Create a nonprofit email address: the four options, step by step

There are four ways to create an email address for a nonprofit: a free Gmail or Outlook.com account, a domain name with the hosting that comes with it, Google Workspace, or Microsoft 365. The last two are offered to eligible nonprofits: $0 per user per month at Google, and Microsoft 365 Business Basic granted free for up to 300 users at Microsoft, with conditions in both cases. Whichever you pick, the trap is the same: an account created by one person ends up depending on that person. This guide covers how to create the address, then how to hand it to the organisation on day one.

Nonprofit email address: the four ways to create one

A free consumer account. You open a Gmail or Outlook.com account in the organisation’s name: ourcharity@gmail.com. Five minutes, no cost, and it works. This is what most small nonprofits do, and for a three-person group receiving ten messages a month it is not unreasonable. Two reservations: the address does not carry your own domain, which matters when you approach a council or a funder, and above all that account is tied to somebody. The next two sections show how to set it up properly.

A domain name and the hosting that comes with it. You buy ourcharity.org from a registrar. The domain alone costs little. For a French .fr domain, the price runs from under €10 to nearly €30 a year including VAT, depending on the registrar: as observed in September 2026, OVHcloud renews it at €7.79 excluding VAT (€9.35 with VAT) after a €4.99 first year, and Gandi at €28.78 with VAT after registration at €7.20 a year, for 1 to 10 years. Hosts bundle it with an email address in packs costing a few euros a month. You get contact@ourcharity.org. This is the simplest option to understand, and it costs little. It gives you a professional address and makes you the owner of the domain, and therefore of the address, independently of anyone’s personal account. In practice:

1. Pick a short name, close to the organisation’s registered name.
2. Buy it in the organisation’s name, not a member’s.
3. Create the contact address from the host’s control panel.
4. Write the control panel login in the organisation’s records: it is what gives you control of the domain and the mailboxes.

Google Workspace, free for eligible nonprofits. Addresses on your own domain, on accounts the organisation sets up itself. The least known option, and often the best if you qualify.

Microsoft 365, Business Basic granted to eligible nonprofits. The same idea at Microsoft, with a precise rule on who may use the free licences, covered below.

Creating a Gmail account for a nonprofit, step by step

The path is that of an ordinary Google Account, started from the Google sign-in page with “Create account”.

1. The account type. Google asks whether the account is for “Personal use”, a “Child” or “Business”. The business choice mainly prepares a Google Business Profile. For a plain contact address it changes nothing decisive.
2. The address. Google suggests Gmail addresses, and you can create your own. Pick a name that says the organisation and, where you can, a function: ourcharity.contact@gmail.com rather than mary.ourcharity@gmail.com.
3. Birthday and gender. Google asks for them. A Gmail account is a person’s account, not an organisation’s: the person creating it fills them in. Write down what was entered in the organisation’s records.
4. The password. Long, unique, and kept where the committee keeps its papers, not only in the head of whoever typed it.
5. The phone number. Google marks it as optional. Do not skip it: it is one of the ways back into the account, along with the recovery email, and the “Day one” section below says which one to use.

The account exists. Before you announce it to anyone, go straight to the “Day one” section below: that is where it all gets settled.

Creating an Outlook.com address for a nonprofit

At Microsoft, go to outlook.com and select “Create free account”. You get an Outlook.com address and a Microsoft account, with 5 GB of cloud storage.

Three differences from Google matter for a nonprofit:

• The security email does not have to be the creator’s. Microsoft says so plainly: it “doesn’t have to be yours”, you just need to be able to access it. That is exactly what an organisation needs.
• You may not be offered a phone number. Microsoft is phasing out text messages as a verification method. Plan on a security email and, if possible, an authenticator app.
• A lost address is gone for good. An address used for a Microsoft account can never be reused, even long after the account was closed. If the account disappears, the address printed on your leaflets goes with it.

Microsoft also lets you generate a recovery code, to print and keep somewhere safe. For a nonprofit, somewhere safe means the committee’s binder. Note that each new code cancels the previous one, so write down the date you generated it.

Day one: recovery details the organisation owns

This is the part nobody does, and the one that costs the most later. Google puts it simply: you cannot add recovery info while you are locked out of the account. So it has to be settled on the day you create it, while everyone still has access.

