Over 170k Nonprofits Lost All Their Data. Is Microsoft to Blame?
Article URL: https://slate.com/technology/2026/08/microsoft-software-nonprofit-data-delete.html Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49411395 Points: 286 # Comments: 151
Over 171,000 small nonprofits worldwide have reportedly lost all their data stored with Microsoft, sparking accusations that the tech giant failed to adequately inform its clients about the cancellation of its free nonprofit licenses. Canopy, a modest venture firm co-founded by former vegetable farmer Ronald Khosla, is one of the affected organizations.
After renewing its yearly license despite Microsoft's June 2025 announcement that the free licenses would be retired, Khosla discovered on June 11 that all Canopy's data had been deleted from Microsoft OneDrive. Microsoft told Khosla that his licenses would expire on October 4, 2025, but failed to provide any additional warnings or instructions for the phaseout process after that.
Other affected organizations, including a child healthcare organization and a DC nonprofit, also claim they received no notification about the impending license termination. Some have managed to recover their data, while others are struggling to continue their operations without the necessary technology. Microsoft claims it began notifying nonprofit customers in Spring 2025 and offered support throughout the transition period, but many affected organizations were left without any advance notice or clear guidance on how to migrate their data to alternative platforms.
Written by urgent.news from Hacker News Best's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
