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Zoom for Nonprofits: How UK Charities Can Use Zoom in 2026
July 2, 2026
Virtual meetings have become essential for UK charities to connect with donors, volunteers, and beneficiaries. Zoom is one of the most widely used video conferencing platforms, offering a suite of features well suited to charitable organisations of all sizes.
From hosting fundraising events to running webinars and trustee meetings, Zoom helps charities extend their reach and overcome geographic barriers. This guide explains how to use Zoom for your organisation, what plans are available, and how to access charity discounts.
Zoom is a cloud-based communication platform offering video conferencing and collaboration tools. It lets you meet people virtually by video or audio call in real time, and host one-to-one meetings or group video conferences.
Zoom is available as a direct download for laptops, desktop PCs, and mobile devices, so your team can connect from any platform. Setting up a Zoom account is free, and the basic plan carries no charge.
Key features include:
One-to-one voice or video calls
Live chat
Screen recording
Group video conferencing
Screen sharing
Webinars and events
Zoom Rooms for large-scale video conferences
Zoom Phone with unlimited domestic calls, SMS messaging, voicemail transcription, and more
Benefits of using Zoom for charities
1. Ease of use
One of Zoom's strongest qualities is its straightforward interface. It is intuitive for people with no prior experience of online conferencing tools.
Attendees do not need their own Zoom account to join a meeting. Your meeting link, which can be password-protected for security, is all they need. A single click on the link pulls them into the call.
This makes it easy to connect with trustees and volunteers who use Zoom infrequently. It is also helpful when hosting an online fundraising event and you want to encourage maximum participation. Removing the need to register or share contact details helps attract more supporters to your event.
2. Affordability
Zoom's free basic plan is an attractive option for many small charities. If your organisation has fewer than 100 participants, the free tier is a solid starting point for team collaboration and donor communication.
UK charities can access discounted paid plans through Zoom's charity programme, validated via TechSoup. Pairing Zoom's free tier with a free fundraising platform such as Zeffy means you can consolidate video, ticketing, donations, memberships, and raffles into two tools at zero platform cost, rather than the typical small-charity stack of Zoom, a paid ticketing platform, a donation platform, and a CRM.
3. Enhanced video and call quality
Zoom has built-in features to improve call and video quality, and allows the use of virtual filters and backgrounds to make events feel polished.
Tools to prevent participants talking over each other make it easier to manage large conferences involving multiple speakers or trustees. Admins can oversee and control all meeting elements from within the platform. Zoom also provides in-meeting statistics to help troubleshoot quality and connectivity issues.
4. Saves time by recording training sessions and calls
Every new volunteer or staff member needs training when they join your organisation. Running fresh sessions every time is time-consuming. With Zoom, you can record and store your training sessions and webinars and share them with new members as they join. This reduces time spent on repeated training while still giving new people a good learning experience.
You can also record meetings and share them with any absent trustees or team leads, keeping everyone informed without excessive back-and-forth.
5. Easily organise online and hybrid events
Zoom has strong event-hosting capabilities. Depending on your plan, you can host up to 500 or 1,000 participants on the platform.
You can run a wide range of virtual events: from quiz nights to charity galas and donation appeals. If you want to run a prize draw alongside the event, most UK charities register a small society lottery with their local council under Gambling Act 2005 rules before selling tickets. Note that Gift Aid does not apply to raffle ticket purchases.
Your charity can also stream a Zoom webinar or meeting live on Facebook to your group page or admin page, increasing reach and engaging more donors and supporters.
Use Zeffy's free event ticketing platform to generate and sell tickets for your virtual event at no platform cost. You can include the Zoom access details on each ticket and add an option for additional donations to raise even more for your cause.
5 ways UK charities can use Zoom
1. Host fundraisers with the Zoom Event feature
2. Take donations alongside your Zoom event
3. Manage and support your volunteers
4. Use Zoom as a marketing and promotional tool
5. Organise board meetings and training calls
1. Host fundraisers with the Zoom Event feature
Online events have become a significant part of the fundraising landscape. They bring together volunteers, supporters, and donors from anywhere in the country to support your mission, and they save on venue and travel costs.
