On March 19, 2009 within the framework of the conference "The Day of Noncommercial Organization" the official launch of the Russian infoDonor program coordinated by the Institute of the Information Society took place. Heads and IT-specialists of Russian nongovernmental and noncommercial organizations (NGO/NCO) participated in the event.

The goal of the infoDonor program is to provide Russian NGO/NCOs with technological support in acquiring access to the latest software products of leading Russian and international producers.

IIS acts as the Russian partner of the global support program of noncommercial sector, coordinated by noncommercial agency of technical assistance TechSoup Global (USA). Microsoft Corporation acted as the first program donor in Russia. A number of other leading ICT producers also expressed readiness to donate to NGO/NCOs.

At the opening the President of Microsoft Rus Nikolay Pryanishnikov emphasized the   importance of technological support of NCOs: "Abilities of noncommercial organizations, especially small ones, are mostly rather limited, and modern ICT might not be available to them. In order to overcome this digital divide Microsoft initiated the realization of the all-Russian technological support program for noncommercial sector infoDonor and became its first and as for now the only donor in Russia. Within the framework of this program we plan to annually pass Microsoft software worth millions of dollars to noncommercial organizations as donations".

Tatiana Ershova, IIS General Director, and Alexandra Kapustina, manager of infoDonor program, reported on the program. "InfoDonor program will help to optimize the use of noncommercial organizations’ limited finances for purchase of necessary but often very expensive technological products for problem solving, to maximally efficiently use the information infrastructure of organization, to increase the level of technological and information culture of organizations, and thus to decrease the level of digital inequality between commercial and noncommercial sectors of economics, and also between different regions", - noted Tatiana Ershova during her speech.

The idea to implement the infoDonor program in Russia was vividly supported by Alexei Zverev, the Deputy Head of Department for Cooperation with Regional Public Chambers and NCOs. He expressed his gratitude to the program organizers and donor companies that had joined it. "It is very good that Microsoft, who is very well known in our country and worldwide, has become a pioneer here in Russia. I do not doubt that this program and similar programs are very useful, and the third sector will have a new  impulse for further development in this country", he said.

Within the framework of the conference "The Day of Noncommercial Organization" leading experts of Microsoft Corporation and partners made reports, vividly demonstrating advantages of infocommunication technologies use for more efficient achieving of goals of noncommercial organizations.

Apart from infoDonor program presentation other Microsoft’s initiatives for supporting Russian noncommercial sector were introduced: a joint Microsoft resource portal for noncommercial organizations and program of computer literacy advancement - Information Dissemination and Equal Access (IDEA) Project.

Besides the participants of the event had an opportunity to get acquainted with Microsoft products and technologies for noncommercial organizations: the "United Communications" platform providing for integration of communication streams with use of different means of communication in one joint process, Microsoft Dynamics CRM system providing for moving client liaisons to the new level, and technologies of data layouts in the Internet - Silverlight.