Okay, we're back. This is Dave Vellante at wikibond.org and I'm here with my co-host, John Furrier. We are live at Citrix Synergy in Moscone West. Synergy 2011, we're hearing lots of themes on cloud, mobile, consumerization, and the simplification and orchestration of all sorts of IT services. And we're here right now with Mike Stringer. Mike is the MD of support at Citrix and we're gonna talk about services. Michael, welcome to theCUBE. Thank you. Glad to be here. Good, and so we are here at Synergy Live, Silicon Angles Continuous Coverage, The Cube, the Worldwide Leader, and Tech Coverage. And Michael, support services, services in general, it's something that's sort of an afterthought, but a lot of customers that we talk to, that's where the value is, right? I mean, it's all about reducing risk for CIOs. It's about getting value from the technology. So what's your take on services? What's Citrix's party line there? So I basically based my career off services. I've been at Citrix for over 13 years and always been in some kind of, I've been fortunate enough to be in a customer facing or partner facing position. And we've seen it change quite a bit over the years. It went from a very tactical, I need a hot fix to how should I deploy, what are best practices, what are other people doing and how can I get data about what the industry is doing as well, per vertical even. And so we're building a lot of tools and capabilities that we can help with a customer like healthcare. Healthcare always says, hey, I know you have a lot of healthcare. Why are we having problems? Why aren't the rest of your customers having problems in that vertical? Now we have the capabilities of going, these are the things that that vertical's doing. This is why they're doing it. This is what you should be doing. You could do that for financials and education and whatnot. Is that a big change? I mean, what has changed in services over the last, say, 10 years? So like I said, I feel like it was real tactical at one point. Closer? I felt like it was much more tactical. It was an afterthought. What do you mean by that? Something's broken, come and fix it? Something was broken and then you got the call. But that's expensive, right? And as you become a company that's in enterprise environments, you're in critical environments, you're in hospitals, you're in trading floors, you gotta get in front of those type of issues and you've gotta build scalability and manageability into your servicing offerings. Meaning being more proactive? Yes, absolutely. So give us an example. Today, we're actually developing a tool and doing usability studies with a tool here at Synergy. And it's called Citrix Tools as a Service. It's an initiative out of the support organization that really is focused on information gathering, taking and auto-analyzing that information and then providing back tailored results to the person that's uploaded that data. Oftentimes that's a partner or an end-user, an end-customer administrator.  So you know exactly what you're doing and why you're doing it. Because change windows are hard too. Everybody wants uptime. So you only want to change for items that you have to change for and you want to change ahead of an outage type scenario. You know, John, we've been talking about the services angle for a while now and really services is where the rubber meets the road, isn't it? Yeah, I mean Dave, storage is sexy last year at EMC where we talked about storage is sexy but this year services is sexy because I mean a lot of money's being made and a lot of on the consultancy side certainly delivering services and a lot of investment on the IT side has been made on supporting and doing delivering services to customers. So in this real-time web environment this is a new hot innovative area because there's a serious money on the line, dollars that affect the business and to the user experience is affected by this. So what I'm interested to know is what are you seeing in terms of innovation around services? Obviously, the social web with mobile gives you new capabilities, you have new data sources, virtualization is a big part of that, you mentioned healthcare. I mean, the iPad, some say might even revolutionize healthcare in and of itself with desktop virtualization, some of the apps that you guys are showing here but I'm interested more in the support side. You're going to still support this stuff, your automations key and also the processes around support. So what's changing with support relative to the process and what are some of the innovation areas? There's two areas of innovation, part of its process and part of it's actually a development effort. On the back end, support organizations today have a lot of different initiatives and one of ours is called supportability. So taking all this data that we have and support has a lot of data that's never used, taking all that data, massage it and being able to feed it back to the product groups so you can work with your usability, you can work with that user experience and significantly improve what your customer's experience is with the product. So those are huge initiatives that we have within Citrix from a process and information side. And then mentioned earlier, developing new tools and new services, online services, cloud-based services that can centralize all the tribal knowledge of Citrix but more importantly, the tribal knowledge of your entire community in a location where all your administrators can get together. Walk us through that scenario because that's a cutting edge scenario. You're basically taking all the new data in because you have access to data. Take us through that tribal knowledge, how you're aggregating all that because it sounds like a lot of automation, a lot of technologies involved. A lot of data. It's a lot of data. You know, it's not that much different than the idea of crowdsourcing or even forums, right? The mini to mini type ideas and even a knowledge center in general. But what we wanted to do was customize it so it was based off how people were using the product, what features they were using of the product and what their environment looked like. And so we built a backend infrastructure that we call known-issue plugins, right? And we have a saying in Citrix the first rule of known issues is tell everybody about known issues. The second rule of known issues is tell everybody about known issues. We want to share that across the entire industry. So we built this infrastructure so you can build a known-issue plugin without any scripting ability or any kind of coding ability as the end user. Or if you want to, you can build your own scripts, your own C code, your own Perl, your own Python, it doesn't matter. We wanted the very easy for the non-coding group and then the coding group that wants to do a lot more, we wanted to make that. But we didn't want to only open that to Citrix. We wanted to open that to our partners and our customers. So the architecture is built such that not only can Citrix contribute but a partner or a customer can use their own sandbox and build their own plugins. Most customers and most partners have environments that are Citrix environments but they have very specific things in them. You could think of an Epic or a Cerner. They want to check more than just a Citrix DLL or a Citrix service. They want to know that my Citrix environment is running correctly. So they can build their own plugins, run those, and if they want to, they can share that with the community as well. So we think that many to many aspect will help build this type of known-issue plugin much more so than just a forum and just a sharing information. How has it been well received? So it's been really well received. We've done about 200 usability studies just in the last two days. We've got great feedback. Of course, we've got some really great ideas from some of our partners as well. You know, the problem I see in a lot of this area is using Google as a blunt instrument.  