Microsoft Viva, an employee experience platform integrated within Microsoft 365, is designed to enhance collaboration, streamline operations, and support employee well-being. By bringing together communication, knowledge, insights, and learning, Microsoft Viva empowers nonprofit teams to stay engaged, connected, and productive.
For charities, leveraging Microsoft Viva’s features can lead to more efficient teamwork, better resource management, and a healthier work environment. From improving staff engagement to reducing burnout, this powerful platform helps nonprofits maximise their impact with minimal resources.
In this blog, we’ll break down the key Microsoft Viva features that nonprofits can use to enhance productivity, support and improve collaboration within their teams.
What is Microsoft Viva?
Happy and engaged employees are really important for any company, and charities are no exception. To get the best from their teams, HR departments are working hard to create positive work environments. That’s where Microsoft Viva can help. It’s a powerful tool integrated into Microsoft Teams and the wider Microsoft 365 suite for charities. As an employee experience platform, Microsoft Viva helps make communication, learning, and sharing information easier while fostering employee well-being.
It also helps charities align with best practices for nonprofit efficiency by streamlining operations to maximise their impact.
For nonprofits, Microsoft Viva provides a centralised hub where staff and volunteers can easily access essential information, collaborate effectively, and align on organisational goals. By leveraging its powerful features, charities can create a more connected and productive work environment, ensuring their teams stay engaged and supported.
Key Microsoft Viva Features for Nonprofits
Microsoft Viva is designed to help nonprofits improve collaboration, communication, and employee well-being by integrating seamlessly with Microsoft Teams. For organisations with limited resources and distributed teams, Viva’s features can streamline workflows, enhance engagement, and centralise knowledge sharing.
Let’s explore the key Microsoft Viva features that can benefit nonprofits:
- Microsoft Viva Connections
- Microsoft Viva Engage
- Microsoft Viva Insights
- Microsoft Viva Learning
- Microsoft Viva Topics
- Microsoft Viva Pulse
- Microsoft Viva Glint
- Microsoft Viva Amplify
Viva Connections
Viva Connections is a user experience app in Microsoft Teams that provides nonprofits with a customisable, branded experience offering a central hub for important updates, resources, and internal communications. It helps remote and hybrid teams stay connected and informed, ensuring that staff and volunteers can easily access essential information, no matter where they are.
No matter how users access it—through Teams and SharePoint or the Viva Suite home—they’ll get a consistent experience.
One of the most important advantages of Viva is that it is highly customisable, allowing organisations to create unique experiences for different audiences using tailored landing pages with relevant news, conversations, resources, and tools based on user roles.
Key components of Viva Connections
The main components of Viva Connections are:
- Feed: Delivers targeted news and updates personalised to the user. An update planned for Q2 2025 will bring a new Enterprise News Reader.
- Dashboard: Provides quick access to essential tools and tasks through interactive cards.
- Resources: Offers curated links to important company information and websites.
For a quick overview of Microsoft Viva and how it enhances employee experience within Microsoft Teams, watch this video from Microsoft.
Viva Engage
Nonprofits thrive with online collaboration and strong internal communication, and Viva Engage fosters exactly that, using storylines and stories that are consistent across web, desktop, and mobile platforms. This platform functions as an internal social network, helping charities build a sense of community among staff and volunteers. By facilitating discussions, knowledge-sharing, and updates, Viva Engage ensures that even distributed teams feel connected to the mission.
Viva Insights
Employees and volunteers often work long hours with limited resources, leading to burnout. Viva Insights App leverages data-driven analytics to promote a healthier work-life balance while prioritizing employee privacy, adhering to guidelines and supporting GDPR compliance. It provides actionable recommendations to improve productivity, prevent overwork, and encourage well-being, ensuring that charity teams remain motivated and engaged.
Key components of Viva Insights
- Personal Insights: Provides private, personalised feedback to employees about their work patterns, helping them improve well-being and productivity.
- Team Insights: Gives managers visibility into teamwork habits, helping to prevent burnout and foster a positive team culture.
- Organisation Insights: Helps leaders understand organizational trends related to workplace composition, collaboration, and hybrid work using Microsoft 365 Copilot.
- Advanced Insights: Allows business leaders to analyze how work impacts their people and business, addressing critical questions about organizational resilience and culture.
- Copilot Dashboard: Provides insights into the readiness, adoption, impact, and sentiment of Microsoft 365 Copilot within an organisation.
Viva Learning
Charity training and upskilling are crucial for nonprofit staff and volunteers. Viva Learning acts as a centralised learning management system, making it easier for organisations to curate, share, and track training programs. Whether onboarding new volunteers or upskilling employees, nonprofits can integrate learning content from Microsoft and third-party providers directly into their workflow.
In fact, Viva Learning provides personalised learning content from internal and external sources (like LinkedIn Learning) and automatically includes content from Microsoft Learn and Microsoft 365 Training. It also enables users to search, bookmark, and share learning materials and allows managers to recommend learning and track completion.
