Every non-profit 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 non-profit 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 non-profits 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 non-profits. 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 non-profits 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 10–15% 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.
IT support for non-profits is part of our dedicated non-profit offer. If you’re building your budget and want to know what it means in practice for your organisation, we can go through it together.
