Sad conversation of the day. This is the second last one and it's going to be a good one because I've been joined by an emcee, an entertainer who's also a radio presenter. We get to get to know all about this type of art. So if you've thought of being in any of these fields that I've mentioned or if you're in one, then you will definitely enjoy this. Karibusana, Zungu, Mufrika, Santesana, all whites, all the way from Eldoritz, Kericho, Kericho, Kericho, then you will go home, then you will go to work. I'm going to be the emcee of Zungu Mufrika. The emcee of Zungu Mufrika. I'm going to be the emcee of Zungu Mufrika. What is the name of the town? Zungu Mufrika, African. Okay, so it's American, American, African. Come on, let's translate. I'm going to be the emcee of Ben Anderson. I'm going to be the emcee of Zungu Mufrika. So I'm going to be the emcee of Zungu Mufrika. I'm going to be the emcee of Zungu Mufrika. I'm going to be the emcee of Ben Anderson. Yes, but I'm going to be the emcee of Kurgat. Kurgat. I'm going to be the emcee of Mufrika. Ah, Karibusana, all the way from Kericho, what is the name of the town? Kericho was represented, Leo. Kabisa. Kabisa.  It's called emcee. Yes.  Kabisa. I just recognized the name of your friend. The name of your man? That's my name. What do you do now? The art of MC. MC 2009. MC. MC. I launched So, MC I'm a radio presenter. MC So, you know. Mm hmm. I'm sure he's my friend. So we're going to be at Kingereza, Kedogo, maybe a kind of quasi-officials meeting. But I think it's important to be very careful about what you say to the people who are listening. You need to be careful. I know they're very careful. They are very careful. Yes, so MC Kufika and Kingereza are going to be singing. So I was born in Tushiki, in the first year of my life. Because I grew up with support in the English community, I went to Nairobi to get a job in the US, I followed the French name, I joined the English community when I was in college. Another thing was that I was not a Nairo fan. So from there, the rest is history. From there, the rest is history. So, I would like to ask you to tell us about being in the right place at the right time. Kabisa. I would like you to tell us about your journey. Kabisa. Kabisa. So, I would like to ask you to tell us about your journey. One of you is from Nibure. Oh. One of you is from Nibure. Two thousand. Mm-hmm. But the size is? The size is the rate card. The size is the rate card. Now, you are on the screen of the videos. MC, clearly you are very happy. This is my office. Oh, your office? This is my office. This is my office. Oh. This is my office. Weekend. I am lazy. Weekend office. I work. Kabisa. I work on weekends. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Do you work at the office? No, I don't. What do you do? MC is the art of MCing itself. What do you do? MC, not only is it a passion. You need to always be there to work. You just have to get up and get this microphone. Not just one person, but you can also get a crowd.  You're doing good. You're doing good. You'll have money to spend. You'll have fun. You'll be free. You'll have fun. You'll have fun. You'll have fun. The idea of getting this microphone. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. They say that if you want to be successful, you can. Some say that you can take care of your family, and maybe you can take care of your car, and you can take care of your car, and you can take care of your family as well. Some say that it is a thing of the past, and some say that it is a thing of the past. This is part of BUSANA. Balance. Balance. I think from Malimii and Katy Hafa, balance between working with youth what are different kinds of people and what are the different kinds of people and what are the different kinds of people especially in the community it's a challenging word for Rourashio Rourashio is a word called Nyombo basically that's Nyombo it's a word called traditional weddings I enjoy it and the role of MC is very key is MC a good event what is the event? it's a key when you are MC you have to have an MC so you have to have a good CEO for MC you have to have a good CEO you have to have a good sponsor and if you have time you can get a job you can have a wedding with the couple maybe a couple of million so you can afford it yes you can afford it so once you have a good CEO with your couple smile. Smile. Smile. Smile. Smile. Smile. Smile. Smile. Smile. Smile. Do you know who he is? I'm Gigi. Killa Mtu. I want to say that I'm very happy to take you to dance, I wish you good luck. I'm very happy. I'm very happy.  I want to try to have a comedy, a comedy with a person that's like me. When they're worried, they'll attack you, and you'll learn from them. They'll be serious. When you're in a relationship, you'll remember that you're not serious at all. I'm not serious at all. You're not serious at all? I'm not serious at all. Are you a cheque? I'm not. I'm a cheque. Do you break the barrier? Some of the stresses come from the family, some from my cousin. My wife Sheree Flani and I go out and say, when do you emcee? So when Baiser Tisa joins MelWhoism, Baiser can be términally normal. Hattam to dance to the Kwan-Kwan-Kwan. I'm not going to be a poet, but I'll be a poet, and my career will be my ambition.   Satisfy. Think very fast. So for the MCs, what do you think of the comedian and the humorous? Well, I think the comedy is important to me. But it's not. If you want to apply for comedy, you have to apply for it. That's it. Okay. So, would you like to go to Ches and Nile? Where would you like to go? So, it's a requirement for the comedian to have a sense of humor. I would like to apply for it. So, anyone can be an MC. Okay. But they're different. For you, it's a major on entertainment. The entertainment bit of it. There's a corporate. But it's an office. So, if you want to be a corporate, you have to be MCs, events, you know, managers, and you have to take care of it. For me, it's not a big deal. Because there's a corporate, and there's a lot of shows, and there's a lot of weddings.  So, for me, it's important to have a sense of humor. It's a script. It's a script. It's a script. It can be an opening prayer, it can be a short cut, it can be an hour's work, it's a short cut. It's a short cut, but when it's short cut, I'll just feel like I'm still in the crowd. So, to be honest, it's the sense of humor, but it's a serious one, because the element, when it's serious, it's simple. So, for you, it's a cross shot. But I think it's better at entertainment events, and it's even better at corporate events. So I think it's important to have a fit. That's right. Because there are a lot of events in Mardishi. And maybe there's a company called Mwesimio Flani. And the company says, there'll be a lot of events in Mardishi, Inui, and many other companies. Maybe there'll be a company called Mwesimio Flani. That's the company that is responsible for the company's leadership, and the company that is responsible for the company. Before that, I would like to send my advice to the MCs that are coming, the young people. But before that, I would like to post on MCing the other art that you have as a radio presenter.  So as a radio presenter, will you be behind the mic? I started in 2005. I have been working here for 16 years. Wow. You have learnt your years.  I started working here in Tanghazadi. My name is Poli Poli. I am from Africa. What is your name? My name is Poli Poli. I am a radio interviewer. My name is Elieza. My name is Kwanza Ben and I am a congressman. I am from Africa. I was born here in 2005. I am doing a show called Lugia College. I am a radio presenter. What is your radio station? What is the frequency of your radio station? My radio station is in Kericho, Bomet, Naro, Kisi, Eldorette, Kisumu Park, Gori, Kaka-Mega. I am in Tanghazadi, Lugia College. I am in Kisueili, Lugia College. I am doing a show called Lugia Subway. It is from 5am to 1pm. I am doing a show called Pelakawatu Kwamungu. What is your name? Kabis. I am doing a show called Pelakawatu Kwamungu. I am doing a show called Pelakawatu Kwamungu. How is it as a radio presenter?  Someone out there who is behind the mic, who is entertaining, who is educating. What does it take? I am doing a show called Pelakawatu Kwamungu. I am in Tanghazadi. I am doing a show called Pelakawatu Kwamungu. I am doing a show called Pelakawatu Kwamungu. I am doing a show called Pelakawatu Kwamungu. This is a show called Pelakawatu Kwamungu. And so we have a lot of people in Tanghazi who can participate. We have a lot of people who can participate. We have to go to the station to learn how to speak. If you don't know how to speak, you can go to the station to learn how to speak. When you learn how to speak, you can learn how to speak. My name is Kabisa. I am a microphone maker. My students are from Saudi Arabia, Nimbus, Pro-Mos, and Advertisers. And I am learning how to speak. So I am learning how to speak. So you are learning how to speak? I am learning how to speak. I am learning how to talk. I have learned how to speak in that language. My parents are from Nimbus, Nimbus, Pro-Mos, and Advertisers. So now I am learning how to speak. Kameesah. And the radio, I was watching TV. Whenever I was watching TV, the radio was in the flanning machine. The radio was running on the floor so it was very difficult to create a picture for you. And it was very difficult. I'm a master at the presentation of Kosa Saka Radio. I'm from Gipanga. I'm from Jumapele. I'm from Radio. I'm from Kosa Saka. So Saturday, I was invited to an event in Kamaizu. I was invited to Maliza, Gioni. I was in Rudi. I was in Kujarusi, Nairobi. I was in Fanya, I was in Zawadi. I was invited to the event in Kamaizu. I was invited to Semiangu, Nanzaku, Gipanga. I was invited to Kesho, I was invited to the event. I was invited to Kesho, I was invited to the event. I was invited to Gipanga. How do you keep what you are engaged in? You can tell me how to tune channels. You can tell me the options. Will you, as a presenter, how do you ensure you can keep the audience glued? My stories, you can tell me stories. The content I have here, I need to make a video. Don't copy. I need to... Yes, it's original. It's not old. So I'm from Kinga Studio. I'm from Zungu. So Zungu is from Africa? Yes. And someone is copying you? Yes. I'm from Nimbu. I'm from Nimbu and Bazoni. I'm from Fahisha. For example, when I was in Subui, when I was in Kanisani, in Amuka, there was a lot of people who came to see me. There was a lot of people who came to see me. There was a lot of people who came to see me. I was invited to worship. I was encouraged. I was told that I was from Femoyo. I was invited to worship. I was invited to worship. I was invited to worship. Okay. Yes. There was a lot of passion and passion. When I was trying to sing, I saw... I saw a big radio presenter. She was singing a song. She was singing a song. She was singing a song. She was singing a song. A song? Yes. What was the song? The radio... I was passing through the message. I was listening to the radio. I was listening to the radio. Especially when I was in the studio. I was listening to my song. But it was a checker. It was a checker song. Did you enjoy it? It was a song. It was a song. It was a song that came to my mind. So, it was my song. Okay. Thank you, Alicia. There were challenges. There were challenges. MCing. I have a career. I want to be at least for you. I want to be a radio presenter. I want to be an MC. You're also a marketer. I want to be an MC. I want to be an MC. So, I want to be a major on MCing. Radio. I want to be... Is it a viable career choice? Yes. I want to be a major on MCing. I want to be a career MC. Completely? Completely. Yes. Because I want to be on MCing. I want to be on the list. Because I want to be in the office. So, I want to be on MCing. I want to be on MCing. I want to be a singer and a big star. A big star? Yes. A big star, sir. A big star. So, radio to be a career choice. Of course, a viable career option. Challenges. Can you tell us in your journey being a presenter and an MC? I want to be on the radio. I want to be on the radio. I want to be in the office. This is the challenge for me. I want to be a famous TV host to be on the list. And I want to work in a hope that I can make my country more successful. But, I want to be on the radio. This is the most Gray media colleague I have ever worked with. Connection, yeah. Connection, yeah. Connection, yeah. Challenge, yeah. Connection, yeah. Connection, yeah. Yeah. Okay, so those are some of the challenges, but the benefits are also plenty. For someone who wants to be an MC, I have advice for someone who wants to get into radio and passion. Advice for someone who wants to be an MC. Advice for someone who wants to be an MC. Advice for someone who wants to be an MC. Advice for someone who wants to be an MC. Maybe the best. Enjoy. Last month, a golf club called Nicholas. Family, family, family, family. Family, family, family, family. Family, family, family, family. Family, family, family, family. Family, family, family, family. Family, family, family, family. Family, family, family, family. Family, family, family, family. Family, family, family, family.


