LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 800 million members across the globe. As a social media platform focused on career and business connections, LinkedIn offers premium paid subscriptions to access additional features beyond the free basic account.
With a premium LinkedIn account, users can send unlimited messages, see more profile views, post longer videos, conduct advanced searches, and more. The paid subscriptions are geared towards individual users looking to boost their professional networking and opportunities.
However, LinkedIn also understands that not every organization has the same financial resources. Nonprofit organizations and charities often operate on tight budgets with limited funding available for tools and services to advance their mission.
This raises the logical question – does LinkedIn offer any kind of nonprofit discount to make their premium features more accessible? Let’s explore this issue further.
LinkedIn Premium Pricing
LinkedIn currently offers four paid subscription options for premium accounts:
- Premium Career – $29.99/month
- Premium Business – $49.99/month
- Sales Navigator Professional – $64.99/month
- Recruiter Lite – $99.95/month
These subscriptions provide additional benefits like more InMail messages, unlimited profile views, expanded network insights, advanced search filters, and more.
The Premium Career and Premium Business options are geared for individual subscribers. The Sales Navigator and Recruiter products are targeted for business and agency accounts.
In addition to monthly plans, LinkedIn also offers discounted annual subscriptions which can save up to 33% off the month-to-month price.
For example, Premium Career drops from $29.99/month to $239.88/year if purchasing an annual plan. The Sales Navigator Professional plan goes from $64.99/month to $499.92/year with an annual subscription.
Nonprofit Discount Programs
Many software companies and online services offer special discounts, free credits, or access grants specifically for nonprofit organizations. Examples include:
- Google – Free or discounted access to Google Workspace, Google Ad Grants, YouTube Nonprofit Program, and more.
- TechSoup – Nonprofits can access donated and discounted software, hardware, and services.
- Adobe – Discounted access to Creative Cloud apps under the Adobe Creative Cloud Nonprofit program.
- Constant Contact – Discounts up to 60% off email marketing tools for nonprofits.
These types of nonprofit discounts enable organizations to stretch their budgets further and gain access to powerful technologies and platforms to advance their mission.
Does LinkedIn Offer Nonprofit Discounts?
Unfortunately, LinkedIn currently does NOT offer any specific nonprofit discounts or programs.
Their premium subscription plans are limited to the individual and business pricing outlined above. There are no special rates or discounts for nonprofit organizations, charities, libraries, government entities, or educational institutions.
Some users have reported being able to negotiate custom rates when purchasing larger group subscription packages through a LinkedIn sales representative. But LinkedIn does not advertise any official nonprofit pricing.
Why Doesn’t LinkedIn Offer Nonprofit Discounts?
There are a few potential reasons why LinkedIn does not offer discounted nonprofit subscription plans:
- Narrow focus on business/professional networks – Unlike Google or Adobe’s broad software suites, LinkedIn’s platform is highly specialized for business networking and recruitment. Discounted nonprofit access doesn’t fit their core monetization model.
- Small market – Nonprofits likely represent a very small portion of LinkedIn’s target customer base. The demand may be too niche for LinkedIn to invest in specialized nonprofit rates.
- Margin protection – Keeping pricing high helps LinkedIn protect their margins. Offering discounts could set an expectation for broader rate reductions.
For these reasons, LinkedIn seems focused on maintaining their premium brand and full price integrity rather than extending nonprofit discounts at this time.
Alternative Ways for Nonprofits to Use LinkedIn
Without access to reduced rate premium subscriptions, nonprofit organizations can still leverage LinkedIn in several ways through their free accounts:
- Creating nonprofit Company Pages to share mission, programs, accomplishments, and volunteer/donation opportunities.
- Posting free status updates to engage followers and build community.
- Joining and contributing to relevant LinkedIn Groups for networking and discussion.
- Following influencers, partners, media, and sources for market insights.
- Curating customized LinkedIn News feeds by topic and interest areas.
Nonprofits can also consider mixing some free employee accounts with 1-2 premium subscriptions to share InMails and search filters efficiently across their team as needed.
Should LinkedIn Offer Nonprofit Discounts?
Offering special nonprofit rates could be a smart public relations, brand building, and strategic growth move for LinkedIn over the long term. Here are some of the potential benefits if LinkedIn were to implement nonprofit discounts:
- Broaden market reach – Expanding the LinkedIn userbase creates network effects improving value for all users.
- Good publicity – Nonprofit discounts generate positive PR as a generous corporate citizenship move.
- Mission alignment – Many nonprofits are connecting professionals and empowering jobs/economic mobility.
- New use cases – Nonprofits may utilize LinkedIn tools in innovative ways that spur product improvement.
- Difficult to reverse – Once launched, removing nonprofit discounts would likely create backlash.
On the other hand, offering discounts risks opening the floodgates to broad rate reductions that may be difficult to reverse. LinkedIn will need to weigh the pros and cons of preserving premium pricing vs. gaining exposure and goodwill. For now, nonprofit discounts do not seem to be on their roadmap.
Other Low-Cost LinkedIn Alternatives
If LinkedIn premium subscriptions are not in reach, nonprofit organizations do have some alternative professional networking tools available at lower or no cost such as:
Tapatalk
Tapatalk is a mobile app enabling users to access and participate in forums and discussion boards across the web. Many LinkedIn Groups utilize Tapatalk to offer mobile-friendly user access. Nonprofits could use Tapatalk as a low-cost alternative to engage professional groups and topics.
The popular messaging app WhatsApp offers free group chat functionality. Nonprofits could establish WhatsApp groups around professional topics, networks, and events as an alternative to LinkedIn Group conversations.
Facebook Groups
Facebook’s free Groups feature allows community building around shared topics and interests. Nonprofits could use Facebook Groups to connect professionals, share job opportunities, promote events, and more.
Meetup.com
Meetup offers a platform for organizing local in-person events around particular topics and communities. Nonprofits could leverage Meetup to schedule real-world networking opportunities as an alternative to connecting on LinkedIn.
The Bottom Line
LinkedIn currently does not offer any specific nonprofit discounts or programs for their Premium subscription offerings. Nonprofit organizations will need to pay full price for premium access or utilize LinkedIn’s free tools and features.
That said, LinkedIn does provide strong value even with a free account – including Company Pages, Groups, content sharing, and profile search. With some creativity, nonprofits can tap into LinkedIn’s professional networking power without premium access.
We’ll have to see if LinkedIn ever introduces nonprofit rates as they continue evolving their monetization model and product mix. But for now, nonprofits will need to look to third-party tools and apps if LinkedIn’s premium features are a must-have for their team.