicking on Add New Token, try making a small change to the Name you enter. For example, put a "1" after the first Name (e.g. "Katsumoto1"). That small change should let you create a new validation token.