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Participant
December 2, 2024
Question

non-profit licenses and Admin login

  • December 2, 2024
  • 11 replies
  • 5104 views

I applied (for my organization) for the non-profit licenses ($15/yr) and was approved by the vetting org Goodstack. But I have not been designated the "Admin" so I cannot login to the Admin portal to adminster the licenses. ?

11 replies

Charliebitme
Participant
February 6, 2026

Hi All, the Adobe for nonprofits program with Goodstack verification is for individual licenses only. Each person in your nonprofit needs to apply for their own license when going through the adobe.com/nonprofits.html flow. 

Business licenses for eligible nonprofits can be found in the helpx page here: https://helpx.adobe.com/enterprise/using/non-profit.html. More on VIP marketplace here: https://helpx.adobe.com/enterprise/vip/vip-marketplace.html

Participant
July 30, 2025

I'm having the same issue. Any updates from Adobe? I applied on Goodstack and there's no quantity. Should I go through and apply for each of my coworkers that needs the Acrobat license?

Community Manager
July 30, 2025

Hi @Steven329638722xze,

 

Thank you for reaching out regarding your query.

To ensure you find the perfect plan for your organization, I recommend filling out the consultation form linked below. Our sales team will be happy to assist you and provide guidance tailored to your requirements:

Request a Consultation

 

If there’s anything else you need, don’t hesitate to let us know.

Regards,
^AN

Participant
February 27, 2025

I am especially frustrated that when you go to the help links they just send you back to where you started.  Surely there has been enough feedback that Adobe should fix this problem. An installation guide would also be helpful. 

Participant
February 13, 2025

Same problem here. It's incredibly annoying. We have access to corporate cards for work expenses, so at least people don't have to pay for it themselves and get reimbursed, but it makes zero sense that we can't have an administrator to manage multiple seats.

Participating Frequently
February 12, 2025

Yeah this is pretty dumb... I was all excited to see a $15/year non-profit rate for Acrobat DC for our team. We need 10 licenses... Retail being $2,400 but nonprofit being $150. What a win! ... nope. We have Admin Console access already for 10 other Createive Cloud licenses for other users. Why is this not something that can be added to/managed by that??? Why in the world would they make this "individual signup" only and expect "up to 50 users" to each manage their own subscriptions with a default of it charging full price if they fail to renew with nonprofit validation on time each year? Are you serious? That's a potential $12,000 charge vs the expected $750. I don't think it was intentional, but it was done so poorly it's hard to not see this as a shady "trap" they've created instead of legit care for nonprofits.

 

On top of that they want up to 50 users to each get re-validated each year for non-profit status??? What the heck are they thinking? Work smarter not harder Adobe.

Participating Frequently
February 12, 2025
I don't really think it's a trap. Personally I think that Goodstack
wanted the donation from Adobe but didn't have a clue as to how to
administer the program. What I can't fathom is why they cannot fix the
problem. I'm still hoping to find a contact at Adobe that works with
Goodstack.

Mary Ellen Smolinski
President and Founder
Working On Wellness Foundation
Participating Frequently
February 2, 2025

I left a one star review on Trustpilot (https://www.trustpilot.com/review/goodstack.org) and someone calling themselves Ashley (Goodstack), support@goodstack.zendesk.com, replied and said they would try to fix it. I got another email Friday (1/31) asking me to resubmit my request to Goodstack and it should ask for the quantity.

I tried. It didn't ask. And I got the same problem.

Participant
February 2, 2025

I have the same issue. I now have one discounted Acrobat pro license, where I would like to have 10-15. Deploying individual licenses that need to be paid for and renewed separately is a nightmare. Is there any indication from adobe or goodstack when or if there might be a change in this program to allow management through the existing adobe teams infrastructure, or some other alternative?

Participant
January 28, 2025

Ugh. Same issue here. Small non-profit. Just signed up. Pretty sure it was advertised as an org license, but only after going thru sign up and troubleshooting with an agent, did I finally come here and realize by account is just an Individual one and there's no way to add my 1 colleague that I want to add. Frustrating. I wish this had been more clear from the outset. 

Participant
January 7, 2025

I would also like clarification of this program. I am the admin for our organization and was hoping to be able to purchase/assign/manage licenses for staff similar to MS365. I certainly don't want to be purchasing licenses for staff with a company credit card that I cannot manage or reassign.

1DB!Author
Participant
January 7, 2025

I wouldn't hold your breath. I feel similarly but the final word I got from them is that it essentially has to be signed up for and paid for individually and not controllable nor administered by a central admin (other than you kicking off the initial email they receive from the 3rd party Goodstack).

Participant
December 6, 2024

I have this exact same situation. After 2 days of getting confused/unhelp answers from support (among other things I was told I would have to talk to Tech Soup, which does run other nonprofit discount programs for Adobe, but not this one), or I would get sales reps offer to convert my account over to a team account, and then quote a price that's like 12x higher. Eventually today I finally had a rep tell me that each person in the organization that needs a license under this program has to apply and pay separately, which makes deployment a pain even for a fairly small organization. 

 

Which also means that in a year, each person is going to have to correctly complete the nonprofit verification for renewal on time or their account will automatically start getting billed at whatever the standard commercial monthly rate is. And if one of those individually licensed staff members leaves the organization, better make sure you cancel the plan before they go.

Add to this: many nonprofits also qualify for a sales tax exemption. So we'll also have to also apply for that separately for each user.

It's nice to be offered such a significant discount on the licensing, but the overhead on applying and paying for each license separately has me wondering if it is actually worth the trouble. It also seems like a lot of extra adminstrative headache for Adobe, so I don't really understand why they set it up this way.

 

And I really don't understand why this page: https://www.adobe.com/nonprofits/acrobat.html makes it sound like you are applying on behalf of the organization if the program is only set up to provide individual licenses to individual staff members.

Community Manager
December 6, 2024

Hi @fearless_hope2521,

Thank you for sharing your concerns. We understand the challenges you’ve highlighted regarding the nonprofit licensing program and truly value your feedback. Our team is currently reviewing the details of this issue and will provide a resolution or further clarification shortly.

 

We appreciate your patience and understanding.

 

Regards,


^AN

Participating Frequently
January 27, 2025

I am having the same problem. I need to purchase two subscriptions for Adobe Acrobat Pro. After a series of emails with Goodstack. I've attached the last one.

 

Adobe support couldn't handle my request. So who can? I need this ASAP.