Is this gonna change that? So Google's a monster, right? And it's awesome for getting information. But it's very generic information when you get something from a knowledge center or from a Google type of appliance. What we want people, we want to take and customize, massage, you know, tailor that information to what specifically you need. So you don't need the latest and greatest hot fix or service pack or version. You need what you need to run your environment the best based off what your configuration environment is. How will you measure the success of this program? And what's your primary metric or two or three primary metrics that you're gonna use to measure the success of this? We've got internal and external metrics. So from an internal perspective, we want all the front end pieces of this built into the product. So you've got someone like Klaus Osterman who leads our networking and cloud division is building phone home into the NetScalers to be the front end of this service, right? Looking at those type of capabilities. But you also have the desktop director groups, you know, the Zen App groups. We want that front end built into the product. It's button push easy, you click one button, you get the information you need and we provide you back the customized results. So that's an internal metric. How we want to measure it from externally is the number of people contributing to the known issue database, to that analysis database. And not just contributions, but we also have a rating system. So we want to know that, you know, the plugins and the known issue database, each one actually resolves issue and has a high rating, you know, per known issue plugin. So we've built that in as well as there's hours and things that used to take a long time. We've built in some metrics just on hours saved and softer numbers like that. And will you track resolutions? I mean, because that's one of the problems I find with forums a lot as you go into the forums as well, this question wasn't answered. It was asked but not answered. So will you track resolutions and is that a key indicator? That's a great question. And resolutions are super hard to track in most systems because you go to a Knowledge Center article, you get an answer, you go do it. It may take some time to do it and that web browser isn't opening long. You don't go back and go, okay, I'm gonna be a nice guy and go back to their website and tell them it resolved my issue because nothing is resolved in a few seconds. In this case, you're uploading data and your data is housed there. So you may not go back on that first, you get that first analysis back and you go fix that. You may not be back for a little bit while to that page but as we update your plugins and known issues that we run, the best practices and common mistakes and known fixes that are coming out, we'll reanalyze your data that's up there and proactively alert you of new items that you're potentially susceptible to from that data. So you'll be back at that site in the same location and you'll have the same items that just get resolved or not. I don't wanna keep seeing these same things on my list so I'll click whether it was resolved or not. That's how we think we'll get better data and that doesn't happen in a knowledge center today. Sounds like you guys are using the KISS principle here. I mean, a lot of services organizations are getting very granular with the touch points and the channels that they use to provide support. There's chat, there's IVR, there's obviously phone, there's web, et cetera, forums. It sounds like you're saying, look, we wanna make the preferred interaction point, this knowledge management system through the web, web browser, keep it simple. We absolutely wanna do that and we want it to be as simple as possible and you guys have heard the theme over and over again at this event is easy, simple, simpler, more easy, more easy, more simple. Easy button. Push button easy. You've seen a ton of that and that's absolutely the case. What about complexity? I'll see you with the support data that you're getting, you're getting the phone in from the home as you're saying that they're working on. You're doing a lot of big data. What's your philosophy on the big data? Can you give any examples? Can you share with us how you're handling all this big data, new data, I mean, I got diverse data from your partners. How are you guys architecting that? Is there any insight there? The back end is mostly still SQL on the back end. We've got a lot of that. It's cloud-based, but everything in the architecture is running on top of ZIN servers with VPX in front of them. And we have that so we can easily scale up and down. With the ZIN servers, we can bring servers online. We can bring database storage online up and down as we're testing. So during this week, as a good example, we're doing a lot of usability testing. A lot of stuff is going through there. Then we're able to ramp up easily. And we've built architecture like that because as we get a number of users, we need to be able to scale that really easy. And it's fairly automated. I mean, that's what we sell, but it's really easy for us to use our own products. What have you learned over the past year and a half, two years around in the support changing landscape, also using your own products, ZIN servers, everything else, virtualization, you have mobility. These are massive trends out there. Have you learned anything you can share with us in terms of how you're putting this all together as it's a changing landscape? What's the key things that you can say that you've learned from these areas? So having been in support for a long time and really been a part of some of the acquisitions and have moved out to the Bay Area during the NET Scaler and NET 6 and our orbital acquisitions, I was able to work with the hardware teams and the software teams and really combine the thought process together. How are we doing health checking in software? How can we do that from NET scalers? Where can we push the products to integrate better? And if you see what our partners are selling today and what environments look like, you see actually the software teams and stuff pulling in the network teams and pulling in a lot of networking equipment. And so we've turned much more into a networking company than we have in the past. And as we, one of the big shifts that I saw was as we went to the VPX platform, right? That made it so easy for people to step into the networking and get all the benefits of a NET Scaler in a software package. So we see that exploding. We're using it in-house for many different items, whether it's health checking or just GSLV and better experience for end users. Mike, I call it the services gene. There's something in services people, DNA, that makes them want to be services people. You've been in the services business for a while. Some people just love it. They love interacting with customers, helping customers solve problems. Have you seen the skill set requirements change for people out there who want to be in that services business, who have that services DNA in their system? Or is there a new skill set? Yeah, what's changing in terms of the skill sets that are required? It's a good question and it's really interesting. So it's not as easy. So I started in support and I had one product. I had to know about one product. This is easy. You know, at the time it probably didn't feel that way, but working back. You were really innovative if you could do software and network traces. Today's guys, they have a pretty difficult job because they have to jump across so many products and they all touch each other and they all interact with each other. So having that broad base and that good background is definitely beneficial. What we see though is a big shift is people coming out of school with computer science degrees and IT degrees want to go into support now. It's easy to