Trouble with Techsoup eligibility validation and admin fee Qs

This is one of the worst service offerings I have encountered. First thing first, I am with the 37th largest public school district in the country - with 87,000 students and 15,000 employees: Jeffco Public Schools in Colorado. Public school districts and their schools are by nature non-profit organizations. With our only option to verify non-profit status being this TechSoup nonsense, I have issues. There are 2: One, there is a $73 fee TechSoup charges, which is insane to ask of non-profit organizations, who by nature are not cash-heavy. They or you should be covering this fee, as it is Asana’s choice to use this service. But secondly, and more importantly, they only verify 501(c)(3) organizations and school districts are not 501(c)(3)s. But we have all the required documentation of our state-mandated tax exempt status - as again, we are a public school district.! We want to use your product and know some of our neighboring districts use it and have received the non-profit discount without having to use TechSoup. There has got to be some other way to verify our status; I can’t believe Asana wouldn’t want new business especially with an organization our size. We did our due diligence and did a free trial for a month, which is now about to run out, but TechSoup refuses to verify our status and there is NOBODY at Asana who wants to help; all channels to reach out to for assistance are robots. I have received some replies to other emails, however they do not offer any other options or even address my issues, and have many writing quirks that make me think it isn’t even a real person. I expected WAY more from Asana. And I will be sure to tell anyone else who asks me about using it to look elsewhere. What a disappointment.

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Hi @Cameron_Bell1,

Our apologies for the disconnect you’re experiencing here! Our partnership with Techsoup is what makes our ability to provide the nonprofit discount possible, so I’d love to speak to a couple points you brought up in your message.

  1. The $73 admin fee: Techsoup itself is a nonprofit. Their ability to verify nonprofit status & the eligibility of nonprofit orgs (NPO) is a service they provide for NPOs across 70 countries . This is how we (at Asana) are able provide access to this discount in the US and abroad. Like most things, this service is not free. The admin fee helps support our ability to build and provide this as a truly global program in partnership with Techsoup. On this note, as our program continues to grow, we hope to be able to work with our partners to increase the accessibility of our program by reducing the cost of this fee. While we’re not there yet, it is on our roadmap.

  2. Why is this fee annual?: Nonprofit status can be revoked if the terms of local government law are violated, there is a mismanagement/abuse of funds, the NPO no longer fulfills their founding mandate/mission among a host of other reasons. In order to ensure that we truly are providing access to the discount to eligible NPOs we need to ensure they are still operating in accordance to local law; a service Techsoup is able to provide.

That said, we do understand that all situations are not the same and a one size fits all approach will not work at all times. For this reason, a member of our team has filed an exception on behalf of your organization, which our nonprofit team is taking a look at. We thank you for your patience in the meantime and hope we can verify the details needed in order to approve this request.

Should you have any additional questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly.
:handshake:
-Michael
MichaelArmstrong@asana.com

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