Well, considering the pandemic has put us in this position, everyone needs to take the lead here and look for what their week, their days and their weeks look like. And if they don't have opportunities, they need to be creating them. They need to be seeing this as working it as a muscle, just like they're scheduling time at the gym, just like they're scheduling time to make sure that they get the things done that they need to do that would benefit their lives. This has direct benefit to their lives. What's up, everybody, and welcome to the show today. We drop great content each and every week, and we want to make sure that you guys get notified. And in order to do that, you're gonna have to smash that subscribe button and hit that notification bell. And if you've gotten a lot of value out of this, make sure you give us a like and share our videos with your friends. Now, a big part of small talk is simply to find out if the other person is receptive to conversation and receptive to potentially connecting and socially bonding. So it is important to realize that small talk is a small phase of any interaction. It's certainly not something that we want to stay in for a long period of time. We wanna have the ability to transition out of small talk into more meaningful conversation, but it does have an important role in terms of meeting and connecting with strangers. Because of course, we need to gauge first, is this person even interested in talking with me? And if all you're doing to break the ice is making statements, making observations, going for the laugh, that's not a really effective way to survey if the other person wants to participate in this conversation, if the other person is interested in engaging with you. So that's why we're so big on questions to break the ice, to strike up that conversation, to become more interested. But it is important to note, many of us who maybe have listened to the podcast before who have tried that exact strategy of asking a question to break the ice, we'll often find ourselves in a bit of a trap. And that trap is we ask a question that we don't really care that much about. And therefore we probably don't pay too close attention to the other person's answer, right? How's the weather? Where are you from? Well, we probably don't really care that much about that information. It isn't necessarily that meaningful to us. So we end up not listening. And then when you don't listen to the answer, you kind of fall into a trap of not knowing again what to say next. So the simplest answer to get out of that trap is to ask another question. Oh, well, what'd you like about growing up in Detroit, AJ? And over time, asking a ton of questions actually leads the other person to feel interrogated, to feel that you're not really that interested in what they're answering. You're maybe making fun of them or saying that you're not happy with the answers that they're giving with these quick retorts of questions. So questions are effective to break the ice, but it's not where we want to lean and keep the conversation going by questioning every single thing that person says. And we see this on video work inside of X Factor in our boot camps where it's super easy to get in your head, to not pay attention to their answer, to not really value their answer and then quickly respond with another question. I think for our purposes here in doing this show is to get people to be breaking the ice more often. You're not gonna listen to the show, hear a couple of these bits, and then just start having amazing conversations at your next networking event. This is a skill that you build. The idea of because or asking open-ended questions needs to be done in your daily routines and your daily habits. If you're unable to do that, turning this on is going to open up floodgates that you're not gonna be able to control.  Well, you're going to go blank because you're unable to absorb it all because you're trying to do all of these different things that you've been told will work in breaking the ice. The more you think about this, the more it's difficult, the more hurdles you're gonna find in front of yourself. So to listen to this is to pick out one of these concepts and do that concept over and over and over again until you're competent in that concept. I mean, for everything that we discussed in the show, hopefully the first time you hear it, it is you're now finding something out that you need to know to make your conversations much better. The second thing is now that you have a, you found out what you're unconsciously incompetent about, it is now putting it on a conscious incompetence. So you're working with it. You're getting better at the idea. You're getting better at implementing this concept. That concept will then slowly become ingrained the more you do that concept. So now we're on a conscious competence road. You've gotten better. You've used the cause effectively and now you're using it to actually hold real conversations because you're not trying to implement all these different tricks and tactics and that you've heard on a radio show.  So you can learn about the person that you're speaking to so you can actually drive this to an intention that you have, whether it's connecting, relating or just trying to gather information from the people that you're with. And then slowly to an unconscious competence, you've learned it to the point where it's just something that you're naturally doing. And then you grab the next piece. I think it's important to point out that conversations are opportunities. And there are certainly a few members of our audience who are feeling like they don't have many opportunities in their life right now.  Maybe they're frustrated with their current social circle. Maybe they're frustrated with feeling lonely and feeling disconnected from the pandemic. And science shows you're not alone. Many of us are feeling that way because of what has transpired. When you start to think about every single conversation as an opportunity and we look at the science behind that, science shows between 60 to 80% of jobs are through personal relationships. Those personal relationships started with someone breaking the ice, with someone striking up a conversation. Conversations are the seed that gets planted to grow into a fantastic relationship that leads to jobs. It also leads to romantic opportunities. Many of us listening to this show are going to find our significant other, our spouse, through our personal relationships. Yes, we find ourselves swiping more than ever. We've talked about this, but the way the algorithms online are set up, they are not set up to help you find your true match. They're set up to keep your attention, to keep you on the app. Many of our clients inside of our boot camps and X Factor accelerators will end up finding jobs through their network, will end up finding their significant other through their network, will end up meeting new friends through their existing network simply because they've taken this strategy of breaking the ice, of having more curiosity and interest in the other person to its full conclusion of having more conversations which forget more opportunities in your life which then lead to you changing your entire surrounding, changing where you're working, changing that five closest friends who now have a positive influence on your life. So that's why we're so big on this concept of breaking the ice, not only giving you the science behind it, giving you some simple strategies, but this is the genesis of every relationship that you're gonna have in your life and science definitely shows us that relationships matter to our longevity, our physical health, as well as our mental health and well-being. We drop great content each and every week and we wanna make sure that you guys get notified and in order to do that, you're gonna have to smash that subscribe button and hit that notification bell and if you've gotten a lot of value out of this, make sure you give us a like and share our videos with your friends. Well, considering the pandemic has put us in this position, everyone needs to take the lead here and look for what their week, their days and their weeks look like and if they don't have opportunities, they need to be creating them. They need to be seeing this as working it as a muscle, just like their scheduling time at the gym is like their scheduling time to make sure that they get the things done that they need to do that would benefit their lives. This has direct benefit to their lives. If you're not creating these opportunities in your days and your weeks and your months, well, then those opportunities are just not going to exist for you and while other people have all the information of the world at their fingertips and this internet, they are leveling up. They are making time. They see the science of how important these things are in their life and they're going to make time for those things. This is exactly the same thing as growing up and seeing all this sugary foods on our table, only to learn later that there is not good for us and we've decided to change our eating habits so that we could take direct advantage of all the great nutrition stuff that we do have. When you start getting into all of these things and you start looking up how good this is for you, how it relates to your state of mind, your self-esteem, the confidence that you have and the bonds that you've created with other people, well, then you are either going to take the time to strengthen all those because that enhances life or you won't and life will continue to deteriorate at a rapid pace because right now, where we're at, things are going to continue this way unless you make a change and that's what we do in our programs. I think an important thing to point out, having lived on both coasts and lived in the Midwest, the podcast started in Michigan and then we relocated to New York and now LA and Johnny lives in Las Vegas, is there is this phenomenon in big cities of avoiding small talk with strangers, of avoiding these small micro interactions with strangers. I've gone on elevators where people just stared at their phone. I've sat on a bus ride where people are just on their phone focused on screens and it's easy to get conditioned to avoid these small interactions. It's easy to fall into the trap of looking around in the elevator and going, well, no one else is talking, I'm not going to say anything. But like Johnny said, it's also easy to eat two Snickers bars and not work out. It's also easy to have the full pizza as a cheat meal three days in a row to break your diet. Just because it's easy and just because others are doing it doesn't actually lead to long-term growth and success and health in your life. You will be shocked to see the difference when you are the one on the elevator who does break the ice, who showcases warmth, who takes a little bit of interest, exchanges names with your neighbor, with the person who lives on the fifth floor as you're pulling your groceries up. And over time, those micro interactions start to create the community that our human success and survival depends on. Evolutionarily, we are community focused and our survival depends on it. So even if you're living in a big city and you feel like, well, no one else is doing this, no one else is breaking the ice with me when I'm out and about, doesn't mean that that's good for you and it doesn't mean that that's going to help you reach the success you're looking for in your life. Well, let's dive into this a bit. This is something that we had discussed with our program over the last week with the military guys, the strategies over goals. And Scott Adams, I listened to his show in the morning, he talks a lot about this as well. And for those people who are listening to his show right now, they're like, oh, okay, breaking the ice, talk to random people. No, no, that's not what we're saying at all. Where what we're discussing is that you know what is good for you. You know what enhances life and what are your strategies to implement these things in your life? If you have a mission, if you're in your life, if you have a weight goal and a nutritious goal in your life, if you don't have strategies lined up that begin to implement all of these things, well, then listening to this is, it's just passive listening. And another thing, this is something we discussed this week. This is not a passive listening show. This is not a bunch of wacky wild comedians saying goofy stuff all day. So that is in the background while you change the oil in your car. This is educational content that is going to enhance your life in multiple facets. Everyone who has come through our programs have seen an uptick in the enjoyment that they extract from life every day. And it's not about waking up upset about what they have to take on. It's about waking up excited that they have all these tools to navigate the world around them to implement these strategies that at the end of the day, once you've put them in place, you're authoring the reality of your world because your world now has been created due to the strategies that you've implemented.