recruit these type of people into services organizations. And before everyone's goal was to go into a development organization and build a product. Now we have developers and our development teams moving to our teams. They want to be in front of the customers. They want to know how people use what they've built and what that experience is. Yeah, we were saying downstairs that it's an end user experience market we're living in. All the computing, all the technologies about end user experiences and you're seeing that with touching the end point with virtualization of desktop. But you're looking at them on the consumer side of the cloud and you guys talk about consumerization of IT, it's cool to develop apps fast. So you've got a new development environment where the mindset's different. Also you guys talk about open stack as well. So the new developer, the young guns coming into the market are like, hey, I want to go where the action is. So you got to move quickly in this new stuff coming down. So you're saying that that's a robust environment for development. Yeah, and if you look at services organizations a lot of times it's agile development. It's quick. It's getting that feedback. It's interaction. And you're not stuck on one part of the product for a year and a half. But if you do good, it's obvious, right? You help solve problems. Customers increase sales, save sales. I mean, you can see real proof in the puddings when you do stuff. Absolutely. So Mike, obviously you got to get this new system up and running, perfected, this sort of anticipatory knowledge management system, self-service system. What else is on your to-do list? What are customers saying to you? I mean, what's next after that in that sort of midterm horizon? I got a couple guys on my team, Stuart Kennedy and David McGow. And they're really focused on the overall online experience. So we're building this tool and we think this tool will really drive a lot of that experience. But we need to be able to open cases easier. We need to have chat. We need to be able to, nobody wants to call anybody on a phone, right? I never want to call anyone on a phone. I want to answer without anything. If I can't find that, I chat, I look for it. But I don't want to call anyone. And so we want to make that experience as good as possible. So nobody has to call support. That's the goal. We are here live in San Francisco, California, the Moscone Center. We're at Citrix Synergy 2011's going on. We're at theCUBE. We are, this is our flagship telecast from siliconangle.com, the worldwide leader in tech coverage. We go on the ground, we talk to the experts. We talk to the thought leaders, talk to the domain experts, extract their knowledge and share that with you. We're live here. Final question. What's your crystal ball for how technology like virtualization and now versus the desktop, net scaler, all those cloud gateways, all this kind of convergence. How is that going to change how people are supported in terms of your clients and then your customers' customers? I think support and services in general, and it sounds like you guys agree with me, we'll play a critical role there. But even with the service we're building, it's cloud-based, right? We don't care if you're in the private cloud. If you're in the public cloud, we don't care where you're at, right? We want the information and we'll provide you feedback back. We'll also help you transition. So I see services starting to automate and help you transition. So you want part in the private, part in the public, make that easier. That's going to be the big push over the next couple of years of how do you have that mix? Or how do I move? Or in DR scenarios, how do I instantly go back to the cloud and then back in-house? And probably most people that go to the cloud wouldn't come back in-house afterwards. Excellent. Mike Stringer, MD of the support area, support group of Citrix. Thanks for coming on theCUBE, sharing with us your knowledge. And good luck with the new system, rolling it out. We'll be watching. And hopefully you can come back and give us a progress support down the road. I really appreciate the time. Thanks guys. All right.


Hey everyone, Shaber1000 here. Today we're going to be changing this carburetor. The carburetor itself is not bad. The needle valve and the float.  It's bad, so we're going to take this off of here and just replace the whole thing. So let's get to it. Guys, so we're going to take this thing off. We have to unplug this wire. I don't think that's factory. Alright, now up in here, we have to take off the ground wire. Which I believe is 5-sixteenths, yes. So I'm going to take this ground wire off and put these, not bolt up here so I don't lose it. Now over here, ten millimeter, okay I just had it out. That's not it. Let me see. I know I had it out because it's missing off of here. Okay, well let me find my socket and we'll get back on this. Look I found it was sitting right up there. Alright, now we're going to take this off of here. I did go ahead and put the muffler back on. Me and Monkey was doing our races every year. We had them two years in a row but no one had really mentioned about they liked them so we're probably not going to do one this year. Alright, now there's something here I'm going to have to show you that on ours on our new one. It's got that little piece of plastic in here. I'll show you when I get this off. I'm going to have to put it into here, okay. Everything else should be the same. Alright, we've got this off ready to go. Big-ass spider up in there but he's dead thank goodness. Looks like there was some water in here. It looks rusty but that's got a plastic tank on it so I'm not sure what the deal is with that. So we're going to take this out just like this. This little piece of plastic right here. My fingers are covering it. Right there. Okay you just squeeze together here at the bottom of it. Push it up out. Do not lose this. I mean it would still run but it'll rev up and down. Okay. You don't want that. So sometimes if you got a surging engine and you went over the carburetor and you can't figure it out this piece of plastic right here could be worn. Or if it's metal like here's the choke but if it's metal like this one look in there and if it's kind of wallowed out what that's doing is you're it's going like this. It's revving up and down so you don't want that. Alright so now put our new carburetor on get that out of the way. We have a new gasket. Let's put this one. This one's still good so I'm going to save it. Alright so we've got two gaskets here. I think this one's for up here. Right there for this piece. Okay. Set that up there. We're going to put our gasket on here. Kind of make sure it's clean. It should be. If it's not just clean it up. Alright so we're going to put this on here and we're going to put this on here and we're going to put this back on. See this is your governor. It goes something like that. Alright now they gave us a new fuel filter. It's on the other side. But I think I just put it on but I'll check and see if it's okay. Now here's the new wire for the bottom of this. Okay so it's got that kind of deal on it. But someone has apparently had problems with this in the past. So I'm going to have to just, I'll probably have to hard wire it back onto here. You know put it on there and crimp it or something I don't know. Okay yeah so I can put that wire up in here crimp it and then this will plug into that. So that's pretty cool. Alright so we'll get to that. Now they gave me some fuel lines with the tune up kit.  