Concern Regarding Goodstack Eligibility Decisions for Addiction-Recovery Non-Profits

I am writing to express a significant concern regarding the recent shift from TechSoup to Goodstack for Adobe’s nonprofit licensing and verification process.

Our organization serves individuals seeking freedom from addiction, and we fully meet the eligibility criteria listed on Adobe’s own website. However, since Adobe transitioned to Goodstack, every request we have submitted for nonprofit-sector software access has been rejected—despite years of approval through TechSoup under the same mission and status.

After extensive correspondence, I learned that Goodstack is applying its own “internal policies,” which are not publicly disclosed by Adobe, and which explicitly exclude organizations whose mission is helping people overcome drug and alcohol addiction. This practice effectively discriminates against a vital segment of the nonprofit sector—those working directly with some of the most vulnerable individuals in our communities. Addiction recovery work is an essential public good, and excluding it from nonprofit benefits undermines the very purpose of Adobe’s support programs.

For many nonprofits like ours, Adobe tools are essential for communication, education, outreach, and donor relations. The inability to access these nonprofit-licensed resources creates unnecessary barriers to our mission to help people rebuild their lives.

We ask Adobe to urgently review Goodstack’s  filtering criteria and ensure that your nonprofit program reflects Adobe’s own published standards. We also strongly encourage you to consider returning to TechSoup, whose system consistently and fairly supported legitimate nonprofit organizations—including addiction-recovery ministries like ours.