Hi Jodi,
Thanks for getting in touch! Great question! We do offer a nonprofit partnership program to provide free and/or discounted product licenses to qualifying organizations–you can find more information as well as our application link on our Knowledgebase here.
https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/do-you-offer-discounts-for-nonprofit-organizations/
Let us know if you should have any questions about the program that aren’t answered there! Regarding the conflict you experienced with the free version of The Events Calendar, I’d suggest opening a new thread with more details over on our WordPress.org support forums. Our technical team there will be more than glad to take a closer look and see if this is something that can be resolved on our end!
http://wordpress.org/plugins/the-events-calendar/
I hope that helps to get you started here! 🙂 Thanks again, and please don’t hesitate to follow up if you should have any other questions!