I may put that on here. It does not have one on it. I thought it did. We've got a new filter here. Now see I bought two kits. I bought a carburetor kit and then I bought a tune up kit. See I got two new plugs. So those are nice. And we've got a couple new clamps here. Okay now I thought we had some line. I thought they gave us some line. And we have a new air filter for it with a pre-filter. Okay so I'll have to go check. But I may use this line because this line was working pretty good. Because the lines I took off of it was in real bad shape. So probably going to go ahead and use this line. So what I've got to do is I'm going to go ahead and make sure I've got enough wire yet. I'm going to go ahead and clip this off of here. And I'm going to go get my wire strippers. I'm going to strip that back and my crimpers. I don't know. I'll have to see if this may be a later date thing. Yeah I could probably do that in another video. It does not have to have one. It doesn't have one out of the factory. Okay so let me go get my wire. My wire strippers. And let me get that wire made up and we'll finish this up. Okay so I forgot to turn it back on. But all I did was put that screw back in there. And I just plugged my plug in there. Now we're going to go ahead and finish this up. Put our little gasket on here. Just keep it from sucking air. Alright now there's that. Let's go ahead and put this on. That's kind of like a PVC valve in a way. Make sure there's nothing in the way here. Now we're going to go ahead and put our two nuts back on. One nut. Then I've got to go get some gas. Well I've got gas that's around the front. We're going to put some gas in it. And we're going to start it up. The battery's bad. We're going to start it up. Pull it around the front. Put some air in the tires. Then we'll take it for a little drive. And make sure that it's not flooding out any. These don't have to be super tight guys. Just snug them up. Just like that. Alright. Here's our filter. I cannot find my nut. My plastic part that goes over here. It's supposed to be a nut here. And then a plastic part that goes on top here. And I cannot find it. Well that's great. Don't do that guys. Jesus.  Alright. So. Now. I'm going to put. Like I said. I'm going to put this fuel line back on. That we took off of it. I want to put this on here. I had to soak it in some hot water. To get it to go on. So I'm going to do that. And I'm going to put this line on. Then I'll show you. I'm going to get back. Then I'll take this off. And I'll show you the part. That's bad. Up inside of here. In case you guys missed that video. We're going to take our. Take our float. And there it is. What happened is. This has got real. Real hard. It's kind of moving now. A little bit. But. It's real hard. Let's get out. I'm going to take this off. I'm going to take this off. I'm going to take this off. And I'll show you. The part that's bad. Up inside of here. In case you guys missed that. Video. We're going to take our. Take our float. Real hard. And let's gas run fuel. Run fuel. Run through. And. Fill up the. The. Carburetor. With gasoline. So then it was flooding out. So really that's all it needed. But this. I had to get it in a kit. And the kit was like 12 bucks. And I gave like 18 for the. That whole carburetor. But. If that car other carburetor goes bad. I may go ahead and rebuild it. I'm going to go ahead and. Rebuild it. Rebuild it. Rebuild it. Rebuild it. Rebuild it. Rebuild it. Rebuild it. Rebuild it. Rebuild it. And let me go ahead and rebuild. This one. But. It's a Nikki. I don't like the Nickeys. So anyway guys. Now. Pour some gas. That am going to throw the hood back on real quick. There. Is nothing to see there. It just clips on. Then. We're gonna. Fire it up and drive it around. Okay guys. This thing will start. And see because usually that's when it would Like let it run and we'll find out was just where they when they put the bowl on they didn't have the gasket on right But it's still surging and won't idle so we'll have to send that back I Got that from a company. I bought every one of my other Corbetters from and never had an issue So they're gonna take it back Send me another one so anyway That's how you change the carburetor. I'm still going to drive it around front and air the tires up But that's how you change a carburetor on one of these so anyway guys. Thanks for watching. I'll give you an update on the carburetor deal and I'll see you in the next one. Shea berry myth man legend gone for now.


Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. Ladies and gentlemen, no one has done more to focus our attention on the problems faced by these refugees than President Reagan. His inspiration and commitment to the elimination of human suffering throughout the world, and particularly among the refugees from Nicaragua, provided the motivation necessary to develop the Nicaraguan Refugee Fund. His courage became our courage. His commitment became our commitment. Major and genuine appreciation that I introduced to you this evening, our friend and patron, the President of the United States. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. You did that. Thank you very much. I want to begin by saying that I'm honored to be in the presence of those who were here from Nicaragua and all the rest of you, too.  And for this, you deserve, and you have, both our high regard and our thanks. Six years ago, many of you were part of the fight to overthrow an oppressive regime that had ruled your country for decades. You succeeded. The regime fell, and many rejoiced, knowing the true freedom and true democracy would finally rise to take its place. But the new regime became not a democracy, but a dictatorship. Communism was embraced, and Nicaragua moved into the Soviet orbit. The best of the revolution, members of the original revolutionary government who had fought for high ideals left the country. In all, more than a quarter of a million souls fled Nicaragua, and they're fleeing still. Many of the refugees are the poorest of the poor. Indians and peasants and terrified mothers and children, all of them need our help. But even more, perhaps they need the attention of the world. After nearly six years, attention must be paid. There's so much I want to discuss tonight from the plight of the refugees to why they're fleeing. I want to talk about what is at stake in Central America, what is at issue, and what it means to all of us in this room, in this country, and in the West. I'll start with Nicaraguan now, Nicaragua on April 15, 1985. As you know, the Sandinista dictatorship has taken absolute control of the government and the armed forces. It is a communist dictatorship. It has done what communist dictatorships do, created a repressive state security and secret police organization, assisted by Soviet, East German, and Cuban advisers, harassed, and in many cases expunged, the political opposition, and rendered the democratic freedoms of speech, press, and assembly punishable by officially sanctioned harassment and imprisonment were death. But the communists are not unopposed. They are facing great resistance from the people of Nicaragua, resistance from the patriots who fight for freedom and their unarmed allies from the pro-democracy movement. There is growing evidence of Sandinista brutality. We've recently learned that 10 or 11 members of the Social Christian Party have been rounded up and jailed. The Sandinistas are trying to get them to confess to being counter-revolutionaries. And you might be interested in knowing one way the communists are coercing these confessions. They have also arrested more than 100 relatives of the political prisoners. And according to our most recent information, the Social Christian Party members are being held in the dark in small, overheated cells. Prisoners are served meals at irregular intervals. After 12 hours, for instance, and then the next in another two, the purpose is to disorient them and wear them down. Where did they get that idea? This same method has been used against political prisoners in Cuba. Now, we do not know the exact number of political prisoners in Nicaragua today, but we get an indication from the testimony of Jose Gonzalez, a former vice president of the Social Democratic Party. Gonzalez told Pope John Paul II there were about 8,000 political prisoners in 