Walking all hands update, here's what's happening around your Navy today. The Navy christened its newest Virginia class attack submarine, USS Washington, during a ceremony at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia. Elizabeth Mabus, daughter of Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, is the ship's sponsor. SACNAD delivered the principal address March 5th. The John C. Stena strike group is conducting routine operations in the South China Sea. The strike group is the centerpiece of the Great Green Fleet, a year-long initiative highlighting the Navy's efforts to transform its energy use to increase operational capability. Retired MASH Chief Petty Officer at the Navy William Bill H. Plackett died peacefully the evening of March 4th. He was 78 years old. Plackett became the sixth McPond October 1st, 1985. He relieved Billy C. Sanders and held the job for three years before Dwayne R. Bushey assumed duties in September 1988. You can read more about what's happening around your Navy at Navy.mil.


The Pyramid of Mencura, the smallest, yet by no means least interesting of the Great Pyramids of Giza, claimed to have been built by the Egyptian pharaoh Mencura some 4,000 years ago. The pyramid's origins, however, like the many other giant and perfectly carved structures and statues found throughout the Giza Plateau, no one seems to be able to explain how or why such figures within known well-studied history accomplished such feats. With the entrance to the Chapel of the Cult, exposing just how much of a challenge this construction would have been for our copper-welding ancestors some 4,000 years ago. Lined with megalithic sandstone blocks with some well over 100 tons in weight, the remains of basalt casting stones strewn around their feet, either disturbed by invading parties or simply fallen from where they once stood, in front of the megalithic blocks, all now exposed to the elements, with additional styles from other, now lost civilizations littered all around the pyramid, indicative of its rediscovered importance by other now lost civilizations, who we feel clearly came and went since the pyramid's original constructions. This extraordinary section of the ruins are predictably rarely discussed or studied. We believe this due to the inexplicable nature of the surrounding ruins, in addition to further supporting claims that the casting stones found upon the pyramids are not only covering megalithic blocks of an even larger scale, but were a later addition, just like that of the unfinished polygonal masonry, making up additional casing stones around the entrance of the Mancura pyramid itself. Furthermore, Mancura also contains inner chambers, just like that of the world-famous yet rumors that only keyops possess such tunnels persist to the modern day, and one wonders why. Why was Mancura clearly focused on by several different conservation efforts? Why is it the only pyramid with Peru-style polygonal casing stones? Who could have possibly built the entrance tunnel? Or indeed, the pyramids themselves? And why is the pyramid largely, and it would seem purposefully overlooked? We find the possible motivations highly compelling.


Welcome to TechSoup. This is new member orientation and Q&A. This is how you engage in this webinar.  Of course, you know that by now. We would love for you to type your questions in the Q&A and I'm telling you we have some great team members. We're going to answer all your questions hopefully. Check your email box. We're going to send you the video replay and the slides. Slides have hyperlinks. So there may be some items that we talk about that you can click on the hyperlink and gain some more insights. If you need the closed caption, just tap on the CC button at the bottom of your Zoom screen where it says CC and you're ready to use the closed caption. And I think that's it for me. Am I turning this over to you, Nick? What's the next slide? Oh, yeah. Let's turn it off to Nick. Welcome, everybody. Hi, everybody, and at least where I am. Good morning. It is rainy, rainy, rainy here in Oakland, California. Hopefully, no mudslides take me out from being able to present the rest of this presentation this morning. But I hope wherever you are, you have a slightly warmer environment than I do this morning. Welcome to today's webinar on new member orientation for TechSoup. My name is Nick Finn. I'm the head of global growth marketing at TechSoup. We do a lot of education with nonprofits around all sorts of different technology issues. And since most folks on this call are new to TechSoup or in an organization that has just started using TechSoup, we're going to start by going over some key terms that you may have heard in this general area of nonprofit technology. You'll hear the term civil society, which really is the whole community globally of change makers and do-gooders. The folks on this call who are working in nonprofits and charities and other non-governmental organizations to serve their community to act out a mission that might be ignored by business or government interests and to help build a more equitable planet. And that is at the core of TechSoup's own mission statement. You'll also hear about digital transformation, which I want to just explain as it's the act of embracing digital technology as a way to improve your nonprofit's functions and program delivery. It's working with technology and leveraging it, as they say in the industry, to do more and to do better. You'll also hear the phrase digital resilience, which is very related to digital transformation, but it's the notion of how can your nonprofit's technology help you to respond, adapt, and continue to serve communities when there's some kind of external disruption going on or crisis. I joked about mudslides, but while I'm not going to get one today in Oakland, other folks in California are experiencing that right now, and there are nonprofits on the ground where that is happening. And for them, digital resilience is a real thing if they're being impacted by something like that. And then you'll hear the phrase cloud adoption, not really a new phrase anymore, but the notion of cloud adoption really is all about moving to platforms and data structures that rely on the distributed memory and computing power of the worldwide web, the internet. And this means that your information is not stored just on a local computer where it may not be safe and could be easily lost and instead is being stored in the cloud in a way that you can access securely and protect the integrity of that data if something were to happen to the physical location where your computer is located. So those are just some four key terms I want you to keep in mind that kind of set the overall context for what TechSoup is, how we work with nonprofits. And so let's get into the meat of that discussion. What is TechSoup?  And that's important to call out right on the front end because a lot of people actually mistakenly think that TechSoup is just another business that sells technology and that is absolutely not what we are. We're a 501c3. We have a nonprofit mission and we have a perspective. Our perspective is, as the previous slide probably suggested, technology in our opinion can be a profoundly powerful tool for nonprofits. And we want to help you find the right technology and then use it to accomplish your mission, whatever that might be. We support nonprofits in the United States and around the world who are working with Tech to make a more equitable planet. Part of the way we do that is we host a catalog on our website TechSoup.org of offers from major technology companies, everybody from Microsoft, Dell, Intuit, Adobe and many, many, many more which we'll look at in more depth in a few minutes here. This is our effort to help nonprofits by trying to bring together philanthropic offers from the technology industry in one place so that nonprofits can come to TechSoup, find those offers and then use some of those products affordably. We have discounted and donated offers and again we'll touch on more of that in detail shortly. Along with the technology products for major tech companies that we host in the TechSoup catalog, we also offer nonprofits and only nonprofits a number of affordable services to help you as you use technology. We understand very clearly that getting a new technology product, whether it's a piece of software or hardware, is often just the beginning, not the end solution. It means next that you have to cope with things like how do I deploy this technology? How do I train my staff to use it properly? How do I make sure it's secure? I may not know all the details of how to implement this properly or manage it over time. These are all service requirements and TechSoup has put together a series of different services that we'll touch on in a few minutes to help nonprofits as they manage their own technology stack. We've got a catalog of products, we've also got a set of services, but there's more. We also create all sorts of educational resources to help nonprofits self-educate around the technology that they have to learn more about what's going on in the tech marketplace and in some cases find use cases in examples of how other nonprofits are using specific tech products to accomplish and further their mission. Then like most of you on this call again, we also have our own grant-based programming that we engage in. We work with big funders to receive grant funding that we then do all sorts of technology-based initiatives, whether it be around fighting back against disinformation, closing the digital divide, giving the public access to public data sets in a way that they can actually work with them. Like many nonprofits, TechSoup does a lot of different things and it really depends on which part of us you're engaging with, but for today's purposes we're going to zero in on a couple of key features that I think really help here. We serve nonprofits of all sizes, again in the United States and globally. Everything from extremely large nonprofits with over $100 million budgets down to very, very small nonprofits who may have zero full-time staff, maybe they have a part-time executive director, an annual budget of maybe less than even $50,000 that they spend on all their nonprofits' needs. Everything in between, we serve all of those nonprofit sizes. We work across the broad spectrum of issues and functions that nonprofits work in, like the topical areas that matter to them, as this chart