LG66
"no way of retrieving the emails and now don't have any way of finding our contacts"
Did you normally access this email account using the VM webmail service on the VM website?
If so have you tried accessing the account using an email app or client? Sometimes it is still possible to access the account via an app/client for a while after the webmail access is removed by VM.
If you have the account set up on an email client such as Outlook or on a mail app on a phone you could try to see if that still has access to the charity's account
If you have not tried accessing the account via an email app/client you can download Thunderbird (it's free email client) from here https://www.thunderbird.net .
Create an IMAP account in Thunderbird using the charity's VM email account and password. Sadly that may well fail due to recent measures VM have implemented to make their email accounts more secure but it is the only way I can think of to recover the emails (but not the contacts) from that email account.
It's a long shot at best but it's the best I can offer I'm afraid.
Coenoby