Setting Up Microsoft 365 for Your Club
A step-by-step guide for Rotary clubs to get their own Microsoft 365 tenant through the nonprofit donation program.
On this page
Overview
Rotary clubs in Australia can get Microsoft 365 Business Basic free for up to 300 users through the Microsoft nonprofit grant programme. This gives your club professional email (yourname@rotaryclubname.org), shared calendars, Teams for meetings, SharePoint for document storage, and OneDrive for personal files.
The District IT team can help set everything up. This guide explains what is involved so your club knows what to expect. For the click-by-click walkthrough of claiming the licences, see Buying Your Club's Nonprofit Licences.
Microsoft discontinued the donated Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Office 365 E1 grants, and existing grant subscriptions are being deleted. Business Basic, free for up to 300 users, is the grant clubs should now be on. If your club is still running on a donated Business Premium or E1 subscription, contact the District IT team now rather than waiting for it to stop working.
What your club gets:
- Professional email addresses for board members and key members
- Shared mailboxes for club roles (club@, treasurer@, secretary@, president@) with no extra licence cost
- Distribution lists (members@, board@) for group email
- Branded email signatures with Rotary colours and your club logo
- A SharePoint site with a standard folder structure for administration, finance, membership, projects, events, marketing, and foundation
- Microsoft Teams with channels for general discussion, board business, projects, and social
- OneDrive personal storage for each user
- The web versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook
The free grant covers the browser versions. Business Standard and Business Premium add the desktop apps and extra security features, and both are paid. Most clubs find the web apps are all they need, particularly since members who have Office through work or a personal subscription can keep using it.
Step 1: Check eligibility
To qualify for nonprofit Microsoft 365, your club must be a legally recognised nonprofit. In Australia, this means one of:
- A Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) endorsed by the ATO or listed by name in the tax law
- A charity registered with the ACNC (Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission)
- An income tax-exempt not-for-profit as defined by the ATO
Most Rotary clubs qualify as income tax-exempt not-for-profits under the ATO definition. You do not have to be an ACNC-registered charity. See Obtaining Microsoft 365 Nonprofit for the full eligibility detail and the documents you will need.
You will also need:
- Your club's ABN
- An organisational email address (not a personal Gmail or Hotmail). If you do not have one yet, the District IT team can help
- A club president or secretary to be the applicant (Microsoft requires a named contact)
Step 2: Apply for nonprofit Microsoft 365
There are two distinct stages, and clubs often conflate them:
- Get your nonprofit status validated. Your club registers with the Microsoft nonprofit programme and provides the documents proving it is a not-for-profit. See Obtaining Microsoft 365 Nonprofit for the eligibility pathways and the exact document list
- Claim the licences. Once validated, you claim Microsoft 365 Business Basic through nonprofit.microsoft.com, which hands you into your own tenant's checkout
Microsoft has changed how cloud solution providers (resellers) can supply nonprofit licences. Bought through a solution provider, Business Basic is a paid product. Bought direct from Microsoft, it is free for up to 300 users. Australian clubs previously went through Connecting Up for this licence, and that is no longer the route to use.
Connecting Up and TechSoup remain useful for other donated and discounted software. This change is about the Microsoft 365 licence specifically.
The grant allows up to 300, but claim only the number of people who will actually sign in. You can increase the count at any time; you can only decrease it on your annual renewal date. Microsoft also reclaims grants where accounts sit unused, so unused licences are a liability rather than a buffer.
For the click-by-click version of this step, with screenshots from a real club setup, see Buying Your Club's Nonprofit Licences.
Step 3: Set up your custom domain
Once you have the M365 tenant, the next step is connecting your club's domain (e.g. rotaryclubname.org) so your email addresses look professional.
This involves:
- Adding a verification record (TXT) at your domain registrar to prove you own the domain
- Adding email records (MX, SPF, DKIM) so mail flows through Microsoft 365
- Setting your custom domain as the default
If your club currently uses another email provider (e.g. Google Workspace, Zoho), changing the MX records will redirect all incoming email to Microsoft 365. Coordinate the switch so no mail is lost during the transition.
Verifying the domain and moving your email are two separate decisions. You can verify the domain, leave the MX record with your current provider, and still have everyone sign in as name@yourclub.org.au and use Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive. Plenty of organisations run exactly that way, and it is a sensible staging point.