is just illustrating everything from housing activities to civil rights, there's business and professional organizations, environmental organizations, sports and recreation nonprofits out there, lots of youth activities, health services and related activities. It's really fascinating once you start drilling into how many different types of nonprofits there are out there, even just in the United States. When you look at the broad array of topical areas that they address, it's really impressive actually. Right, so let's talk about the TechSoup catalog that I mentioned at the top, where we host products for major tech companies, often with donated or discounted offers, and we are trying to centralize those, bring them into one space so that nonprofits can come to TechSoup and find those offers. Here's a quick screenshot of the TechSoup homepage, and this is how you would access the catalog, a pretty clear button right there in the middle of the homepage. You could also go up to the product catalog in the menu at the top of the screen. And what are you going to find when you get in there? Well, there would be a whole lot of different offers that you could access. Now I've just clicked through to the live TechSoup site here, and let me just close a couple of these tabs here. Now on the live site, you'll see that we can hit that browse catalog button, and it's going to take us to the home page of the actual TechSoup catalog, right? And here you can scroll through and then quickly dive into all sorts of different offers that you might be interested in, everything from Microsoft Office to Adobe Acrobat, into it QuickBooks. There are hardware options that are available there. You'll see at the bottom that we also call out some of those services as well. I'm going to go ahead and close that here and just go back to the slide deck itself. Let's talk about what is ostensibly the largest scale corporate partnership that TechSoup is engaged with, and that's with Microsoft. We have worked with Microsoft almost from the inception of TechSoup. They encouraged TechSoup very early on to dream big about the ways in which we might best serve nonprofits. Well, sorry, I bumped that backwards. And in the very early days of TechSoup, back in the late 80s and early 90s, you will hear stories from the staff who worked then that early versions of TechSoup were literally in the Bay Area realizing that there were lots of extra CD-ROMs available of Windows 98. And could we just take those and distribute them to local nonprofits so that they would have an up-to-date operating system that was more secure to work with, right? The world's obviously moved a long way since then. Today's offers from Microsoft that we host are much more sophisticated offers. For instance, really, the core one is Microsoft 365, which is the cloud-based version of Microsoft Office, right? It's that suite of programs that we are used to working with from Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel. Those are all united with Outlook into a web-based platform that hosts your email, all sorts of productivity tools in there, etc. TechSoup is a certified Microsoft partner to provide access to Microsoft 365. And as we'll touch on later, we also provide additional services to nonprofits who are trying to scope out and implement Microsoft 365. And we'll talk more about that. Obviously, also through TechSoup, you can also access Microsoft's pro-full operating system. We're talking about Windows 11 right now, or whatever the new versions of that will be in the future or something that would come through TechSoup as well, I assume. Adobe is another very significant partner for TechSoup. If you work specifically in graphic design or web production or even some folks on the call might be print production veterans, we've all been touched by Adobe products over the course of our careers now. If you work in those fields, they pretty much invented the PDF, the portable document format. And these days at TechSoup, the most popular offers are these Creative Cloud, which is a very sophisticated package of design and production software. It's the kind of thing that if you work with outside designers or have one on staff yourself, they're probably working with Creative Cloud programs. Acrobat Pro DC is pretty much like the industry standard for managing PDF documents. And then Adobe's latest offer through TechSoup is something called Adobe Express. It's a more streamlined, easier to use, one-off production software package. It's great for producing online images, suffer social media, and the expectation is that you don't have to have the degree of sophisticated training that Creative Cloud might require you to have in order to use Adobe Express. Intuit QuickBooks is another huge partnership for TechSoup. Lots of nonprofits, particularly in the context of the pandemic four years ago, really started to remember that it's not good enough to have a paper and pencil accounting system at your nonprofit. You really do need to have a digital system and even just doing it in a spreadsheet is not a great practice either. Intuit QuickBooks is a natural fit for nonprofits. Online Plus, I believe, is the version most folks are using. There's also an advanced version of it and both are worth checking out if you're not already using Intuit QuickBooks at your nonprofit. There are all sorts of additional offers available through the TechSoup catalog. I'm not going to go deeply into all of them here, but just as you can see from a smattering of some of these corporate logos, like we really have done the work to build relationships with these technology creation companies. And of course, like TechSoup's own headquarters, while we are mainly a distributed staff at this point, headquartered in downtown San Francisco, we are able to keep our eyes on what's going on in the tech industry because we are in very close proximity to them, at least to the Silicon Valley pieces of it here. And so do really try to pay active attention to new things that might be very helpful to nonprofits as they come through. Right. We've only talked about software so far, but a really growing area of TechSoup's work with nonprofits also involves access to hardware. Again, as I just mentioned, the pandemic was a real reminder to us of how those supply chain issues can really be tricky for nonprofits. They drive the prices of hardware up. They make it hard to find the things that you need. There are long wait times sometimes. A lot of that has really been resolved now, but not all of it. And that is just to say that TechSoup can also be a place where you may be able to find the hardware at a price point that your nonprofit is willing to work with versus just going out onto the open market and maybe paying even higher rates. You can find the hardware links on the TechSoup site under the product catalog. You have to click the product catalog and then you'll see the hardware button there on the left. Let's go into it a little bit more deeply. We provide access to both new and refurbished laptops and desktops at TechSoup. The new ones are available through partnerships with like HP and Dell and Lenovo, but the refurbished line of business is in particular something I do want to highlight because, well, first of all, TechSoup was one of the pioneers in suggesting that we shouldn't just assume that an unused or slightly used computer is too old and should be thrown away and create all sorts of e-waste, that, in fact, many of these units can actually be certified, refurbished, and available at a slightly lower cost than just a brand new unit. And we saw that very much in line with our own nonprofit mission of trying to be a greener business of paying attention to the environment and following good conservation practice. And it's great to see that, in fact, that whole line of refurbished materials is something that has been embraced by the larger technology community. And now TechSoup isn't, for sure, the only provider of refurbished hardware, but we still are one of them. It was one of our ideas. And so it's great to see that happening. As I said, with our partnerships with Dell, Lenovo, and HP, you could also get access to brand new units through those companies. And some of the other bits of hardware that TechSoup does have access to include mobile devices, monitors, some networking equipment, printers. And an exciting addition, literally as I edited the deck this morning before we went live with this webinar, we also have the MetaQuest Pro virtual reality headset now in the catalog, which is exciting. Not every nonprofit knows how they would use virtual reality yet, but there are some great use cases out there of nonprofits who are using it in all sorts of ways, particularly for education and training purposes. They're very interesting applications for VR across both physical health and mental health and access to care.  Okay, so those are the technology products, the software and the hardware overview from TechSoup. But as I said, we also understand that really getting technology is only the beginning of the journey for a lot of nonprofits. And in fact, the harder part may be, how do you implement the technology? How do you manage it? How do you troubleshoot it? How do you make sure it's doing what you wanted it to do? How do you train your staff to use it properly? How do you keep it secure? So many questions. And TechSoup is of course here to help answer some of those questions with a suite of services that we've put together. And let's go into that in a little more depth now. So you find the services there again in the drop down menu at the top. We are already behind in updating our navigation. We have several new services that launched at the end of the year that don't appear yet. So, you know, stand by to see some of those making it into the navigation soon. Let's talk about our help desk service, which is sort of like a, it's the one off service. It's the bare minimum that we would come in and help you virtually to troubleshoot some usually piece of hardware that's really given you trouble. It's $35 monthly commitment, you can do it 350 across the year. But it's for a small scale thing. Really, what a lot of nonprofits actually gravitate toward at TechSoup is something called managed IT. Managed IT is a service where we are helping nonprofits manage their entire technology stack. And so if you're in an environment where you're using tech, you maybe don't have adequate staffing levels to manage all that tech properly, then managed IT might be a really great thing for you to check out in some greater detail and think about and see if TechSoup can help you manage your own tech stack if you don't have the staff to do that. You know, those of us again working in communications or marketing and those kinds of fields really understand profoundly how a website has just revolutionized how an organization can present information and communicate, right? It's just this channel that we never had before. And now it's the dominant channel that we might use to communicate with the public, with stakeholders, with our own board members sometimes, with journalists, almost anybody who wants to learn about us can go to our websites and learn about us. And almost every nonprofit I've ever talked to, when you ask them about their website, always say something to the extent of like, oh gosh, it needs a lot of help, right? Nobody really feels like their website actually truly reflects the full scope and wonderfulness of their nonprofit work. Everybody's always trying to make it better. Embracing that philosophy, we have also launched a series of website services that are available to help nonprofits figure out what to do with their website. Do they need a brand new one? Is it secure enough? How can you work with what you've got? Do you need some custom consultation to talk it through? You know, there are lots of consultants out there in the world who can help you with this, but one of the great things about coming through TechSoup is, you know, we are working with consultants on this as well, but these folks are really dedicated to specifically helping the nonprofit sector, which means you're not just going to get somebody's effort to like jam your nonprofit's existence into a business-oriented