There is an excellent program offered in the United States (not Canada but everyone asks this) and it is called Microsoft Open Charity and this program is very popular. One can see by looking at the name of the program that it is for charities and involves open licenses and licensing which is where the name is derived from. There are about 700,000 charity organizations in the US and most of them are potentially accepted into this wonderful program.

One of the first questions we are asked is what kind of organization is not accepted into the Microsoft open charity program and why. We think this is smart to ask but not to worry. If you do not fall into the category, you would probably already know it by now! Microsoft doesn't allow health related organizations that provide certain services like hospitals and health organizations are usually scrutinized and their websites evaluated to determine this. As a matter of fact, a health organization that doesn't have a website will probably not become a Microsoft open charity.

Some have mentioned that this issue is a big one and not fair to those charities that want to take part in the program. But it is hard to define fair when it comes to Microsoft open. Since they are the ones running the program and they have some rules and stipulations and have them for good reasons as far as they are concerned and this has not been challenged, then they should be able to have the due diligence processes necessary to assure program fairness. After all, this would benefit everyone and most importantly, the Microsoft open charity users.