The District IT team handles the technical DNS setup. Your club just needs to provide login access to your domain registrar (e.g. Crazy Domains, GoDaddy, VentraIP, Cloudflare) or add the records yourselves with our guidance. If nobody on the current board has that login, tell us the domain name and we can usually identify who hosts it.
Verify the domain before you start creating accounts. You can build on the default .onmicrosoft.com address and move across later, but it makes a great deal of extra work. Buying Your Club's Nonprofit Licences walks through the verification wizard step by step.
Step 4: Create user accounts
The IT team will create accounts for your board members and any other members who need one. Each user gets:
- A professional email address (firstname.lastname@rotaryclubname.org)
- A temporary password (must be changed on first login)
- A Microsoft 365 licence
An administrator account (administrator@rotaryclubname.org) is also created for tenant management. This account is not tied to any individual and stays with the club permanently.
What we need from you:
- A list of board members with their names, roles, personal email addresses, and phone numbers
- A list of any other members who need accounts
- Who should have admin access to manage the tenant going forward
Step 5: Set up email
Beyond individual accounts, the IT team sets up:
- Shared mailboxes for club roles (e.g. club@rotaryclubname.org, treasurer@rotaryclubname.org). These do not use a licence and can be accessed by multiple people. When a role changes hands, we update who has access. No passwords to hand over and no email history is lost
- Distribution lists for group email (e.g. members@rotaryclubname.org sends to all members, board@rotaryclubname.org sends to the board)
- Email signatures with Rotary branding, your club logo, and each member's name and role. These are deployed as roaming signatures so they appear across Outlook desktop, web, and mobile
Step 7: Set up Teams
Microsoft Teams replaces the need for Zoom or other meeting platforms. The IT team sets up:
- A club Team with channels for general discussion, board matters, projects, and social
- Meeting policies (lobby bypass for members, cloud recording)
- Guidance on setting up your recurring weekly club meeting as a Teams meeting
Teams is part of your M365 licence. There is no separate cost, and it includes unlimited meetings with up to 300 participants, screen sharing, recording, and chat.
Security essentials
Once your tenant is set up, these security practices keep it safe:
- Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is turned on by default for all users. Do not turn it off. MFA means that even if someone's password is stolen, they cannot sign in without the second factor (usually a phone prompt)
- Limit Global Administrators to 2 people. This role can change anything in the tenant, including deleting it entirely. The administrator@ account plus one trusted club member is enough. See Managing Admin Access for how to assign roles
- Do not give admin roles to guest accounts. Guest accounts use personal email addresses and are harder to secure
- Review guest accounts regularly. Only invite people who genuinely need access to your club's resources
Keeping your licence active
If the renewal is missed, Microsoft automatically cancels your subscription. Email, SharePoint, Teams, and all Microsoft 365 services stop working. There is no advance warning email sent to your tenant. This is the most common reason clubs lose access to their M365 environment.
To avoid this:
- Set a calendar reminder for 30 days before your renewal date
- Make sure at least two people in the club know the renewal process
- Renew through the same channel you claimed the grant from, which for Business Basic is nonprofit.microsoft.com
Your renewal date is twelve months from the day you placed the order. That date matters for a second reason: it is the only point at which you can reduce your licence count.
If your licence has already expired:
- Re-confirm your club's nonprofit eligibility with Microsoft if it has lapsed
- Claim the Business Basic grant again through the nonprofit portal
- Contact the District IT team to reassign licences and verify everything is working
Your data (emails, documents, Teams messages) is retained for a period after the subscription expires, but you cannot access it until the licence is restored.
Annual changeover
At the start of each Rotary year (1 July), the IT team can help update your tenant to reflect new office bearers:
- New accounts created for any incoming board members
- Roles updated on existing accounts
- Shared mailbox access transferred to new role holders (e.g. the new treasurer gets access to treasurer@)
- Distribution lists updated with new membership
- Email signatures redeployed with updated names and roles
- Old accounts disabled for members who have left (their licence is freed up for someone else)
Contact the District IT team before or after your changeover meeting with the updated board list and we will take care of it.
Getting help
If your club is interested in getting Microsoft 365 set up, or if you are partway through the process and need assistance:
- Email the District IT team: support@rotary9660.org.au
- Check the Help Portal for guides on using M365 once it is set up: help.rotary9660.org.au
The IT team will walk your club through the entire process. Most setups take 1 to 2 sessions once the nonprofit application is approved.