website that may have very different goals than what your goals are. So website services are something definitely worth taking a look at. In addition, for some folks who really do have to engage in outbound marketing campaigns, and not everybody does need to do that, but for folks who do, we have a separate set of nonprofit marketing services that we've also started putting out there that would be worth looking at if you really are in a position where your nonprofit has to do a lot of marketing. If you don't quite have your website yet, maybe you're brand new and working on putting it together, and you don't even know what your domain is, and maybe aren't even sure what a domain is or how to get it, domain registration through TechSoup is a helpful way to get the URL that you want your nonprofit to be using. And then of course, once you've got that, then you can start working with us on website services and see if we can get a side up together. And then the final service I want to call out that's pretty important is Office 365 email and data migration. Thousands of nonprofits have worked with TechSoup now to move to the Microsoft 365 platform that I mentioned at the top of the hour. It really is the platform of choice when we're talking about how to leverage Microsoft's technologies. And again, once you get that platform, you still face real issues of how do I bring my existing data set into that platform so that everybody still has access to their historic email and data. And we have a service designed to help your nonprofit do exactly that. Finally, I do want to call out a fun thing in our navigation for services as well called the digital assessment tool is a great example of some of the overlap between our work directly with nonprofits and the grant funded work. TechSoup has built out this digital assessment tool as a way for nonprofits to be able to actually assess different functional areas like finance, for instance, or communications. And to run through a series of questions that you answer around your nonprofit to kind of assess like what's your level of sophistication digitally within each of these areas. And that digital assessment tool is a fun resource to go through might help you like understand better where your nonprofit is perhaps both doing well and then what areas it might need some help on. And maybe that's even something you can then actually leverage into a grant proposal explaining how you're going to use a particular funding stream to increase your nonprofits digital resilience lots of possibilities there. Okay, now I want to hit on two other things here that fall outside just that technology product technology service and talk a little bit about your own relationship with TechSoup and what TechSoup membership actually looks like. So we are introducing membership models to TechSoup here in the near future, but they're very much based around traditional things which you're used to seeing from TechSoup in terms of special offers and discounts. I want to really focus on one of them right now which is TechSoup Boost. Boost has been in our catalog for years now. Boost is sort of like TechSoup on steroids. It is the place where you can join TechSoup with a $99 annual fee at the organization's level. So once your organization, your nonprofit is a TechSoup Boost member, everyone in the org can use that Boost account. And really the primary point of Boost is that it actually gives you even greater discounts and greater access to pricing breaks. And it's really good if you're a nonprofit who already thinks of themselves as fairly digitally savvy and you like exploring new tools and you want a little bit of support in doing that. You want to not just have to go out and grab at the price point that you find on the open market, but instead you can come to TechSoup and you can see all sorts of different savings levels using TechSoup Boost. I recommend checking it out. And beyond Boost, we also have a newer product in the catalog called Quad. Quad is the premium level of engagement with TechSoup, right? You remember the beginning of this deck, I was talking about how we serve nonprofits of all sorts of size. And you can expect, of course, that much larger nonprofits, for instance, have much more sophisticated and complex technology needs. Quad is a product that really helps a nonprofit that is already deeply digital go all the way with TechSoup. It's the place where you'll find the most valuable content that we put together. You can get customized webinars, which are doing deep dives into particular issues around different platforms. So if you really think of yourself as being an extremely complex digital environment, I suggest you think about Quad and we'll have more to say about Quad over time as well. The membership level right now for Quad is $200 annually per organization. Again, so like you rough that out, I think before the call we're saying that's maybe like $16 a month, right? And again, that's an organizational membership, not an individual person membership. So think of it that way. Right. Now I want to bring forward one of my favorite people at TechSoup, Kelly Garrett. Kelly works in TechSoup's customer service department. And Kelly's going to share a little bit about how our customer service department can best serve you. And so Kelly, take it away. Thank you so much, Nick. Hello, everyone. Hope you're all doing well. Hanging in there is getting through a winter and into spring. I know where I'm at. We're getting rained out right now. So hope everyone's warm and safe somewhere. I am the associate manager for the account management group in client services. Basically, we handle all of the customer service at TechSoup. So when you register with us, we handle the qualification process. When you have questions, comments, concerns, you've talked to us about it, and we can assist you with different things and help you use TechSoup to the best of your abilities. This question did come up a Q&A post. How do I learn about products? Where is the information? How much am I spending on it? So I want to go over that with you all because it's really useful so that you don't have to get on live chat with us and make and try to get in contact with us when you've got the information right here on the website. So first things first, I always tell folks is that once you've gone through the different dropdowns or you've used the magnifying glass to find a product, you've clicked on it like Nick's talked about earlier today. You're going to have this what's called an offers details page or a product page. On this page, you're going to see at the very top the admin fee is listed in bright red, quantities underneath it. If you're logged in like I am here, you'll see add to cart. And then underneath it, you can add as many organizations to your one TechSoup member account as you want. So say if you're a consultant and you have a lot of organizations you're working with, you absolutely can just have one TechSoup account to manage all of them. When you're making a request, you just want to make sure you see it's the four. So mine says test test, you'd want to make sure it says for your organization. And you can always access that information in your my account area, which is that little round icon in the top right corner with the little person outlined. So I always want to check there first. Is this the are you logged in able to add it to the cart? Do you see the correct organization listed? Then also it's important to look at, you know, what are you getting here? Is it an online cloud product that will work on any platform? Is it PC specific? Is it Mac specific? Really important to make sure you're looking at that stuff before checking out quite a few of our nonprofit programs that we're partnered with have no refunds and no exchange policies. So you really want to make sure you're confident about what you're requesting before you check out because you might not be able to return it if it's a mistake of I needed a PC version and I got the Mac version. Things along those lines. So please, please, please make sure to check all that information first. And then I recommend going down to the next level. So the little box that highlights those things, I know it's gray on white, so it can be a little hard to see. It's something we are aware of. But you want to make sure you click through all three of these tabs because this is going to answer pretty much all of your questions. The for example, I saw quite a few questions about QuickBooks today. So QuickBooks online plus, you know, what do I pay it out or into it? What do I pay to you guys? So you'll see here it actually in that second paragraph calls out that every 12 months, you are going to pay TechSoup this admin fee. And it doesn't mention anything about being a discounted rate. This is the subscription fee. Every year, you're going to pay TechSoup a $75 admin fee to renew your subscription. Now, if you were to click on the middle tab, the subscription details, it would then go into what's not included. So there is, for example, add on services for QuickBooks online. That would be quick, add on services like payroll for QuickBooks online. Intuit hasn't decided to include in their nonprofit program. So those aren't included. So if you are using add on fees or sorry, add on services, you will see additional fees directly from Intuit because it's their product. They're charging you for it. They didn't include in their nonprofit program. So really, really important to make sure you go through all three of these tabs thoroughly read all of the information. It should usually answer your questions. And I will get into how you can contact us if you need to ask us any questions about the product, the service, you know, is it, you know, a yearly fee? Is it not all that stuff we can answer for you. But a lot of times it's going to be outlined here in the three tabs of information. Awesome. So how do I get support? That's a common question we hear as well. So the first things first, whether you're logged in or not doesn't matter is you can always go to our TechSoup support page. It's something that we've recently relaunched and really invested a lot of time and energy to get all of the most common questions we hear for TechSoup in general. We're also starting to develop program FAQs in there. So you'll see Microsoft already has one into it. We're developing right now. So a lot more information will be in this TechSoup support article section. You access it by clicking help at the very top right of the screen next to where you log in or join or if you're already logged in next to where your cart and you're accessing your My Account areas. Next please. So once you get into TechSoup support, a couple different options. I always recommend, you know, typing in some keywords in the search area. That should help you get to the articles you're looking for or the information you're looking for. We also have different subjects outlined here. And if you scroll down this page, you will see the promoted articles. These are really common ones. So that is something that I recommend checking out. I'm going to put into the webinar channel. This is the text, sorry, I'm putting into our Zoom channel right now. The URL for this landing page, it's support.techsoup.org. So you might want to bookmark that. I usually recommend it. Really great place to start for finding information after you've reviewed offer details and things like that. Next slide, please. So how, you know, what is out there? What's available? Nick just went all over it. But if you don't want to go back through and rewatch this webinar every time you're curious of, oh, what was that service that was mentioned? Or what was Quad again? Things like that. We do have a great support article here that outlines pretty much everything that we have available that has to do with support services and resources. So Quad, you'll see product information right down there. That's how you look at the product page. Like I'm going on over right now. There's talk about how you can connect with the customer success that Kevin's and Char are part of things along those lines. Really recommend bookmarking this one as well. And I just dropped that into the chat for you as well. So keeping this in mind, that's