1981. He also told the Pope the Sandinistas practice repression and torture. Gonzalez, as you know, was arrested when he returned from Rome. He left Nicaragua and now lives in exile. But the most compelling evidence of Sandinista brutality and of why people are fleeing is the Sandinistas' scorched earth policy. We know the Sandinistas have ordered and are carrying out the forced relocation of tens of thousands of peasants. We have reports that 20,000 peasants have been moved in the past two months from their homes to relocation camps. Peasants who have escaped call themselves hostages and call the relocation camps concentration camps. The communists themselves had admitted they are engaged in the forced resettlement of an estimated 65,000 people. Peasants and journalists tell of entire villages, homes, stores, and churches being burnt to the ground. They tell of animals slaughtered, crops burned, and villagers taken away at gunpoint in government trucks. Why are the communists doing this? Massed force relocations are a common feature of modern communist tyrannies. But there are other purposes here. For the people of many villages are actively supporting the freedom fighters, and so the communists have decided to put more and more of the people of Nicaragua into closely guarded pens. And that way it will be easier for the regime to stalk the freedom fighters in the countryside. A Sandinista security chief has explained, anyone still in the hills is a gorilla. While all this is terrible, it can hardly come as a surprise to those who know what was done to the Mosquito Indians. As you know, the Mosquitoes supported the Sandinistas against Samosa. But shortly after taking power, the Sandinistas attempted to indoctrinate the Mosquitoes in Marxist dogma and the Indians resisted. The Sandinistas tried to put their own people in as leaders of the Mosquito community and the Indians resisted. So much that the Sandinistas labeled them bourgeois and therefore enemies of the people. They began to arrest Indian leaders. Some were murdered. Some were tortured. One Mosquito leader told our AFL-CIO that Tomas Borre and other leaders of the Sandinistas came to my cell and warned me that Sandin Isimo would be established on the Atlantic coast even if every single Mosquito Indian had to be eliminated. Well, the Sandinistas came close. There were massacres. Eyewitnesses said some Mosquitoes were buried alive. 10,000 Indians were forced marched to relocation camps. Mosquito villages were burned down. They're still being burned down. Mosquito villages were bombed and shelled. And they are still being bombed and shelled. In the name of humanity, these atrocities must be stopped. 20,000 Indians are known to be incarcerated in relocation camps. About half are currently being held at the Tasbapri relocation camps. Tasbapri, by the way, means free land. Well, above one free land camp, a New York Times reporter noted a sign that said, work that unites us is a revolutionary force. In all, tens of thousands of Mosquitoes have been forced to flee Nicaragua. To free the land they lived on for over 1,000 years. Many now live as refugees in Honduras. Unfortunately, it's widely believed outside Nicaragua that the Sandinistas enjoy the support of the people inside. But you know this is completely untrue. We know this from many sources. Even recently, the American press. A few months ago, the New Republic carried a report by Robert Lichen, who had long been sympathetic to the Sandinistas and who had formally testified in Congress against aid to the Contras. He wrote, one of the most common means of sustaining the myth of popular support is the Sandinistas' use of the rationing system as a lever. Ration cards are confiscated for non-attendance at Sandinista meetings. And talk of inflation is branded as counter-revolutionary plot. Sympathy with the Contras, he said, is more and more pervasive. In fact, the peasants now call them Los Muchachos, the affectionate term they once used exclusively for the Sandinistas. And what do they now call the Sandinistas? Well, the latest workers chant is, the Sandinistas and Samosa are the same thing. In spite of all this, the Sandinista government retains its defenders in this country and in the West. They look at all the evidence that the Sandinistas have instituted a communist regime, all the pictures of dictator Ortega embracing Castro and visiting Moscow, all the Soviet bloc advisors and all the Sandinista votes in the UN, such as their decision in line with the Soviet bloc to refuse the credentials of Israel. They look at this and they say, the Sandinistas aren't communists or aren't real communists. Why, they're only nationalists, only socialists. But these defenders admit there is a problem in Nicaragua. The problem, they say, is the freedom fighters. Well, just a few weeks ago, the whole world was treated to a so-called independent investigation of charges that the freedom fighters have committed atrocities. It spoke of these so-called atrocities in a rather riveting manner, and the report received great attention on television and in leading newspapers and publications. The report ignored communist brutality, the murder of the Indians, and the arrest, torture, and murder of political dissidents. But we really shouldn't be surprised by that, because as our State Department discovered and Time Magazine reported, this so-called independent investigation was the work of one of dictator Ortega's supporters, a sympathizer who has openly embraced Sandinismo and who was shepherded through Nicaragua by Sandinista operatives. The truth is there are atrocities going on in Nicaragua, but they're largely the work of the institutionalized cruelty of the Sandinista government. This cruelty is the natural expression of a communist government, a cruelty that flows naturally from the heart of totalitarianism. The truth is, Samoza was bad, but so many of the people of Nicaragua know the Sandinistas are infinitely worse. We have here this evening many individuals who knows these truths firsthand. Some of you may know of Bayardo Sante Ailes. He is a 29-year-old Nicaraguan refugee and a former lay preacher of the Pentecostal Missionary Church in Nicaragua. And this is his story, a story told in sworn testimony before Honduran Civil Rights Commission. A few years ago, the Sandinistas began pressuring Bayardo to stop preaching and start fighting for the revolution. And one night after holding a prayer session in a home on the slopes of the Monotombo volcano, Bayardo went to bed. He was awakened by Sandinista soldiers who asked if he was an evangelical preacher. Bayardo said yes. The Sandinistas arrested him, accused him of counter-revolutionary activity, verbally abused him, and then tied him and two others to a pillar. Then the Sandinistas doused the house with gasoline and threw in a match. The room went up in flames, but they burned the rope that bound Bayardo, and he escaped with his clothes in flames and his body burned. He hid in the countryside and was rescued by campesinos who got him to a hospital where he lied about the causes of his injuries. And not long after, he left Nicaragua. Bayardo, I wonder if you could rise for a moment, wherever you are, here in the room. Thank you. Chris, you? I was going to ask all of you fellows with the cameras if you wouldn't kind of turn them off me and on him, but then he came up here, so I didn't ask you that. He's just one of the many who've suffered. He knows things and has experienced things that many of us in this country can barely imagine. And I think America has to see. America has to see the true face of Nicaragua. Thank you, Bayardo. Some people say this isn't America's problem. Why should we care if Nicaragua is a democracy or not? Well, we should care for a whole host of reasons. Democracy has its own moral imperatives, as you well know, but it also has advantages that are profoundly practical. Democratic states do not attack their neighbors and destabilize regions. Democratic states do not find it easy to declare and carry out war. Democratic states are not, by their nature, militaristic. Democracies are traditionally reluctant to spend a great deal of money on arms. Democratic states have built-in controls on aggressive expansionist behavior because Democratic states must first marshal wide popular support before they move. None of these characteristics applies to totalitarian states, however.  