Google Non Profit Storage

[INMEDIT]

Is anyone else on the Google for Non Profits with the 30 GB free storage? How are you overcoming the issue of Google taking away the ability to purchase additional storage space per user? All the Q&A and support documentation says Non Profits should have pooled storage but support tells me it is not implemented. Non Profits do not have the funds to upgrade the entire organization when a handful need additional storage. What have you done to get around this issue?

[INMEDIT]

I have heard nothing from Google. But some people on this thread has provided good tips. I used one of those to create a shared drive for each user with storage issues and have them move their files into it. The issue is if they are over 30 GB in email they have to delete emails. 

[snowdoggieii]

Make sure to use journaling or google takeout to backup the mailboxes before deleting mail. If you have a data retention policy or requirement you can trim anything/everything past that point and if needed (discovery) you can go to your backup.

[Jack_Casse]

Just thought I would chime in here. We have the same issue, but mostly email. We moved to Workspace in 2018.  Drive storage has largely been a non-issue, but some of our upper level staff burned through that quickly just for email. Google Takeout is the solution we used to clear up space, but it's a pain.

That being said, I received an email from Google 2 weeks ago that stated nonprofits would be moved to pooled data:

Hello,

Your Google Workspace for Nonprofits subscription will get the benefits of pooled storage  in the coming weeks. No action is needed from you and there is no disruption to your service.

Pooled storage is a simpler way to manage storage. Your storage allocation is shared amongst all your users, and you optionally can set usage limits per user.

You can learn more about pooled storage—including managing storage, setting storage limits, buying more storage, and more—by visiting our Help Center . More details about the rollout can also be found on the Google Workspace Updates Blog .

If you or your users have purchased legacy storage add-ons , we will reach out to you with additional information before pooled storage availability.

Sincerely,

The Google Workspace Team

When I looked up the amount of pooled storage offered, it was apparently a whopping 100TB. I'm ecstatic, as this would solve all of our email storage issues now and for years to come. Even with 300 employees, we're only using like 3.5 TB of storage.

I found your post scrounging the web for a solid date when this would go into effect, but all I have is "coming weeks".

[icrew]

Google is rolling things out slowly to different Workspace instances. So while your particular one is coming soon, they have announced that:

"Pooled storage will start rolling out to existing Business Starter customers on May 22, 2023 and continue over the coming months."

It sounds like they're treating Nonprofit like Business Starter...only mentioning this to not get other folks' hope up. You need to wait to get the same email @Jack_Casse mentioned.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

[KatogAdmin]

Oh boy.  What it looks like to me is:

1. They've taken away the ability to purchase individual storage per user.
2. The only way to get additional storage is to convert the entire organization to business standard (currently 36$ * user-count / per year) 

For our all-volunteer organization that will amount to a whopping $2000 per year even if just a single person in the entire organization needs more email storage.  If this is the case, this is obviously ridiculous and doesn't fit the motto of "Do no evil" whatsoever.  😞

[icrew]

@KatogAdmin There is such a thing as "split" licensing, where different users in your domain have different licenses. You need to go through a reseller to set it up, though, and there are some restrictions on what's allowed. I'm not a reseller, so I don't know the details, but you can find one via https://cloud.google.com/find-a-partner/?products=Google%20Workspace

Hope that helps,

Ian

[ArdenAdv]

As is stated above, Google is rolling out pooled storage to nonprofit accounts, there's just not any clear communication on how long that will take. Neither of the two np accounts I manage have it yet. 

So that may help you once they move it over. 
If not, you'll still have the issue of the smallest amount of storage available being 10TB for $400 a month.

In the meantime, I'd suggest you use as much shared drives as you can.

[msbmsb]

Did your gWorkspace not get converted to pooled storage (up to 100TB)?

[ArdenAdv]

neither of mine have yet, no.

[EKTrunks]

Mine hasn't...has yours?!

[KatogAdmin]

Ours hasn't.  We did get the letter about pooled storage about a month ago. However, the only link I see concerning the Non-Profit edition is this which appears to indicate that pooled storage is NOT available to the Non-Profit edition. The only reference I can find mentioning 100TB of pooled storage concerns the Education edition.  So, this is confusing.

The only way I might be able to make any sense of this would be to guess that the letter mentioning pooled storage could be only for pre-existing Non-Profit Workspace accounts and that the non-profit compare link would be for new accounts.  I'm certainly hoping the pooled storage the letter refers to is synonymous with what the Education edition offers - but it would be helpful to get confirmation on that.  I'm a little surprised that the amount of pooled storage wasn't mentioned directly in the letter.