a great one. And that's important to keep in mind because TechSoup customer service, what can we do for you? So TechSoup customer service, sorry, my dog's barking in the background. TechSoup customer service can assist you with your TechSoup account management eligibility questions. You know, that's a big one. Not every organization is going to be eligible for every nonprofit program out there. It's pretty important to recognize that these are donation and discount programs. Partners of ours do have their own philanthropic goals that they're trying to meet. And sometimes they're going to limit their focus. Sometimes they are focusing on just one type of organization or organizations that are under a certain budget or organizations in a certain region, things along those lines. So it's not a comment on really what your organization does when you're not eligible for something. It is just a comment on what the partner's trying to focus on with their philanthropic goals that year or those years. So just to keep in mind, if you're trying to check out, you can't check out. It says you're not eligible. You might want to look at that. Usually there's low messaging and it tells you that. And then also on the product page we went over, there is an eligibility tab on the right side that you can review and you can always contact customer service if you have questions about your eligibility. Things we can't assist you with. We are not IT support. That's why we have the wonderful TechSoup services available to you. Customer service is basically general customer service. We can answer general questions about the products. We can provide support resources we've been given, but we're not IT support. We're not product support and we're not in-depth product functionality trained to answer those kinds of questions. We have a lot of partners. They create and own the offers that we have on our website. A lot of times they're the best person to ask about functionality. They're the ones to ask about download support, things along those lines, but you're always welcome to start with TechSoup customer service first and then we can kind of point you on where to go from there. Next slide, please. So something that did recently change in January is that we have switched to a chat-only environment. And I like to say live chat because it really calls out that it is a live contact option. It is with real people. We do not use chat AI or a chat bot to work with you. So when you use this as an option, we are going to be working with you. It's a live person. You're going to get what you need and then we can always follow up by email if you have to go or if we need to follow up with you on things, but the chat's been really nice. We've been able to get documentation for qualification right away. We're able to see kind of maybe what web page you're on. You can send us things a little bit easier. So we did really look at this and we decided to move forward with live chat only. So there's no longer a phone call center that you can contact. And we do have a great TechSoup support article on how to contact us as you see right there. This is definitely one to keep in mind as well and maybe check when you're before you contact us. I recommend that because you never know with ours. Stuff comes up. Tech issues come up. We're nonprofit as well. We have our own limited resources. So I always recommend checking here first to make sure that you're within our business hours. There's no notifications about delays. Anything along those lines should usually get you going and help you figure out, you know, is there something you can do in the meantime or you need to come back later when we're a little less late? Next slide, please. So the hours currently are and again, always subject to change depending on member needs and what TechSoup can support. But the hours currently are Monday through Thursday. We are available through live chat 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Pacific. On Fridays, it's from 7 a.m. to 12 30 p.m. and we resume from 4 to 2. And again, this is Pacific time zone. I've heard from a lot of members that have trouble contacting us and they're in a different time zone and they they're just missing our hours because of that nuance. So always keep in mind Pacific time zone. And then really important to keep in mind for the live chat. We have had reports that the live chat button isn't always visible. So, you know, a couple of things we recommend. Our website runs best on a computer. It's not really designed for mobile devices or like iPads or things like that. We do recommend using a computer when navigating it or when reaching out for support. We've also heard from some of our members that are IT professionals that older versions of browsers can cause issues with widgets on all websites. So it's something to keep in mind that you want to make sure you're having the most current version of your browser on the market installed on your computer when trying to contact us via chat. Popup blockers and ad blockers are always important to check if you're not seeing our help bubble or seeing the live chat option within the help button or bubble. And then trying to use another browser or another device is always something we recommend for website issues. It could be your browser. It could be the connection to your device. So just make sure that, you know, you're trying all of these options when you don't see us during the Pacific time zones that we have outlined. It's rare for us not to be adhering to this schedule. So if you're not seeing it, you're in the right time zone. It's probably a browser or device issue. So something to keep in mind. Perfect. And I believe that was the last one I have there. Perfect. Thank you so much, everyone. Always enjoy talking at you like us and with you in the chat and have a great rest of your week now. Great. And now I'm going to bring forward another great colleague of mine, Kevin Mulhall. And Kevin is part of the customer success team. And so like again, to differentiate the two angles here, Kelly and the customer support team are going to help you with your relationship with TechSoup. Kevin and the customer success team are going to help you with your relationship with the products and services you're using. All you, Kevin. Thanks, Nick. That introduction, I almost feel like there's nothing else to kind of add to that, but there sort of is. So I'm Kevin Mulhall. I'm a senior technical customer success manager on the CES team here. So really, I just wanted to spend maybe a minute or two minutes just to talk about kind of the space that we occupy or operate in to Nick's point. We sit somewhere between or within the hierarchy of general customer support and then managed assistance from one of our partners which was brought up earlier in the presentation. We are there to help and support inquiries that organizations will have about the specific products. As you can see here on the slide, we are a team of, I don't call out that we're a team of six, but we're a team of six because that's changed somewhat recently. Between us, we actually probably are closer to 25 to 30 years of IT experience and helping nonprofits. Really, it's about learning more about the products and services that are available to and through TechSoup as a part of a strategic advisory engagement. The way that it informally works is we're happy to engage with, we call you customers, members, once within a calendar year for just general non-request or order support instances. If going back to the Quad slide earlier, if an organization is looking for maybe some type of additional or more advanced advising in just the generalities of technology, that is where Quad comes into play. Members of Quad are able to engage with us on a much more frequent basis as part of an implied, if you will, membership benefit because it just kind of falls in line with what our goal is of organizations being able to successfully onboard and adopt the products and services that they request from, not only requests from us, but we do work with helping to identify products and services that may not necessarily be in TechSoup's wheelhouse. While we have an amazing list of vendor partners, there are certain product areas where we may not have as many options as we'd like and understanding that we are flexible on our team to be able to help assist with that. Again, you're going to be working with myself, one of my colleagues. I carry multiple Microsoft certifications AWS, GCP, Oracle, and Network Plus certifications. My colleagues also have some as well, so we're not just kind of a talking point for it. We understand, we use the products, we test the products. Another great function of engaging, byproduct of engaging with us is insights into the latest practices and principles within the nonprofit space. You can see here in this paradigm, we touch everything from technology, auditing, request for proposals, scopes from work, basically non-managed services, but to help you kind of springboard and launch the things that you need.  Thanks, Kevin. I'm going to blow Kevin's whistle a little bit here. I spent a lot of last week with Kevin up in Seattle. We were attending together a Microsoft conference on AI in the nonprofit sector around the world. It was a very deep conference. We didn't talk about AI at all in today's presentation, but I think you'll see some stuff coming from TechSoup on that soon. Between sessions, dozens of nonprofits were coming to the TechSoup booth all wanting to chat with Kevin about some technical issue that they are having trouble with. For me, it was just like this wonderful reminder of the value we actually bring to the nonprofit sector because all these nonprofits had questions that they were having trouble getting answers to out on the wide world web, the world wide web, sorry. We were able to have a human being right there and answer those questions and get them sorted in the direction that they need to go. For me, it was great to watch that happen. It's just wonderful to know that my colleagues are the people who have the answers who can actually help nonprofits not just steer them in a different direction. Well, with that, we've reached the end of today's presentation. I want to really thank all of you for taking time out of your schedule today. Also, just to say personally, all of us who work in the nonprofit sector have made a decision to try and make the world a better place. The organizational missions we support are deeply varied and they cover all sorts of issue areas like we saw at the beginning. But at the core of those organizations are the human beings who make a specific choice to work in that and not just go out into some other job that perhaps may not give them the sense of satisfaction that I think working in the nonprofit sector really does. So, I want to thank you all for your decision to do that work and for all the little ways in which you are making your community better and stronger every day. That's what we're trying to do at TechSoup to support you in that work. And while today's webinar is really designed for organizations who have just joined TechSoup, you know, I know some folks may have a slightly longer history and in which case I hope that today's presentation was helpful. And I think there are probably some folks on the call who have not yet joined TechSoup but they were wondering if they should. And I hope today answered that question in the affirmative for you. If you've not already joined TechSoup and your organization is not yet a member, please take five minutes and go and sign up and add your organization to TechSoup. The join button is in the top right corner of techsoup.org. And, you know, you need to go through a qualification process with us before you can access the offers and services that I outlined in today's webinar. Because these things are valuable, they're only available to real 501c3 nonprofits. And so the accreditation process you go through TechSoup is really just us verifying that you are indeed a 501c3 nonprofit and eligible for these offers. So if you haven't done that yet, please do that. With that, I wish the rest of your day goes swimmingly. We appreciate your time. And I hope we'll see you online at TechSoup.org. Have a great day.