Viva Pulse
Gathering employee feedback is essential for creating a positive workplace culture. Viva Pulse allows nonprofits to collect real-time engagement feedback from staff and volunteers. Organisations can make data-driven decisions to improve their working environment and overall team satisfaction.
Microsoft Viva Pulse lets team leaders quickly check in on how their team is feeling. Using short, research-based surveys, leaders can get a snapshot of team morale and act on the feedback they receive. Viva Pulse also provides reports showing trends over time, helping leaders see what’s working and where improvements can be made.
Viva Glint
Volunteer engagement and retention are key to a nonprofit’s success. Viva Glint is a powerful survey and feedback tool that helps charities measure and analyse both employee and volunteer engagement. This platform offers customisable survey templates designed for various purposes, including engagement, employee lifecycle events, 360-degree feedback, and digital experience assessments. Viva Glint provides insights into employee sentiment regarding Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption, facilitating informed digital transformation initiatives.
With actionable insights, charities can identify areas for improvement, foster a positive work culture, and ultimately enhance volunteer management. Learn more about managing volunteers with Microsoft Cloud.
Viva Amplify
Effective communication is vital for nonprofits, especially those with large, dispersed teams. Viva Amplify is a communication management platform that enables charities to create, manage, and distribute organisation-wide messages by centralising communication processes in a single space. Consistent and well-structured internal communications ensure nonprofits can keep their teams aligned and engaged with their mission.
Overview of Microsoft Viva Pricing and Availability for Nonprofits
Nonprofits looking to leverage Microsoft Viva should be aware of its pricing and availability. While Microsoft does not offer a dedicated nonprofit discount for the full Viva suite, some features are included within Microsoft 365 subscriptions, which charities may be eligible for at a discounted rate based on their Microsoft nonprofit status or through other Microsoft grants for nonprofits.
Features included with Microsoft 365 E3/E5 Plans:
- Viva Connections – Enables a branded intranet experience within Teams.
- Basic Viva Engage – Provides social networking and internal communication tools.
- Basic Viva Insights – Delivers personal productivity insights for employees.
Premium Features (Require Additional Licenses):
- Viva Learning – A centralised learning platform for training and development.
- Viva Topics – An AI-powered tool for organising and surfacing important knowledge.
- Advanced Viva Insights – Provides deeper analytics on team well-being and productivity.
Tip: Check your current Microsoft 365 subscription to see which Viva features are already available to your organisation before purchasing additional licenses.
Tips for Leveraging Microsoft 365 Copilot Alongside Viva
Integrating Microsoft 365 Copilot with Microsoft Viva can significantly enhance productivity for nonprofits by automating workflows, streamlining communication, and improving knowledge management. Microsoft 365 Copilot can help charities save time, reduce manual tasks, and gain deeper insights.
Here are some key ways nonprofits can use Copilot alongside Microsoft Viva:
- Summarise Viva Insights reports – Copilot can generate AI-powered takeaways from Viva Insights, highlighting work patterns, employee well-being trends, and productivity recommendations. This helps nonprofit leaders quickly identify areas for improvement and take action to prevent burnout.
- Automate internal communications – Copilot can draft news updates, announcements, and engagement posts for Viva Engage and Viva Connections, ensuring staff and volunteers stay informed without manual content creation.
- Enhance knowledge management – By integrating with Viva Topics, Copilot can pull AI-driven summaries of key nonprofit policies, guides, and best practices. This makes it easier for teams to access critical information without searching for multiple documents.
- Optimise training programmes – Within Viva Learning, Copilot can suggest personalised learning courses and paths based on employees’ roles and past training. This ensures that staff and volunteers receive relevant educational content, improving onboarding and professional development.
Tip: Consider setting up an AI-assisted workflow where Copilot drafts messages in Viva Engage, summarises data from Viva Insights, and recommends learning content via Viva Learning.
By combining Microsoft Viva with Microsoft 365 Copilot, nonprofits can enhance efficiency, improve engagement, and drive smarter decision-making, ultimately maximising their impact.
Final Thoughts
Now is the perfect time for nonprofits to explore how Microsoft Viva can revolutionise their organisation. By leveraging its intelligent features, charities can boost productivity, strengthen collaboration, and create a more engaged workforce.
With seamless integration with Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams, Viva provides charities with a centralised hub for communication, knowledge-sharing, and learning, helping them streamline operations and maximise their social impact.
For nonprofits looking to embrace digital transformation, Microsoft Viva offers a modern, AI-powered workplace experience that enhances efficiency, reduces burnout, and fosters a connected organisational culture. To ensure a smooth implementation and set-up, charities can partner with a support IT provider that offers managed IT services for nonprofits and expert guidance.
Would your charity like to learn more about using Microsoft Viva and how Qlic can help you? Get in touch with the team at Qlic here.