The Sandinistas have been engaged for some time in spreading their communist revolution beyond their borders. They're providing arms, training, and a headquarters to the communist guerrillas who are attempting to overthrow the democratically elected Duarte government of El Salvador. The Sandinistas have been caught supporting similar anti-democratic movements in Honduras and Costa Rica. Guatemala, too, is threatened. If these governments fall, as Nicaragua has fallen, it will send millions of refugees north as country after country collapses. Already, the refugee situation is building to unacceptable levels. More than a quarter of a million refugees have fled Nicaragua since the Sandinistas took control. Some weeks, 100 Nicaraguans a day stream into Costa Rica alone. It must be noted here that many of these refugees carry no papers, register in no official camps and wind up on no one's official list of those who fled. They simply crossed the border of one country or another and settled where they can. And let me emphasize a very important point. These refugees are not simply people caught in the middle of a war. They are people fleeing for their lives from the Sandinista police state. They are fleeing from people who are burning down their villages, forcing them into concentration camps, and forcing their children into military service. The refugees come into camps in Honduras with no food and no money.  And the great tragedy is that these people are the innocents of the war, people without politics, people who had never presumed a governor to tell the world how to turn. They are both innocents and victims. And I want to take a moment to thank the people, you who are helping the refugees. Woody Jenkins, Diane Jenkins, and so many people in this room. While the world was turning away, you were helping. People like you are America at its best. If the communists continue unfettered with a weight of world opinion, there will be more victims, victims of a long march north. We've seen this before. We've seen the boat people leaving Southeast Asia in terror. We saw the streams of refugees leave East Berlin before the wall was built. We've seen these sad lost armies fleeing in the night. We cannot allow it to happen again. You know of our efforts to end the tragedy in Nicaragua. We want the killing and the bloodshed and the brutality to end. We've put forth a proposal for peace. We've asked for a ceasefire. We're asking the Sandinistas to join the Democratic opposition in a church-mediated dialogue. The church itself a year ago independently asked the Sandinistas for this dialogue. We're asking the Sandinistas to take steps to hold truly democratic elections and restore freedom of speech, press, and assembly. Nicaragua's neighbors, El Salvador and Honduras and Costa Rica, have embraced this proposal. President Duarte, President Suazo, President Monge, have all personally written to me to express support for this peace plan. And who bears better witness to the merits of this plan than Nicaragua's own neighbors? As part of our proposal, we've asked the Congress of the United States to release $14 million for food, medicine, and other support to help the patriots who believe in democracy survive in the hills of Nicaragua. This has been called a controversial request and has garnered some opposition in the Congress. I believe the reasons for this must be addressed. Some claim that the freedom fighters are simply former Somacistas who want to reimpose a dictatorship. That is simply not true. Listen to the roll call of their leaders. Adolfo Calero, a Nicaraguan businessman who was imprisoned by Samosa. Alfonso Robelo, a member of the original Sandinista government, now leading freedom fighters in the South. Arturo Cruz, another former member of the Sandinista government who is supporting the freedom fighters. Eden Pastora, the famed Commander Zero, a hero of the anti-Samosa revolution. These men are not putting their lives on the line to restore a dictatorship of the past. These men are fighting for freedom. Already they control large sections of the countryside. And as for their level of support, there are now three times as many freedom fighters fighting the Sandinistas as there were Sandinistas fighting Samosa. There are those who say America's attempt to encourage freedom in Nicaragua interferes with the right of self-determination of the Nicaraguan people. Self-determination. You wonder what the ghosts of the Mosquito Indians would say to that. You wonder what the journalists who cannot print the truth and the political prisoners who cannot speak it would say about self-determination in the Sandinista. I think they would say that when a small communist clique seizes a country, there is no self-determination and no chance of it. I believe that a vote against this aid is more than a rejection of the freedom fighters. It is a rejection of all the forces of moderation from the church to the Contadora countries which have called for freedom and democracy in Nicaragua. I believe one inevitable outcome of a rejection of this aid would be that it would remove all pressure on the Sandinistas to change. And if no constraints are put on the Sandinistas, I believe the brutality and abuse they already aim at their own country and their neighbors may well be magnified a thousandfold. I truly believe the history of this century forces me to believe that to do nothing in Central America is to give the first communist stronghold on the North American continent a green light to spread its poison throughout this free and increasingly democratic country. But a vote against this proposal is literally a vote against peace, because it invites the conditions that will lead to more fighting, new wars, and new bloodshed. This vote is more than an appropriation of money. Through this vote, America will declare her commitment to peace. And through this aid, we'll say to the free people of Central America, we will not betray you. We will not leave you, and we will not allow you to become victims of some so-called historic inevitability. No evil is inevitable unless we make it so. We cannot have the United States walk away from one of the greatest moral challenges in post-war history. I pledge to you that we will do everything we can to win this great struggle. And so we're hopeful. We will fight on. We'll win this struggle for peace. Thank you for inviting me. Viva Nicaragua Libra. Thank you, and God bless you. And now I want to help Ambassador Davis, who I believe is going to give the first ever Nicaraguan Refugee Fund Humanitarian Award. And it goes this year to the executive director of Friends of the Americas, Diane Jenkins. Diane, if you will come up here. You know, I'm a Democrat. But I want to tell you something. I came from Missouri. I have had three presidential appointments through Democratic presidents. And the only Republican I ever voted for in my life was you this last time. Only one. But at this point, though, Mr. President, I want to introduce to you Patricia Gara. Patricia, where are you, dear? Patricia is an eight-year-old Nicaraguan refugee who wishes to present you with a small gift on behalf of the Nicaraguan refugee children in grateful appreciation of your support and friendship. Come on, Duran. You're doing just fine. And you look beautiful. Now let's come over here. I just said, I love you, Mr. President. Ladies and gentlemen, the president is required to leave at this point. And so I want to only say thank you so much.