It's nuts. I never in a million.  I'm an actor. Hi guys, it's Madison harnish Welcome back to my blue kitchen for another crazy video if you enjoy deep dives and like to analyze Then don't forget to hit that subscribe button and give this video a thumbs up and well, let's get into the video Today's video is going to be all about Jared Leto's Colt that he started. I have no idea what this is. It's a little bit bizarre Some people feel like it's a marketing ploy some people think it's an actual cult Some people think that it's Jared Leto and his narcissism in full form I don't really know what it is. So we're gonna dive into it today and figure that out together I haven't heard much about Jared Leto lately. So before we dive into his weird cult thing festival thing Before we dive into that, let's check out a vlog so we can see what Jared Leto has been up to lately Let's talk about the last 40 days purge from the desert after a two-week silent meditation silent meditation For two weeks, okay? Communication with the outside world the entire planet was shut down and life hasn't been the same sense I found out all communication is now done on something called zoo that's some screaming people Which is a compliment. I learned how to make rice. First of all, I learned how to learn rice Then I learned how to make rice wrote some music played some geek car launched the Jared Leto cinema club with Ferris Peelow's day off Moved on to Tiger King with Joe Exotic became Joe Exotic Meanwhile me during quarantine.  Not cuz I'm doing things But just because the day stretches on and on and you start to lose track of time or they even the concept of time Meanwhile Jared Leto is over here like Okay 70 hours I always think it's a funny dichotomy when people claim to be like super Zen and like I'm super Zen I meditate I go on these retreats. I'm just like Spiritually above you Cook some more food took pictures of my food share pictures of said food got a thousand submissions for the community charity To the quarantine with all profits going to partners in health walked around my house Celebrated our last album America launched a new 2020 lists tea with all profits going to charity. Oh, yeah We got it in pink, too Did a wardrobe change on Instagram live celebrated Easter in quarantine dabbled with tiktok Meditated some more okay first off very impressive all the stuff that Jared Leto's doing he's definitely a Very active person and I commend him for that lots of goals Charities all that kind of stuff. This video is not Jared Leto is a bad person video, but But I also want to point out how slightly out of touch he is I know a lot of people have talked about Celebrities going on to social media or even talking during quarantine and how they just feel very out of touch with reality And what the rest of the world is dealing with and I definitely think Jared Leto is one of those people Because most of us this is not realistic I mean, let's be real most of us during quarantine. We're extremely nervous about losing our jobs I actually lost a job during quarantine that stuff is happening and then Jared Leto's over here like I'm trying on clothes and cooking pasta The way that Jared Leto looks into the camera too reminds me of that meme where it's like blue eyes take selfies like Okay, so that's what Jared Leto has been up to during quarantine but if you remember watching the beginning of That whole vlog he mentions his 12-day or two-week meditation retreat and That's where this video is gonna get weird because we are talking about the Jared Leto cult music festival Fire festival number two. So rumors of Jared Leto starting a cult happened back in 2019 when reports came out that Jared Leto was walking around in this white dress looking like Jesus like really similar and invited his fans to join him on an isolated island It's all majority white people Walking around with white clothing and it's just creepy the Mars Island cult symbol is a triangle with a line through it Members will even get that tattooed on them while they're staying at Mars Island And here is the official description of Mars Island Mars Island is a three-night all-inclusive Festival experience Relax and restore with yoga amongst the trees take a dip in the pool Catch a midnight screening or gaze at the stars and catch two intimate performances with 30 seconds to Mars Mars Island is an experience like no other while I do think going on a trip to an island would be really cool It still seems kind of scary to be trapped on an island with a bunch of strangers And everyone's wearing white like this could be like a horror movie film Like it just sounds really creepy and scary to me and all those people have to use the restroom They have to take showers. They have to eat It's a lot of resources that an island has to provide in like a short span of time So here's a video of the island So here's the other thing the costs to Mars Island are insane like insane So Mars Island, which is happening this August 2020, which I'm also like Is the coronavirus not a thing anymore like okay? And the cheapest package the cheapest package that this entire experience offers is the Stargazer South Camp package, which is currently priced at $1,499 for three days So you're staying in a tent on a hot humid island and going to two concerts And that's worth $1,499 I mean I get if you're a die-hard fan and this is like your favorite band ever Like I can understand why this would be exciting and like an opportunity you'd want to jump on but I'm also just like From the perspective of the band and Jared Leto himself I'm just like really you're gonna charge your die-hard fans $1,499 to stay on an island in like these tents and everything. I just okay Okay, on the opposite end of the spectrum the VIP daydreamer package is currently $6,499 and this VIP package is located in sun lodges that are completely weatherproof lockable Lockable so were the tents not lockable. I could see this type of thing maybe Maybe being reasonable with like multiple Artists and multiple bands where you're like it's a genuine music festival But to do all of this to only see 30 seconds to Mars is definitely a little bit strange The prices are insane. That's literally like four months of rent for me Into a three-day trip to an island Jared Leto is really making bank with this I also can't help but think of how weird of a marketing tactic It is to call a luxury music festival experience a cult because that's really what he's doing Instead of saying come pay thousands and thousands of dollars to go to my luxury music festival Experience which kind of gives reminders of like fire festival instead of saying that he's saying this is a cult I'm a leader. This is a crazy spiritual experience I'm not sure if they're doing that to like try and justify the price or to do a big marketing ploy All of a sudden everyone's curious. Is this the cult? What's really going on here and people actually want to pay money for the experience because of that? I don't really know because to me when I see this is a cult and you have to pay $1,400 to $6,000 to have this experience I'm like actually all of those things sound awful and terrible and I will avoid all of those So cult followers are referred to as the echelon Members of the echelon also use the hashtag you wouldn't understand Which sounds like a weird mix of like an angsty teen like you don't understand mom Like you wouldn't understand which is fitting for 30 seconds to Mars. Sorry if you like the music I even like some other songs, but it is pretty angsty teen type of music and then also like a cult You just don't get it. Come join us. We'll explain everything to you So let's watch this video that explains. What is the echelon? These are all just random words I kind of feel like it's a lazy way of putting together a cult video The breakaway movement did a better job than this because you just see fans that are just way too excited And then it's just like emotions support Understanding also, I love how they add support financial support. Give me your money You heard it here guys Jared Leto is uniting the world with an island Trip that you have to pay thousands of dollars to go to The world is united. Thank you Jared Leto We couldn't have done it without him. No more problems Everything solved That's when you get into really creepy cult territory when people start crying because they're happy to be on an island Where they paid thousands of dollars. I mean, I would be happy to be that detached from reality, but Also random question, but has anyone ever actually cried tears of happiness before like I've seen it in movies and books and Now here, but I've never experienced that emotion in my life where I'm like so happy that I start crying I've never experienced that before Can I also just say weirdly? I feel like Jared Leto in 30 seconds to Mars is actually making their fan base look really bad Showing these video clips of their fans just looking so over-the-top Excited for like a cult recruitment video It makes them look like these blind followers instead of just people going to a concert and having a good time So by making your fans look like cult followers, you're kind of making them look ridiculous And you're charging them an over-the-top amount it feels like you're kind of treating your fans poorly and massively Massively profiting from them while trying to tell them that it's this connecting experience where we're all families It just feels manipulative to me and also like they just genuinely don't care about their fan base and how they make their fan base look Just as long as they're bringing them in cash and getting that outrage marketing Jumping up and down with their hand up in the air. That's what people do at a concert But then when you twist the narrative into all of a sudden like this is a cult It makes it look so creepy Example if we look at K-pop stands, I think that K-pop does an incredible job of respecting their fans and appreciating their fans They understand that their fans have so much power which the K-pop community does. It's incredible It's insane the things that they're able to move and change when they all come together and K-pop bands respect that they understand that they provide