Summary
TechSoup Global Network: Impact at Scale
The TechSoup Global Network (TSGN) brings together 60+ partner organizations on six continents operating in 39 languages that have joined together to collaborate on supporting 1.3 million NGOs on meeting the world’s most pressing needs. The partners are all united by their dedication to creating social impact through access to technology.
Source: TechSoup Global Network Website
TechSoupVideo (59:24)
In this webinar, members explore how AI tools can enhance operational efficiency for nonprofits. Learn practical strategies for automating repetitive tasks, optimizing resource allocation, and driving organizational impact.
OnAir Post: TechSoup
About
What We Do
Social good needs great technology. At TechSoup, we provide the connections, expertise, and resources to unlock the power of tech for social good.
Software, Hardware, and Technology Services
If you work at a nonprofit, library, or foundation in the U.S., your organization is potentially eligible for donated or discounted software, hardware, and services through TechSoup. NGOs, social benefit organizations, and charities worldwide can also get offers through our NGO Tech Marketplace. TechSoup’s catalog includes more than 375 products from over 100 companies like Microsoft, Adobe, Cisco, and Intuit.
Informative Resources to Support Nonprofit Tech
TechSoup provides people around the world with the information they need to make smart decisions about technology at their organizations. Gain know-how from our blog, webinars, forums, and articles and how-tos. Keep up with the latest technology and trends delivered directly to your inbox with our free newsletters. If you’re looking for information specifically for libraries, you can browse TechSoup for Libraries. Ready for in-depth knowledge? TechSoup Courses can take your education to the next level.
Community and Innovation
There’s no substitute for connecting with like-minded people in person. That’s why our TechSoup Connect program mobilizes community organizers to host local tech-for-good meetups all over the world. Attend one, or create your own.
Foundations, philanthropies, and donor advised funds have been using our NGOsource program for more than 10 years to scale their international grantmaking. We streamline the process of equivalency determinations and do the legwork, legal work, and paperwork for all kinds of benefactors. NGOsource’s ED repository is constantly growing, which allows us to pass the savings on to the grantmaker. Ready to expand your giving internationally? Have a look at how NGOsource can help.
We also work on the ground to create social good solutions. Caravan Studios, a division of TechSoup, works with changemakers to build apps that help communities organize, access, and apply local resources to their most pressing problems.
Delivering Locally with a Global Network
To provide relevant support in communities all over the globe, we founded the TechSoup Global Network. This network of partner NGOs, who each care about building civil society capacity, implements the tech marketplace for their respective regions. The reach of this network enables TechSoup to deliver impact at scale in 236 countries and territories.
Source: TechSoup Website
Our Mission
TechSoup’s mission is to build a dynamic bridge that leverages technology to enable connections and innovative solutions for a more equitable planet.
We imagine a world in which social change agents from all walks of life can fully access the profound power of technology and a connected world — and use it to improve lives. TechSoup offers the largest technology philanthropy platform in the world. Established in San Francisco in 1987, TechSoup works with a global network of over 50 nonprofits that cooperate across a shared platform to provide localized IT services to hundreds of thousands of civil society organizations across 236 countries and territories.
All of the above — from the access to tech tools and resources we provide to organizations around the world to the increasing reliance on cloud computing to adopt and optimize those tools and resources — relies on the open development of the Internet and its ongoing evolution toward global access, especially for those who are traditionally under-resourced and under-served.
We also use our reach, goodwill, and trusted position in the sector to gain insights into how issues such as connectivity affect civil society organizations. In 2023, we partnered with Connect Humanity to conduct a survey that informed their report, State of Digital Inequity: Civil Society Perspectives on Barriers to Progress in our Digitizing World.
Source: TechSoup Website
Contact
Email: Contact
Web Links
Videos
Leveraging AI to Streamline Operations for Nonprofits
May 20, 2025 (59:24)
By: TechSoupVideo
In this webinar, members explore how AI tools can enhance operational efficiency for nonprofits. Learn practical strategies for automating repetitive tasks, optimizing resource allocation, and driving organizational impact.
More Information
TechSoup, founded in 1987 as CompuMentor and later known as TechSoup Global, is a nonprofit international network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that provides technical support and technological tools to other nonprofits.[1][2]
History
After discussing the technology needs of nonprofits with members of the WELL, Daniel Ben-Horin founded CompuMentor (later TechSoup). His objective was to create a program in which those with technology skills (“mentors”) volunteered to assist nonprofit organizations with information technologies. In 1991, Fred Silverman, Apple Computer‘s manager of community affairs, praised CompuMentor as “a perfect marriage of technology and volunteerism.”[3]
[4]
CompuMentor also began soliciting donations of technological products, largely from tech magazines that had large stocks of unneeded software sent to them by companies seeking coverage of their products, which CompuMentor collected and then sold to nonprofits for a nominal fee, originally $5.[2][5][6]
In 1997, CompuMentor received $350,000 in donations, tying it with the IT Resource Center as the largest Nonprofit Technology Assistance Provider in the U.S.[7]
On May 9, 2000, TechSoup website www.techsoup.org was launched.