The recovery email. Google asks for an address you use regularly, other than the one you sign in with. Use another of the organisation’s addresses if it has one, for example the office address or the one on your own domain. Failing that, a committee member’s address, knowing it has to change when they leave.

The recovery phone. Google recommends a phone that “belongs only to you”, and an organisation has no phone of its own. The reasonable compromise is the phone of whoever holds the role, secretary or chair, with a written rule that it changes at every handover. Google may keep sending codes to the previous details for 7 days after a change, so make the switch before the person actually leaves, not on the night of the annual meeting.

The phone that gets the sign-in prompts. Even with no particular setting turned on, Google might ask you to tap a notification to confirm a sign-in, and those prompts go to any Android phone signed in to the account. That is why the treasurer opening the mailbox on a new laptop ends up waiting for the former chair’s phone to buzz. Check which phones are signed in, and sign out the ones belonging to people who have left the committee.

A recovery contact. Google lets you name recovery contacts for the account. Once one accepts, there is a 7-day wait before you can use them: set it up now, not on the day of the problem.

At Microsoft, add before you remove. If all the security info on a Microsoft account is removed and replaced at once, the account is put into a restricted state for 30 days. At a handover, add the new details first, then remove the old ones.

Sign in at least once every two years. Google can delete a personal account that has been inactive for two years, and Microsoft requires a sign-in at least once in a two-year period to keep an account active. An address used only for the autumn volunteer fair is exposed. At Google, the warning goes to the recovery email: if that belongs to a volunteer who left long ago, nobody will read it.

Write it all down in one place. A page in the organisation’s records is enough: the address, where it is hosted, whose name it is in, the recovery email and phone, where the recovery code is kept, and the date of the last change. It is also the first thing to check at the start of each season, as our guide to a new-season email reset sets out.

Google Workspace for Nonprofits: $0, with conditions

Google offers nonprofits an edition of Google Workspace billed at $0 per user per month (€0 on Google’s French page), as observed in September 2026. It includes professional email addresses at your nonprofit’s domain, video meetings for up to 150 participants, 100 TB of storage shared across all users, and security and management options. The ceiling is 2,000 users, which no grassroots organisation will approach.

To qualify you have to be registered as a charitable organisation in one of the countries Google lists, meet that country’s specific requirement, and accept the Google for Nonprofits additional terms. In France, for example, Google requires a nonprofit “registered in French Legal Publication (Journal Officiel des Associations or other)”. Verification runs through Goodstack, Google’s validation partner.

Three categories are excluded, and it is worth knowing before you build the application:

• governmental entities and organisations,
• hospitals and health care organisations, though their charitable arms or foundations may qualify,
• schools, academic institutions and universities, though their philanthropic arms may qualify.

That last one surprises a lot of parent associations. The association itself, registered in its own right, is not a school and is in principle eligible. A school is covered by Google for Education instead. If that is your situation, our schools page treats the subject separately.

The decisive advantage for a nonprofit is not the price: it is that the accounts are set up by the organisation, not opened by a volunteer in a personal capacity. A volunteer who leaves does not take the account with them, and Google’s inactive-account deletion policy does not apply to accounts set up through an organisation. You do need a domain name: Google Workspace supplies the addresses, not the domain.

The application, the eligibility conditions and the traps to avoid are covered in our Google Workspace for Nonprofits guide.

Microsoft 365 for nonprofits: Business Basic granted, Premium at 75% off

Microsoft 365 Business Basic is a grant, free for up to 300 users; Business Standard costs $3.50 and Business Premium $5.50 per user per month, paid yearly, with Premium advertised at a 75% discount, as observed on 28 September 2026. Granted licences are permitted only for paid employees and unpaid executive staff: board members, president, officers. An all-volunteer association can therefore equip its board for free. Other volunteers may use only the discounted plans, and members, beneficiaries and donors may use none.

Choosing the name of the address

One rule, and it matters more than it looks: the address names a function, never a person.

The contact address, the office address, the membership address, the treasurer’s address. Never Mary’s personal address for the public contact address, and above all never the chair’s personal address. The day Mary hands over, which happens every two or three years in a volunteer organisation, a function address transfers in ten minutes, while a personal address takes two years of history with it into a mailbox nobody can open any more.

