IT support for charities in Chester, £35 a machine a month
IT Support for Charities in Chester
For the charity, CIC or community group in Chester with a small office, a few donated PCs, volunteers who share them, and nobody whose job is the IT. A person picks up when you ring, and we check your Microsoft nonprofit licences before you spend anything with us.
£35 a machine a month, no minimum. Phones and tablets ride along with whoever uses them.
Twenty years in the job, much of it inside NHS mental health services. Microsoft and Datto partner. Run to Cyber Essentials standards. Rolling 30-day notice after year one.
IT support for charities and community groups in Chester
Chester’s charities are a mix of the well-known and the very small: the hospices and heritage trusts with a proper office, and the community groups, animal charities, youth projects and church-based services that run from a room and a couple of laptops. Blacon and Lache in particular have a dense network of community organisations doing a lot with very little.
Eric’s on the Wirral. If your organisation is in Chester or the villages around it, IT support from us fixes almost every problem remotely, on your screen in minutes, with visits by arrangement. He spent years as an engineer inside NHS mental health services, so if your work touches supported housing, recovery or mental health, the records, the confidentiality and the funders’ questions are things he’s handled before.
Cheshire West Voluntary Action is the place to start if you’re new to the sector’s support network locally; we’re the people to ring when the machines it all runs on need looking after. the city, Hoole, Blacon, Upton, Saltney and the villages out to Tarvin: covered, remote first, on site by arrangement.
Start with the money you’re probably already spending
Microsoft runs a nonprofit programme that most small charities either don’t know about or were never moved onto. Eligible organisations get up to 300 Microsoft 365 Business Basic licences at no charge, and Business Premium at a fraction of the commercial price. Google Workspace, Canva, Zoom and Adobe all run charity pricing too. If you’re paying commercial rates, the saving on its own can be larger than what IT support costs. We check that for you before you commit to anything, and if you’d rather take the savings and manage without us, take them.
IT support that answers
Ring in the day and a person picks up. Email, portal or message and you’ll have a written reply within two working hours. Most fixes happen on your screen, remotely, in minutes, which matters when the person who rang is a volunteer on a two-hour shift.
Backups that are proven
Files and email backed up daily, and tested by restoring something, so you know they work. Beneficiary records, funding applications and the grant report that took a month don’t vanish with a dead laptop.
Clean, updated, watched
Antimalware on every machine, updates done at a quiet time, and monitoring that spots a failing disk early. This is the IT support work that keeps you running and keeps you safe, done to Cyber Essentials standards, which is what a growing number of funders ask about.
Microsoft 365 looked after
Licences, accounts and sign-in security, including the nonprofit programme. A new volunteer on Monday, a leaver on Friday, a shared mailbox for the helpline: handled, and nobody keeps the password on a Post-it.
The things charities get asked about, and how the IT support answers them
Funders and Cyber Essentials
Grant-makers and corporate funders increasingly want to see Cyber Essentials before releasing money. The controls we put in place map onto the assessment, and getting a small charity through it is a known piece of work. We run to the standard ourselves.
Beneficiary data and UK GDPR
Charities hold some of the most sensitive data there is: who came to the food bank, who’s in recovery, who needed a refuge. Encrypted machines, proper sign-in, backups that are separate from the machine, and a straight answer for the trustee who asks where it’s all kept.
Volunteers on shared machines
Shared PCs need individual sign-ins, not one password everyone knows. It takes an afternoon to set up properly, it costs nothing extra, and it’s the difference between a safeguarding answer and a shrug.
Working with the NHS or the council
Commissioned services inherit their commissioner’s requirements: the NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit is annual, due at the end of June, and applies to suppliers. Familiar work, done from the inside for years, and worth starting early.
£35
a laptop or desktop, a month
Phones and tablets ride along with whoever uses them. No minimum: one shared PC is £35, four machines are £140, ten are £350. Billed monthly. After your first year, rolling 30-day notice, no exit fees.
- It’s the same managed IT support we give every small office, at the charity rate rather than the commercial one. Nothing is stripped out of the IT support to make the number work.
- We can charge less because our own costs are lower on charity licensing, so the saving gets passed on rather than pocketed.
- Typical charity IT support is quoted at £25 to £50 a user a month, often on three-year agreements. We’re in the middle on price and better on terms.
- A server or network kit that genuinely needs looking after is priced per box, on top, and you’d see the whole number first.
Who you’d be talking to
Me. I’m Eric, I’m on the Wirral, and Hilt Digital is my own company. Twenty years looking after systems for hospitals, government and national infrastructure, and a good stretch of that as an engineer inside NHS mental health services, which is as close as IT gets to the work most support charities do. Nobody’s bought the company and there’s no group above me, so you won’t ring back in a year and find a different name on the invoice.
When you ring, it’s me. If your charity doesn’t need managed IT support yet, or the Microsoft saving alone sorts you out, I’ll say so on the call. IT support should be something you buy because it’s worth it, not because you were frightened into it.
IT support for charities: the questions people ask first
How much does IT support for a charity cost?
£35 a laptop or desktop a month, and phones and tablets ride along with whoever uses them. There's no minimum, so one shared PC in a community building is £35. Before you commit to anything we check whether you're paying Microsoft commercial rates when you qualify for the nonprofit programme, because that saving alone often covers most of the support.
Why per machine and not per person?
Because charities aren't shaped like offices, and IT support priced per person punishes that. Twenty volunteers might share four machines, or shift staff might use one PC in a community building. Charging for every person who touches a keyboard would be a fiction, so we charge for the machines we actually look after.
What's the Microsoft nonprofit programme, and do we qualify?
Microsoft offers eligible registered charities up to 300 Microsoft 365 Business Basic licences at no charge and Business Premium at a fraction of the commercial price. Most small charities either don't know about it or were never moved onto it. Eligibility is checked through Microsoft's own process; we'll walk you through it and get you onto the right licences before you pay for any IT support.
Do you tie charities into long agreements?
No. After your first year it's rolling 30-day notice with no exit fees. The one specialist charity IT support firm we've seen publish its terms works on three-year agreements. We'd rather you stayed because the IT support is working.
Our trustees want Cyber Essentials before the next funding round. Can you help?
Yes. We run to Cyber Essentials standards ourselves and the controls we put in place map directly onto the assessment, so getting a small charity through it is a known piece of work rather than a project. Funders increasingly ask for it, and it's easier to do while things are quiet than the week before a bid closes.
Have a chat with Eric
Fifteen minutes on the phone. Bring your Microsoft invoice if you have one; that’s usually where the first saving is.
Also: IT support for charities, all areas Business IT support Chester
Charity IT support Wirral Charity IT support Liverpool Charity IT support Birkenhead Charity IT support Ellesmere Port Charity IT support Warrington
Remote first, across the North West. On site by arrangement.
Ring 0151 452 3060 and a person picks up
IT support for charities and not-for-profits in Chester at £35 a machine a month. Backups, antimalware, updates, Microsoft 365 and the nonprofit licences sorted, and somebody on your screen in minutes when it goes wrong.