In 2008, the organization changed its name to TechSoup Global.[8]
As of 2016, TechSoup reported $30.8 million in revenue. It provides technology assistance services and NGO validation services to nongovernmental organizations, foundations, libraries, and other civil society organizations worldwide in partnerships with companies like Microsoft, Adobe, Cisco and Symantec. In partnership with Microsoft, it formed the TechSoup Global Network to support increased distribution of services to nonprofits.[2][9][10][11][12]
The TechSoup Global Network includes Fundacja TechSoup, a separately incorporated “regional hub” established by TechSoup Global. It is based in Warsaw, Poland, and supports activities in 48 European countries.[13][14]
Notable programs
TechSoup.org
Launched in January 2002, TechSoup.org is a web site serving nonprofits that provides training webinars, community forums and other resources about the use of technology in nonprofit organizations and public libraries. TechSoup partners with Microsoft to distribute Microsoft’s product donations globally,[15][16] and helps to connect nonprofits and libraries to corporate donors such as Adobe, Symantec, Cisco and Intuit. TechSoup.org also verifies the nonprofit status of organizations seeking donations and matches them to the donated technology products they need.[17][18]
GuideStar International
GuideStar International is a global service that provides open access to accurate NGO data. GSI was begun in 2010 when TechSoup Global and GuideStar International, a U.K.-registered charity that promotes transparency and civil society organization reporting, combined operations.[1]
NGOsource
NGOsource, a project of the Council on Foundations and TechSoup Global, is an online service for U.S. grantmakers to receive equivalency determinations, which are legal certifications that a non-U.S. NGO is equivalent to a U.S. public charity, thereby reducing the cost and complexity of international grantmaking.[19] Launched in March 2013, it helps U.S. grantmakers streamline their global philanthropy.[20] According to its website, NGOsource was active in 126 countries as of 2018.[21]
NetSquared
NetSquared organized local actors to collaborate in open innovation challenges, as well as monthly face-to-face meetups. NetSquared was organized into local chapters that had monthly meetings. Chapters went by such names as Tech4Good or NetSquared Chicago.[22] NetSquared’s “ReStart Slovakia” challenge provided recognition and seed funds to help launch the “Open Courts” project to promote transparency in Slovakia’s judicial system.[23] TechSoup Connect became the successor to NetSquared in 2021, and each chapter continues to be led by a volunteer who produces local events, in-person and online.[24]
Quad
In February 2022, TechSoup launched a subscription service, Quad, which it described as “TechSoup’s peer-to-peer community where nonprofit organizations connect with tech experts and each other to do great things.”[25][26]
See also
References
- ^ a b “Guidestar International and TechSoup Global Combine”. Nonprofit Quarterly. April 15, 2010.
- ^ a b c Gilpin, Lyndsey (June 23, 2015). “10 awesome technology nonprofits you should know about”. Tech Republic.
- ^ Magid, Lawrence (11 March 1991). “COMPUMENTOR AND HANDSNET OFFER HELP TO THOSE HELPING OTHERS”. The Washington Post.
- ^ DeBare, Llana (4 Oct 1993). “Putting volunteers on line”. The Sacramento Bee.
- ^ Markoff, John (April 13, 2008). “When Tech Innovation has a Social Mission”. New York Times.
- ^ Guthrie, Julian (March 22, 2009). “TechSoup sees upside for nonprofits in downturn”. SF Gate.
- ^ McInerney, Paul-Brian (January 1, 2014). From Social Movement to Moral Market. Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804789066.
- ^ Mills Groninger, Tim (May 15, 2011). “Disconnecting from the network”. Nonprofit Times.
- ^ Nauffts, Mitch (May 2, 2006). “Daniel Ben-Horin, Founder/President of CompuMentor: Philanthropy and the Next-Generation Web”. Philanthropy Digest.
- ^ “2016 Year in Review”. Annual Report. 2016.
- ^ Cheney, Catherine (November 25, 2015). “As tech moves toward shared value, what is the role for bridge builders?”. Devex.
- ^ Freda, Diane (September 24, 2015). “IRS Gives OK to Outside Good-Faith Determinations for Foundations”. Bloomberg BNA.
- ^ “Foundation TechSoup”. National Forum of Nongovernmental Initiatives. 2014.
- ^ “Strengthening Institutional Capacity to Provide ICT Support to NGOs in CEE/Russia: Fundacja TechSoup”. Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. 2015.
- ^ Hutsko, Joe (2009). Green Gadgets for Dummies. John Wiley & sons. ISBN 9780470528914.
- ^ Schuster, Shawn (March 16, 2015). “How your church can accept electronic offerings”. Gospel Herald.
- ^ Cohen, Rick (October 24, 2013). “The medium data alliance between Guidestar and the Foundation Center: Get your information here”. The Nonprofit Quarterly.
- ^ Badshah, Akhtar (July 27, 2011). “Expanding Microsoft software donations for more nonprofits”. Microsoft Citizenship blog TechNet.
- ^ “Treasury and IRS Rule Changes Reduce Barriers to Global Grantmaking”, NGOsource, September 24, 2012 Archived November 4, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ “Explanation of Proposed Treasury Regulations: Reliance Standards for Making Good Faith Determinations of Equivalency Determinations”, Council on Foundations, September 24, 2012 Archived December 4, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ NGOsource About Us
- ^ Padmanabhan, Geeta (January 15, 2014). “So where do you belong?”. The Hindu.
- ^ In Slovakia, a Website Shines the Spotlight on Infamously Corrupt Judiciary TechPresident, July 31, 2013
- ^ “TechSoup Connect: Your New Community Events Program”. TechSoup Blog. 8 October 2021.
- ^ “Introducing Quad”. TechSoup. 3 February 2022.
- ^ “Quad from Techsoup”. Reddit. 17 May 2023.