Two or three addresses are plenty at the start. An organisation that creates eight on day one ends up with six mailboxes nobody checks.

The real problem arrives right after

The address exists. It works. And two weeks later comes the question nobody planned for: how do the secretary, the treasurer and the chair all get into it?

The instinctive answer is to share the password, often by text message. It is the most common arrangement in the voluntary sector and the most fragile. Any new sign-in can trigger a confirmation prompt on the creator’s phone, and the creator is not always reachable. Every departure forces a password change for everyone. Two volunteers answer the same message without knowing it. And the day the person who created the account leaves on bad terms, the organisation loses its address. We went through those mechanics in sharing a mailbox without sharing the password. If your address is a free Gmail account, sharing a nonprofit Gmail account between volunteers covers the phone that gets the sign-in prompts and the recovery details.

On a free Gmail account, delegation lets other Google accounts read and send from the address without knowing the password. It has limits, which we listed in Gmail delegation and its limits for a small team. And when the committee changes, our guide to handing over the mailbox between volunteers walks through the procedure.

The creation checklist

1. Pick the option: free account, domain, Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. If you take a domain, buy it in the organisation’s name, not a member’s.
2. For Google Workspace for Nonprofits, have your registration details to hand.
3. Create two or three function addresses, never personal ones.
4. On the same day, set the recovery email and phone, following the handover rule.
5. Add a recovery contact at Google, or print the recovery code at Microsoft.
6. Write down in the organisation’s records who holds what: domain, mail, recovery details, date of the last change.
7. Put a sign-in at least once a year in the organisation’s calendar, so you never get near two years of inactivity.
8. Decide, before you need it, how several people will access the mailbox.

When several volunteers answer every week

As long as one person checks the mailbox, everything above is enough. As soon as two or three volunteers answer members, you need to know who is handling which message, without having to call each other.

That is what a shared inbox does. With Trupeo, you connect the address you have just created, at Google, Microsoft or any host over IMAP, and each volunteer signs in with their own account. Each conversation gets one owner, a status (to assign, to handle, done) and internal notes. A handover becomes a change of access rather than a transfer of password. And if you stop using Trupeo, the address keeps working at its provider.

Verified associations and schools get 50% off: €5 a month per mailbox excl. VAT for 2 people, and €10 from 3 people, instead of €10 and €20. See our nonprofit offer and our pricing.

For what comes next, two useful reads: organising a nonprofit’s email for putting things in order, and our nonprofit email templates for the messages that come back every season.

Frequently asked questions

How do I create a free email address for a nonprofit?

The simplest is an ordinary Gmail or Outlook.com account in the organisation’s name: free and immediate, but without your own domain. The most solid is Google Workspace for Nonprofits, at $0 per user per month for eligible organisations, or Microsoft 365 Business Basic, granted free for up to 300 users. Both give you addresses on your own domain, which you buy separately: for a .fr, from under €10 to nearly €30 a year including VAT, depending on the registrar.

Can I create a Gmail account in the nonprofit’s name rather than my own?

The address can carry the organisation’s name, but a free Gmail account is still a person’s account: Google asks for a birthday, and the recovery details belong to somebody. What you can do is choose recovery details that follow the role rather than the person, and change them at every handover. For an account that truly belongs to the organisation, you need Google Workspace, where the organisation sets up the accounts.

Which recovery email and phone should a nonprofit use?

For the email, another of the organisation’s addresses, such as the office address, or failing that a committee member’s. For the phone, that of whoever holds the role, secretary or chair, with a written rule to change it at every handover. At Microsoft, the security email does not have to be the creator’s, and a printed recovery code can go in the organisation’s records.

Is my nonprofit eligible for free Google Workspace?

You need to be registered as a charitable organisation in one of the countries Google lists, meet that country’s specific requirement, and accept the additional terms. Verification runs through Goodstack. Governmental entities, hospitals and health care organisations, and schools and universities are excluded, with exceptions for their charitable or philanthropic arms.

Is Microsoft 365 free for nonprofits?

Partly. As observed on 28 September 2026, Microsoft presents Microsoft 365 Business Basic as a grant, free for up to 300 users, and Business Premium at a 75% discount. The free licences are for paid employees and unpaid executive staff, such as board members or the president: an all-volunteer organisation can therefore equip its board for free. Other volunteers may use only the discounted plans, and members, beneficiaries and donors may use none.