[INMEDIT]

I moved some files to the shared drive to save storage space on a critical account. But no, Google has not given any solutions.

[snowdoggieii]

So how would that work? many users have had their accounts for over 10 years now and have over 40+ gb of email space, once their additional space runs out as RobA mentioned it gets locked into read only. With drive files I understand it is possible albeit not easy to move everything in shared drive (Major pain point is the sharing of files prevent bulk operations, and it wont preserve sharing structure) how can orgs survive with no new emails? Are they forced to delete their old emails? What about governmental regulations, a non profit in healthcare for example would need to keep records for at least 7 years. So are those orgs all just screwed and held hostage to move off non profit plan and into a much more expensive (considering the new increased prices) traditional business plans?

[StephenHind]

@snowdoggieii you either spend your time deleting stuff and time is money or you spend money on increasing your storage. Either way it's going to cost you but upgrading your accounts is far easier and quicker.

[snowdoggieii]

That's the problem it is not possible to upgrade individual accounts

[RobA]

Google Provides NP discount on the business plans. That would be the best option IMO 

[INMEDIT]

The discount pricing is not affordable for some small non-profits. We need individual upgrade options or pooled storage. All the support documents in non-profit accounts talk about how to manage pooled storage but it is not available to us.

[snowdoggieii]

Even with pooled storage you have to unshare each file then move it to the pooled storage and share again. Also the pooled storage is for internal use only and cannot be shared with anyone outside the org. 

If this is incorrect please someone correct me.

[StephenHind]

@snowdoggieii yes this is incorrect: with pooled storage in Business Standard and higher there's no individual quota in each user account: each account paid for contributes 2TB or 5TB to what the whole Google Workspace domain can store. You're thinking specifically of Shared Drives, which isn't the pooled storage being referred to.

[Jeanscrim]

This is a nightmare - we are in the same boat and I cannot pool our storage nor do we have the $500USD a month that this is going cost us to upgrade. Any further ideas on how to pool storage or message google to fix this situaion would be much appreciated.

[calcuttarescue]

No ideas yet, have sifted through almost all the information available out there on internet. I am managing drive storage by creating new user and transferring ownership of large files to them. However, unable to find any solutions for the users who're running out of "Gmail" space and not "Drive" space. Any help from the community is appreciated 🙂

[StephenHind]

@calcuttarescue do the same with mail: use the Data Migration Service to migrate mail to another account and delete from the original account, freeing up space. Grant the original account delegated access to the new account the ball archived to do the user can see the archives mail.

@Jeanscrim this was a deliberate move by Google to ensure that those who use lots of storage pay for it, so I don't see Google changing direction on this, Google just wants the money or the "heavier" users to move on.

[calcuttarescue]

@StephenHind thanks much for the guidance, it's a good workaround and I am able to successfully implement it.

[EC_NZ]

I've had users follow Google's instructions for downloading their Gmail and making backups of the archive they can have to access their older emails if necessary, then deleting older emails.  It's only a few users so it's not a huge deal, but I'm going to create a schedule for exporting our organization's emails for backup.  After all, if a company can lock you out of your data, does it really belong to you? We're already backing up shared drives so I feel I should have been backing up their emails anyway.

I don't think it's unreasonable for Google to change whether they want users to pay for storage and under what terms, but it's really disruptive to not give us proper warning or a straight answer about a deadline.  My organization can afford to pay for upgrading our Workspace Domain, but it's a big expense to take on without warning if I hadn't found this forum and wouldn't make the gals in Accounting happy.  It also doesn't fill me with confidence that Google is taking their Nonprofit program seriously. At least with a copy of our data under our control we can look into other options.

[StephenHind]

@EC_NZ I wasn't suggesting downloading the mail but using the Data Migration Service to move to another account online (one of the 30 GB accounts you get free of charge).

I don't think it's unreasonable for Google to change whether they want users to pay for storage and under what terms, but it's really disruptive to not give us proper warning or a straight answer about a deadline.