Welcome everybody to another episode of the nonprofit show. We're really excited today because we get to talk with Ruth Grayson coming to us from Southern California and she's going to be talking to us about charity live streams. I think everybody realizes that a lot of changes happened because of the pandemic and one of those was this concept of like how do we reach out and just because the pandemic is supposedly over doesn't mean that everything is now back as it was. So we're going to really engage with Ruth today to find out what she's seeing and how does the benefit auction work now in this new ecosystem and so Ruth we are thrilled to have you with us to learn and to get your amazing expertise on this. So it's going to be worth your time today because it's a really important changing topic and again if we haven't met before I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. Jared Ransom, the nonprofit nerd and my trusty co-host will be rejoining us shortly. Again we're here today because we have amazing partners such as Blumerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Your Part Time Controller, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Fundraising Academy at National University, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Nerd and Nonprofit Tech Talk. These are the folks that join us day in and day out. I was sharing with Ruth you know that in the next couple days we will officially hit our 800th episode. I can't even say that Ruth which is like stunning to me because I think 800 of anything is a lot. Oh yeah amazing. It's kind of like wow but anyway these folks most of them have been with us from the very beginning when we had this kooky idea to do the nation's only daily broadcast dedicated to the nonprofit sector. So our gratitude goes out to them. We are also on a couple different portals and processes and places where you can find us from streaming to podcasts but now the super cool app that our team at the American Nonprofit Academy has worked so hard on. You can take a quick scan of this QR code if you're watching the archive or watching us live through video and we will get you signed up for a daily push that lets you know what we talked about today. It's a really super tool because it connects you with where you are at that point in time and it will also help you search if you need some help on a specific topic. So check out the new nonprofit show app. Okay Ruth I've gotten through my housekeeping. I'd like to say welcome to you my new friend. Thank you I am so excited to be here and I just want to say I am a huge fan of your podcast. I think what you and Jared are doing by sharing knowledge and by showing curiosity about all things nonprofit is just a really awesome thing for our industry. So thank you. Thank you. You know Ruth it's a fascinating thing. I learn something new every day and I get energized every day. Every day I'm like wow this marketplace is doing amazing cool things and we are innovating and we are taking risks and we're being creative and looking at solutions in a different way. And one of those things has to be within the auction segment. Auctions have been dare I say such a mysterious thing. I mean we've all been through like fabulous auction environments and experiences and awful auction experiences. And then we throw all of this up in the air and we have to do it in a streaming format. So talk to us about your journey not a lot of female auctioneers. I'll say that right out the gate. Talk to us about how you've navigated this and how you continue to navigate this. Sure. So you're right there's not that many of us out there though our ranks are swelling and I meet really wonderful women auctioneers all the time.  They may be surprised by the wonderful talent that is available to them. I joined the auction industry and the fundraising industry industry through my partner Michael who is a third generation auctioneer his grandpa sold cars so did his dad. He started in cars but moved into benefits and just loves it. And after a few years of dating I realized hey what you're doing I could do that too. I think I could be great at it. And he was been he's been very supportive. And so we have our business together bliss auctions. And our goal is to decrease the amount of stress that Gallup planners feel because it's a whole ball of stress and anything we can do to minimize that. That's what we're aiming to do. I love it. Well you know I will profess to you and all our viewers. I have a secret I have two secret desires in my life and one has passed me by. I always wanted to learn how to slide into second base which now I will never be able to do because of my age. But my other has been to learn how to do auction calling because I think I think it's fascinating. Let's dive into our conversation. Yes. And let's have you explain to us what this this nomenclature of charity stream actually means. Sure. So one thing that we are seeing is that there is actually a really wonderful way for nonprofits to lean on their supporters to fundraise on their behalf. A really wonderful peer to peer grassroots strategy. And that is through live streams. Now live streams like what we're doing right now. Sometimes they're podcasts. Oftentimes folks who are live streaming are playing video games or cooking or making arts and crafts, whatever their activity. People watch them do it for hours on end. And this is actually what a lot of younger folks are doing. One of the most popular platforms for doing it is Twitch and they have over 250 million people watching and over 7 million people streaming. And so that's a lot of people creating content constantly and you know how hard it is to keep the content machine going. So one of the things that streamers like to do is raise money for causes that they care about. And in doing so they're having a fun stream, they're talking about the nonprofit's mission and then they're getting their viewers to donate. And by doing that they're kind of reaching those younger donors, the 16 to 34s, and they are leveraging the relationship that the streamer has with their viewer. So it's a really, really powerful way to go about fundraising. So let's talk about this a little bit more specifically in terms of that age demographic because this is one of the conversations that we hear all the time. And I know you do as well is that we have this like schism between the older perceived more wealthy donor and then that younger maybe more engaged donor or potentially financially engaged in the future donor. So where do we marry those two sometimes polarized demographics in this ecosystem? What does that look like to you? That's a great question. So I think that these charity streams are primarily targeted at younger donors donors who might not necessarily be interested in attending your Gallup and having your rubber chicken, but still want to support. I do think that there's the potential for transitioning those folks to eventually be ready for a more Gallup level of support, but by getting to them while they're still young, while they have some income, but not a lot. You start to get them invested in your mission and supporting you, and then you can steward them into a more significant donor as they age and as their own income grows. So what I hear you saying then is that maybe this is like a form of if you will segmenting your donor population and not just saying it's all or nothing. Is that a fair statement to say, look, we're going to do something for this one opportunity, this one bucket of people where we might have different opportunities. Is that fair to say? I think it is. I think definitely so. I think you might have a harder time getting your over 50, over 60 people to want to sit down in front of a screen and watch someone make art for three hours, but you won't have as hard a time getting someone who's 25 to do that. And so I think by providing ways to donate and ways to support for your different segments of donors, I think you do stand a better chance of diversifying your donor base and then ensuring your longevity over time. Yeah, it's really interesting conversation because it's more than just this one opportunity or fundraising, but we are here to talk about fundraising and we are trying to figure out how to look at this segment. Talk to us about what this action like physically