Does a nonprofit need its own domain name?

It is not required, and it is recommended as soon as you write to partners, funders or public bodies. An address at contact@ourcharity.org costs the price of the domain, from under €10 to nearly €30 a year for a .fr, and above all it belongs to the organisation rather than to a personal account, provided you buy the domain in the organisation’s name. That is what makes a handover possible.

What happens if nobody signs in to the account for two years?

Google can delete a personal account that has been inactive for two years, along with its mail. Microsoft requires a sign-in at least once in a two-year period to keep an account active. At Microsoft, a closed address can never be created again. One sign-in a year, noted in the organisation’s calendar, removes the risk.

How can several volunteers access the same address?

Not by sharing the password, which sends confirmation prompts to the creator’s phone and makes every handover painful. Depending on your provider you can use Gmail delegation, a Microsoft 365 shared mailbox, or a shared inbox that connects on top of your existing mail and gives each person their own credentials, with one owner per message. The options are laid out in sharing a mailbox without sharing the password.

Sources:

• Google Account Help: create a Google Account: the account type choice (Personal use, Child, Business), the suggested Gmail addresses, the birthday and gender requested, and the optional phone number.
• Google Account Help: set recovery info: what recovery info is for, that it cannot be added while locked out, codes sent to previous info for 7 days, the phone that “belongs only to you”, and recovery contacts with their 7-day wait, alongside the recovery phone and email.
• Google Account Help: sign in with Google prompts: the notification Google might ask you to tap even with no setting turned on, and prompts sent to any Android phone signed in to the account.
• Google Account Help: inactive Google Account policy: possible deletion after two years of inactivity, notices sent to the recovery email, and the exclusion of accounts set up through an organisation.
• Microsoft Support: create a Microsoft account: “Create free account” at outlook.com, the 5 GB of cloud storage, and that an address can never be reused, even long after the account was closed.
• Microsoft Support: security info and verification codes: the security email that “doesn’t have to be yours”, and a new phone number that may not be available as text messages are phased out.
• Microsoft Support: recovery code: the code that helps regain access, previous codes no longer working, and the advice to print it and keep it safe.
• Microsoft Support: security info change still pending: the 30-day restricted state when all security info is replaced.
• Microsoft Support: account activity policy: a sign-in at least once in a two-year period to keep the account active.
• Google Workspace for Nonprofits: as observed in September 2026, the edition at $0 per user per month (€0 on the French page), professional email addresses at the nonprofit’s domain, 150-participant video meetings, 100 TB of shared storage and the 2,000-user maximum.
• Google for Nonprofits eligibility requirements: registration as a charitable organisation in a listed country, the French requirement of registration in a French legal publication (Journal Officiel des Associations or other), verification through Goodstack, and the exclusion of governmental entities, hospitals and health care organisations, and schools and universities, with educational institutions pointed to Google for Education.
• Microsoft 365 nonprofit plans and pricing: as observed on 28 September 2026, Business Basic as a grant free for up to 300 users, Business Standard at $3.50 and Business Premium at $5.50 per user per month, paid yearly, and FAQ 04: grants “permitted only for paid nonprofit employees and unpaid executive staff who act as nonprofit leadership”, discounts open to staff and volunteers, and no licences for beneficiaries, members and donors.
• Microsoft 365 for nonprofits: as observed on 28 September 2026, the 75% discount on Business Premium.
• Microsoft nonprofit eligibility: as observed on 28 September 2026, the eligible unpaid executive roles (board of directors, president, officer, executive director, executive program directors), permitted to use granted and discounted licences, and other volunteers limited to discounted offers.
• OVHcloud: .fr domain names (French): as observed in September 2026, a .fr domain at €4.99 excluding VAT (€5.99 with VAT) the first year and €7.79 excluding VAT (€9.35 with VAT) on renewal.
• Gandi: .fr domain names (French): as observed in September 2026, a .fr domain at €7.20 with VAT the first year and €28.78 with VAT a year on renewal; the €7.20 yearly rate covers a registration of 1 to 10 years, as observed in October 2026.
• OVHcloud: web hosting (French): as observed in September 2026, shared hosting that includes a domain name and an email address “for a few euros a month”.