Google has been talking about this for literally years, so I'm not sure how it's been missed:

• Google Workspace transition is happening now

The first email I got about it was Oct, 06 2020 (as mentioned in the article above)

[INMEDIT]

The Google workspace transition happening now article does not mention anything about Non-Profits losing the ability to purchase additional storage. It also states they will contact you 30 days before the transition which never happened. I saw the account switch names to Google Workspace and all help documentation refers to pooled storage. But pooled storage is not available for non-profits. So they basically took away the non-profit program altogether and left us scrambling to find a way to pay for the business platform which is not affordable for most of us when only a handful of users need to pay for extra storage. Google either needs to implement pooled storage for Non-Profit accounts or allow us to purchase additional storage. My understanding is Google Play is the one who took that service away without informing Google Support to notify customers which is why there is now a one-year grace period for us to find a solution.

[christiannewman]

The non-profits program definitely still exists, including a free edition (a modified version of Business Starter edition) as well as heavily-discounted upgraded editions (like Business Standard edition) starting from $3/month - which include pooled storage in addition to a number of other benefits.

Pooled storage, and the ability to add additional per-user storage isn't available on the mainstream Business Starter edition, either.

[braverh-IT]

i was told constantly by support that pooled storage will soon be available, it seems like google just completely reneged on this, how is this not a violation of terms?

[braverh-IT]

does anyone know if changes are coming? gsuite support still says the option to purchase storage will come back 

[INMEDIT]

I have not heard that the option to purchase storage will come back. How recently did support say that?

[calcuttarescue]

An article got published in India today about Google pooled storage being available with a "mix and match" licensing. But there is no mention of Nonprofits version here. Posting the link below.

www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/we-allow-customers-to-mix-and-match-storage-plans-google-workspac...

[RosefromROC]

A bit late to the party, but my organisation is having the exact same problem, with a few key users reaching the limit.  It seems the easy solution would be for Google to allow us to upgrade select users' licences (at the NP discounted rate), rather than be required to upgrade for all users?

[christiannewman]

Partial domain (mixed) licensing requires a minimum number of users and a minimum % of users on the higher SKU (edition).

Furthermore, except in very rare and exceptional circumstances, I always caution organizations against partial domain (mixed) licensing as confusion will abound amongst the user base with regards to who has access to what features and capabilities, and who doesn't. This invariably breaks workflows, and makes some workflows impossible to implement organization-wide.

Just a few of many examples:

Who can record meetings?
Who can use Shared Drives?
Who can use external spaces?
Who can use document templates?
Who can submit document approvals?
Who can have meeting co-hosts or create polls?

Nobody knows (except the admin)!

Instead, you might consider asking users approaching their storage limit to move files that they don’t absolutely have to be the owner of) onto a Shared Drive (at which point the files become owned by the organization, not by them). Alternatively, they can transfer ownership of such files to another user (who isn’t approaching their storage limit).

[RosefromROC]

The other features aren't really as important as the storage capacity, which the Shared Drive can help with, but not for email history. I'll try the data migration method mentioned above, but it doesn't seem like a long-term solution for Non-Profits.

While the programme is a great initiative, it could definitely provide more practical support to users, and flexibility

[braverh-IT]

the best option would simply be to allow non profit subscription to purchase storage as well, its a win win as non profits wont eat storage for free, its much better than mix and match licensing 

[gabriele_tritto]

Our basic Google Workspace has 33000 users and 100+ already ugraded from previous years. We have some emails in critical status with no way to upgrade.

No support or solution from the support that we contact weekly. During our last calls they point me to the  Google Cloud partners page.

Needless to say, the contacted partners pointed that no-profit GSuites are under Google operation range and that they cant operate on our accounts...

[christiannewman]

We're a Google Cloud Partner, and we work with non-profits - providing professional services only (we can't sell them their heavily-discounted licenses).

[braverh-IT]

same here they keep telling me that storage options will come to non profit, but still waiting with no eta  which makes the most sense if you want to offer non profit options, as everyone gets what they need we are willing to pay for storage but to makes us upgrade the whole subscription is pulling the rug out on previous understanding, heck we paid in the past for extra storage now we are in danger of losing it without being able to continue to pay , 

[ihsan13]

Google tries to kill Non-Profit users smoothly

[MarkusSenior]

We have been using Google's shared drive for years. As a head of IT for both a for-profit (paid account) and a non-profit organization (free account) Google's shared drives allows us to store multiple TB. If you do proper folder/permission management you should be good to go for years.... and yes, you can have a different subset of permission within folders on a shared drive. As for your email storage... have the user clean up once in a while ;-). Microsoft's paid Office 360 (with email) allows only 50GB, after that you need to clean up/archive ... so Google's 30GB should be manageable.

Cheers from LA.