Zoom offers an event feature to help you create a strong virtual event experience for your guests. You can build multi-day events, manage registrations, and access insights to analyse event performance. From the organiser mode, you can sell tickets, manage your events, view the content library, and update event settings. The attendee mode lets you preview how participants will experience the event so you can plan for a smoother experience.
One important consideration for UK charities: Zoom Events includes its own ticketing layer, but this comes with additional costs that can eat into a small charity's margin. A more cost-effective approach is to use Zoom for the video layer and a free ticketing platform for the registration and payment layer. Eventbrite, for example, charges roughly 6.95% plus £0.59 per paid ticket, and Ticket Tailor charges £0.22 to £0.60 per ticket. Zeffy's ticketing carries no platform fee and no per-ticket fee, so 100% of ticket revenue goes to your cause.
Collecting donations during a virtual event does not require a complex setup. Two approaches work well for UK charities:
Drop a Zeffy donation link in the Zoom chat. Before and during the event, share a link to your Zeffy donation form (or a ticketed event page with an optional donation field) in the Zoom chat and in your event registration confirmation email. Zeffy captures a Gift Aid declaration at checkout, so donors can add 25p per £1 at no extra cost to them, and your charity receives the uplift without additional admin. There is no platform fee, no transaction fee, and no card processing fee charged to the charity.
Display a QR code on screen. During the Zoom event, share a QR code on screen that links to your Zeffy donation form. This works for both desktop and mobile viewers and gives donors a simple, frictionless way to give without leaving the call.
SMS text-to-give services exist in the UK but typically involve a setup cost and per-message fees that are not worthwhile for most small charities below a certain fundraising scale. For the majority of small UK charities, a chat link and an on-screen QR code will deliver a better result at zero cost.
You can acknowledge donations in real time during the event by calling out each donor's name as their gift comes in. Setting up a fundraising target and sharing progress updates during the event also helps build momentum and encourages others to give.
3. Manage and support your volunteers
It is not always possible to meet volunteers in person, particularly when they are spread across multiple towns, cities, or regions.
With Zoom, you can strengthen communication and engagement with your volunteers through one-to-one sessions, presentations, and workshops. Volunteers appreciate the flexibility to join from wherever they are, and participation tends to be higher as a result.
For smaller charities that do not have a large office or the budget to host in-person volunteer events, Zoom is a practical and cost-free way to connect and collaborate. If your charity does not yet have staff in different locations, you can recruit volunteers remotely to extend the reach of your mission.
4. Use Zoom as a marketing and promotional tool
Creating content to promote your cause is one of the most consistent challenges for small charities. Zoom offers a practical solution.
If you organise a virtual event or webinar about your work, record the entire session. Publish the recording on your website and share it with email subscribers and on social media. You can repurpose Zoom content from fundraising events, educational presentations, and webinars across other communication channels to raise awareness of your charity. Visual content engages audiences effectively, so this approach can meaningfully increase your reach without generating new material from scratch.
Zoom also lets you record short testimonials from people who have benefited from your work or supported your organisation. Sharing those with new donors can strengthen engagement and retention.
5. Organise board meetings and training calls
The board of trustees plays a vital role in the governance and direction of any charity. Trustees need to meet regularly to ensure the organisation is operating within its legal and ethical responsibilities, to review upcoming projects, and to provide oversight.
Trustees often have other commitments alongside their charity role, which can make regular in-person meetings difficult to arrange. Using Zoom, your board can meet on time without the need for travel. You can record trustee meetings for those unable to attend and to keep a record of decisions.
In-person training for trustees is also costly, with budget going towards venue hire, catering, and travel. Virtual training sessions via Zoom remove those costs entirely, and recorded sessions can be shared with new trustees as they join.
Zoom plans and discounts for charities
Zoom's free plan lets you test the platform before committing to a subscription. It includes calls with up to 100 participants, a 40-minute limit per group meeting, and no limit on the number of meetings. Voice and video calls, screen sharing, meeting recordings, and a selection of chat tools are all included.
Many smaller charities with fewer than 100 participants and limited needs will find the free plan sufficient. Organisations with larger audiences or a need to host multiple virtual events throughout the year may need to move to a paid plan.
