Regarding the charity side of things, there is help available for charities to advise, setup and support all things IT.
There's also a cart load of massive reductions from the likes of Microsoft, Adobe, HP, Dell.....etc.
Anyone working for or on behalf of a charity really needs to start looking into these things. Also, depending where funding is coming from there maybe certain data storage/privacy requirements.
I used to work for a small charity based community group, managing their IT at the resource centre that they ran. I then moved on to a Groundwork trust(later to merge with a second). Charity IT isn't straightforward, there are so many variables that it really does need the wider picture taking into account.
I'd really recommend going here:
http://www.navca.org.uk/about/staff/, look up the contact details for the IT Support officer, he's at the bottom of the list. Really freindly chap that knows his stuff......used to be my boss!