a service to their fans and go above and beyond To deliver that but still respect their fans as individuals and it feels like this whole cult echelon 30 seconds to Mars thing is the complete opposite of that They don't respect their fans at all are trying to make them look like blind cult followers It's just this like fake way of trying to almost create the devotion that K-pop stands have With 30 seconds to Mars, but they're not doing it in the right way at all in my opinion K-pop fans and stands definitely let me know more about that in the comments below if you have any input on that as well It feels like Jared Leto was aware of how dedicated his fans were to the band and Decided to further profit off of that by creating a cult like experience The hashtag you wouldn't understand causes fans to separate themselves and create this us versus them mentality So any time their actions or what they're doing is questioned They can just say well you don't understand and go further and further down the whole of devotion The band once even held a competition Where the prize was sleeping at night in Jared Leto's bed with him like that's so creepy in 2013 he even said if people like 30 seconds to Mars, they really really like it We have this cult this family these believers They have even specifically requested that fans get tattoos in their honor, which are the triangles the symbols Not only do they have the Mars Island experience? They also have camp Mars, which charges 999 dollars for two nights in Malibu and It's only for outdoor camping where you have to bring your own tent and your own supplies and You still pay a thousand dollars for two nights Hardcore 30 seconds to Mars fans have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for crumbs of what other bands would charge For example, the band charges $900 for meet and greets to put that into perspective one direction has charged 658 Rihanna only charging 116 in 2015 and Taylor Swift doesn't charge her fans at all to meet her and yet in 2013 Jared Leto Declared the band anti-green It makes me so sad because they are obviously Manipulating and taking advantage of their own fans and it's just not right yet They're spouting this rhetoric of like community and family and understanding when they're doing the exact opposite in their actions so let's react to some footage of Mars Island in 2019 Camp Mars to kind of see what the actual experience is if it's worth it or if it's just blatant manipulation by 30 seconds to Mars to get as much out of their fans as possible Way that the audience just laughs like that was not funny, I'm sorry That wasn't funny he just put on a Joker voice. He was like ha ha look at me Joker voice I was that guy and everyone just laughed as if it was the funniest thing That's creepy It's good to see you At the one and only camp it's a little hot, but it's not that hot, right? I'm sure some of you came from places that are even much hotter. It's gonna be fun Hey, you get some food? Yeah, we got lots of good food for you. You're gonna leave very healthy Everybody check out their rooms or their tents Okay, make sure you leave your door locked He's dressing in all way and trying to act like this prophet Jesus like character and yet he gets up to talk to his followers and he's like So what about the weather ha ha I was the Joker ones.  I'm hooked. This is definitely an experience. I have to have in my life As you can see it's already white night for me Every day is white night Is white day So tomorrow is white night, right? Okay Does anybody have any questions Okay, great This is literally worst Worst this is worse than summer camps that I went to as a child You had like the camp counselors that were like way too stoked to be there I always felt awkward and uncomfortable the whole time but looking back.   I'm gonna flop around like a seal. Ha ha ha ha Riveting Riveting performance from Jared Leto himself as he tries to escape a bug Okay, very few things were uncovered from that video. That was extremely boring But also you could sense just like the tone of I really don't give a single shit about any of this in his voice So that was lovely, but let's look at the closing ceremony from camp Maris to see if it's any different She had anyone say no I feel like it just started like I'm just getting ready. Okay. Now we can start We should extend it If everybody pitches in a couple dollars, I think we can work it out Just just a couple Okay, remember That people paid a thousand dollars for this You do whatever you want with your money like honestly if you got it and you want to spend it go for it, but and her team of Incredible Mexicans as well that come Let me tell you something But both camp and California wouldn't be very much without Mexicans. That is for sure We owe Mexico a great deal And rather than building walls, we should just pave a giant huge welcome sign and road come on up We need more of you Here's a video of Mars Island in 2019, so let's take a look at that The drumming circle China The world's smallest backdrop Overall don't get me wrong. The experience does look fun Does it look like something that I would want to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on? No most of the time when Jared let us there. He's very bored and very like Uninterested in the conversation It doesn't seem like the experience that Jared let oh at least is trying to make it look like it is on social media It's great to find your people You know, I think we're all looking for a community where we can go to and fit in and feel like we belong But you shouldn't have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars to be a part of a community And to be a part of a group of people if it gets to that point Then maybe someone's just taking advantage of your desire to belong to something Unfortunately, the last video will react to is a video uploaded by a 30 seconds to Mars fan Defending Mars Island and her experiences. I'm gonna try and blur out her face. Hello YouTube Welcome to Anna Bella. And yes, this is a reaction video to the strange and somewhat disturbing Allegations that Jared Leto's Mars camp slash Mars Island is a cult Hate to disappoint you it is totally not because here it was more of an adult relaxation retreat I did a painting class and painted Island. Oh That's adorable. What I think she fails to realize with this is that Jared Leto is kind of the one calling it a cult and making his followers look bad as if they're a part of the cult for a social media scandal of sorts as For the whole cult thing where we all stood on the cliffs That was the awkward family photo that you have on holiday people It really was it took us two hours to do that, but it was the awkward family photo You know, we have to get all your relatives together Only this time it was all the members that attended Mars Island We all got together and did a photo, but that's not a cult It took us two hours to gather yet. We still did it Even though it was painful For no apparent reason That's not a cult also nothing made me feel like this was a cult more than this video trying to Explain how it's not a cult because she's almost too defensive About it where it makes me feel like yeah, this is definitely a cult It was just a relaxing holiday people that happened to have a band and the band consists of Jared Leto Who happens to be an actor his brother Shannon who is one of the brilliant drummers? So I'm not really kind of getting where people are coming with like the whole cult angle thing Yes, Jared did grow up in a commune in the 1960 late 1960s early 1970s But give me a break already, you know, obviously, I don't think this person deserves any hate. They're very passionate They're very passionate about this band and this community that they feel has been informed and they had a good time And that's great but the unfortunate reality is that I Just genuinely believe that 30 seconds to Mars fans are being taken advantage of and being made to look Ridiculous and it's by Jared Leto himself There's the whole aspect of the greediness of the amount that they charge for their fans I just think a lot of it is really hypocritical and just for a marketing ploy and to further profit off of their fans Which they don't like to call fans. So echelon also last thing I'll say on this topic Something is a joke until it's not you can claim that you're participating in a cult As a joke or a practical joke, but you're still doing all of the things that a cult does So when does a practical joke go too far or start to blur the lines and become an actual cult? And that's really all I have to say on this video I think that they'll definitely be a really interesting conversation in the comments about Personal thoughts on this and being a fan of a band and one that goes too far So I'm definitely really excited to check out the comments of this video. I hope you guys I Hope you guys are doing well and staying safe and until next time have a good one


North Korea already supplying munitions to Russia for 1.5 months. Ammunition from North Korea could help Russia win time by giving its defence industry a chance to catch up with military demand. Such a statement was made by the head of the main intelligence directorate of Ukraine's Defence Ministry, Kyrylo Budinov, against the background of Kim Jong-un's visit to Russia to meet with Vladimir Putin, according to Envy Media outlet. North Korea has been supplying Russia with 122mm and 152mm artillery rounds and rockets for grad, multiple rocket launchers for a month and a half, Budinov said. According to Western media, during Kim Jong-un's visit, the Kremlin seeks to secure the supply of ammunition from North Korea in exchange for other weapons as well as technology and oil. As reported earlier, the New York Times citing sources wrote that Vladimir Putin seeks to receive from North Korea artillery rounds and anti-tank missiles, while Kim Jong-un wants Russia to provide North Korea with advanced technology for satellites and nuclear submarines. In addition, Kim is seeking food aid for his country. The White House said Putin and Kim recently exchanged letters and Russian Defence Minister Shoigu's visit to Pyongyang in July included discussions of the arms deal.