Zoom partners with TechSoup to offer discounted pricing to eligible charities. TechSoup validates your charitable status and, once verified, you can access reduced pricing on Zoom's paid plans. For current £ pricing on Pro, Business, Business Plus, and Enterprise tiers, visit Zoom's pricing page directly, as prices are updated periodically. To check the current discount available to UK charities, visit Zoom Cares.
What it covers: Gives charities additional features on top of the free plan. You can create persistent meeting IDs and record meetings to the cloud or to your device. Group meeting length extends to 24 hours.
What it covers: Use your own branding on video calls. You can create Zoom meeting transcripts and share them with your team or donors. Cloud storage is included for transcripts and recordings, along with a dedicated technical support line.
What it covers: Includes all Business features plus Zoom Phone (unlimited regional calls), translated captions, and workspace reservation tools for hybrid teams.
What it covers: Designed for larger organisations. Zoom Enterprise allows you to host meetings with up to 500 or 1,000 participants and provides unlimited cloud storage for recordings. You also receive a dedicated customer success manager and access to discounted rates on Zoom Webinars and Zoom Rooms.
Eligibility criteria for Zoom's charity discount
To access Zoom's discounted pricing, your charity must meet the eligibility criteria set by Zoom and its TechSoup validation partner. UK eligibility is based on charity registration status rather than US legal classifications. The criteria below reflect the general requirements for UK charities; always confirm current requirements at Zoom Cares before applying, as programme terms can change.
UK charities are typically eligible if they are registered with one of the following regulators:
In addition, eligible organisations are generally expected to:
Complete TechSoup's validation process to confirm charitable status
Agree to Zoom's applicable terms of service
Not resell or transfer Zoom products received through the programme
Not practise, support, or advocate discrimination of any kind
One discounted Zoom account is available per charity per year. Check Zoom Cares for the current discount percentage and any additional requirements specific to UK charities.
The bottom line: is Zoom good for charities?
Zoom gives UK charities a reliable, flexible platform for virtual collaboration. From hosting fundraising events and streaming webinars to recording training sessions and running trustee meetings, it covers a wide range of organisational needs. The free plan is a genuine option for smaller charities, and the charity discount programme makes paid tiers more accessible.
The real opportunity for small UK charities is to pair Zoom with a free fundraising platform. Using Zoom for the video layer and Zeffy for the fundraising layer (tickets, donations with Gift Aid, memberships, auctions, and raffles) means you can consolidate the tools you need into a single free stack: no platform fee, no transaction fee, no card processing fee, ever. That is the kind of consolidation that frees up budget for your mission rather than your software subscriptions.
You need one licence for each person who needs the ability to start a Zoom meeting. With one licence, you can run an unlimited number of meetings, though they cannot run concurrently. All licences allow up to 100 meeting participants. A large-meeting add-on is available to accommodate up to 1,000 participants, and webinar add-ons can support up to 10,000 participants.
UK charities access Zoom's discounted pricing through TechSoup, which validates your charitable status on Zoom's behalf. TechSoup works with UK charities registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales, OSCR (Scotland), or CCNI (Northern Ireland). Once validated, you can apply the discount to eligible Zoom plans. NCVO and Charity Digital are useful UK sector resources if you want independent guidance on software procurement for your organisation. Always confirm current discount terms at Zoom Cares.
Yes, many companies donate to charitable organisations, and Zoom is among them. Zoom supports efforts focused on climate change, social equity, innovative learning, and youth mental health. The company offers grants, volunteer support, and discounts on its products through TechSoup to help charities extend the reach of their mission.
Zoom's discount programme covers a range of plans and add-ons. Visit Zoom Cares for the current list of eligible products, as Zoom periodically updates its plan names and programme terms. At the time of writing, the programme covers core Zoom Workplace plans including Pro, Business, and Enterprise tiers, as well as Zoom Webinars and large-meeting add-ons.
Look for people who attend related events, follow relevant Facebook groups, or subscribe to aligned newsletters.These aren’t just potential donors—they’re your future advocates.
Look for people who attend related events, follow relevant Facebook groups, or subscribe to aligned newsletters.These aren’t just potential donors—they’re your future advocates.
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