Every nonprofit treasurer knows the moment: the “IT” line appears in the draft budget and nobody quite knows how to justify it. Expenses arrive in bursts (a breakdown, a replacement, a forgotten subscription), and without a framework, spending stays reactive. Here is how to build a serious IT budget without needing to become a technical expert.
The four categories to budget for
A nonprofit IT budget breaks down into four areas.
Hardware: computers, printers, network equipment. Plan for renewal on a three-year cycle. If a workstation costs €900, its annual charge is €300. Applied across your whole estate, this simple calculation gives a solid baseline.
Software and subscriptions: email, collaboration tools, any sector-specific software your organisation uses. These costs are often monthly and easy to overlook when projecting annually. List them all.
Maintenance and support: someone needs to respond when things fail. Whether that is an external provider or an arrangement with a technically capable volunteer, this line has real value even when it has not yet been formally budgeted.
Security: backups, protection against malware, access management. For any organisation handling donor or member data, this is no longer optional.
What an in-house IT hire actually costs
Hiring a dedicated IT manager has an obvious appeal: one person, always available, who knows your organisation. In practice, the total cost runs well above the headline salary.
A junior profile costs €50,000 to €65,000 per year once you factor in employer contributions, recruitment costs, training, and equipment. A more experienced hire often exceeds €75,000. And that person works alone: unavailable during holidays, limited to their own skill set, with no cover when they are off sick.
For most nonprofits with fewer than 30 users, this model rarely stacks up. We look at this trade-off in more detail in our article on whether to hire an in-house manager or outsource.
What outsourcing offers
A specialist provider typically charges €30 to €80 per workstation per month depending on the service level. For 15 users, that means €5,000 to €15,000 annually, three to six times less than a salaried hire, with a whole team’s worth of expertise behind it.
Outsourcing also makes spending predictable. You know your monthly cost, with no surprises at year-end.
The Microsoft Elevate programme
If your organisation uses Microsoft 365, it may be eligible for the Elevate programme, which offers free or heavily discounted licences to nonprofits. There is some paperwork involved, and validation typically takes six to eight weeks, but the saving can exceed €1,500 per year for a team of twenty. Too many nonprofits overlook this.
Building the budget in practice
Start by taking stock of what exists: every device, every subscription, every ongoing service contract. Assign a value to each. Identify what is reaching end of life in the next twelve months. Add a 10 to 15 % contingency for the unexpected.
When presenting the budget, use a three-year horizon rather than a single year. Hardware investments follow a longer cycle, and the broader view helps trustees understand the logic behind the spend.
To find out more about IT support tailored to nonprofits, visit our dedicated page at /en/nonprofits/.