looks like when we have when we're using this this vehicle the streaming vehicle. So one way that nonprofits are using this is they just make themselves available for streamers to fund raise for them. And then the streamer does it all on their own they produce their own content they set up their own rewards and their own milestones. And all they really ask from the nonprofit is that you know, keep doing what you're doing I'm going to fund raise for you. But some nonprofits do choose to take a more active approach. And you do find some streamers starting to stray into wanting to create a more gala like experience where they might have auction features. We see a lot of giveaways. We're starting to see some options. And I think the reason you don't see them as much in the charity live stream space is simply because the technology isn't quite there yet. The main platforms that the streamers are using to fundraise, like Tiltify, like event gives, they don't have a an auction function. So the streamers are getting savvy they're using their chatbots, and they're kind of creating a workaround, but because it isn't readily available we're not seeing it that much yet. What we see when they do their own auctions is that they're often auctioning off personal items, which, again, their viewers are relating to them so they love the idea of buying the sweater that their favorite streamer war when they got engaged or something like that. Whereas obviously with regular auctions it's all about the experiences and the trips and, you know, the good stuff so. Yeah, really interesting. So what would and I know this is like a super broad question, but what would would be the amount of engagement that you could expect. I know when you start off one time that's, you know, one thing but what do some of these engagements look like from what you what you've seen in terms of numbers. Sure, so that it really depends on the nonprofit and the approach that they take if they take a more passive approach and they just make themselves available for streamers without heavily recruiting streamers and trying to get them to fundraise on their behalf. Then you, you'll see some engagement but it won't grow quickly and it will, it will be kind of a slow growth situation. I do think that by being a bit more proactive by going after specific streamers or demographics of streamers creative ones gaming ones what have you, then you will find it much more much more engagement. It really depends also on the streamer themselves. Some streamers are really highly engaged with their community that's how they get them to stick around for hours on end. And I will say that when nonprofits want to get into this, never underestimate a smaller streamer.  And in reality, the smaller and midsize streamers have stronger relationships with their viewers, and that's what you're leveraging that relationship there. So by focusing on those smaller and mid tier streamers and then having an aggregate of them fundraising for you that's how you really get your messaging out there and start racking up the new donors. Right. Do you think that I know that for so often, you know, we were like, okay, if we can get a blogger to talk about us, okay, then it moved. If we can get an influencer to, to champion what we're doing through their, you know, socials. Now we're looking at streamers, and we're understanding that that this is kind of a journey that the technology and the personalities are taken. How incumbent is it upon us in the nonprofit sector to search out somebody that was going to be a good fit? I think I think it's definitely incumbent on the nonprofit to be actively looking for streamers or streamer demographics that are going to be a good fit. I don't think it necessarily needs to be a one to one. I don't think if you, for example, if you're an animal group, you don't only need streamers who are streaming animal stuff. You could get a video gamer or an artist or someone like that. I really think that the key is diversifying. And I think it's also just being aware of the shifting trends, being aware of what streamers are interested in and how to reach them. And that is, that's a key sign for success for nonprofits wanting to get into this space. Do you feel like right now with the demographics of streamers that there are certain topics or certain, if you will, sectors within the nonprofit sector as a whole that are, you know, more engaging? So for example, I mean, and again, not to be prejudiced, but like, you know, an opera company, are they going to get as much interest as let's say a children's museum? Probably not. I would think maybe I'm wrong, but set me straight on this. Like, what is that ecosystem looking like in terms of interest? Sure. Well, so the great thing about things like Twitch and about live streaming is that there's a niche for everybody. So if you are into opera, there are definitely musicians on Twitch, and not all of them are doing opera, but they can definitely support a musical theme nonprofit. And so I think there's something for everybody out there, definitely, definitely. Yeah. And you know, I love your answer to because so often in fundraising, we come to the table with preconceived notions, just like my opera example. And then we don't lean in because we're like, oh, no, that's never going to work.  Right. This is definitely an opportunity I think all nonprofits should be looking at definitely just by making yourself available just by signing up with one of these sites that the streamers are using to fundraise will, I think, open a lot of doors. I think another great thing that nonprofits can do, even if they want the passive approach is put something on your website, just like you have that donate button up there at the top above the scroll. On your support page, have something that says, are you a live streamer? Would you like to support us? Click here and it'll take them to the page where they can create their own campaign and just go from there. So let's dig a little deeper because you did kind of mention this proactive versus passive help us to really understand what this looks like so that when we engage in this concept. We have a better understanding of the foundational approach to this. Definitely. So the passive route is one that I think every nonprofit out there should consider taking, because literally all you have to do is sign up for a free account on a site like Tiltify, Streamlabs, Twitch is another example but Tiltify is the one that most streamers are using at this time.  Here's how. And that's it. Just sit back and let it happen. That's the passive approach. A more proactive approach would be having someone on your staff like a charity stream manager whose job it is to go out there and recruit specific streamers and specific demographics of streamers and then also support them around a specific campaign that you might create. So a great example is last year during the invasion of Ukraine, Project Hope mobilized a ton of streamers and raised over a million dollars in, I think it was about two months for their humanitarian efforts there. So, yeah. Yeah. That's a great example because it was incredibly short. It was, yeah, and super successful. Really, really interesting. So then this leads to the next big question because for a lot of people that have joined us today that have been listening to this, this will be a new concept. And how best do we look at this? I mean, do we find somebody in our team who we think is young enough to be engaged and engaging or do we contract out? And if we do that, what does this look like? So that's a great question. I think if your goal is to take a more passive approach, then you can definitely manage this internally and you could probably between your social media person and your finance person who's going to be on the Tiltify and or on the platform and making sure that all your ducks are in a row and you can receive your payments. Between those two, they should be able to handle it. If you wanted to take a more proactive approach, which I do recommend, then hiring someone from within your team would be great. You can definitely start asking around any of you, any of you interns, any of you, under 50s really. I mean, I'm in my 40s and I'm involved in live streams. So it's not just the kids, but definitely asking the younger folks like, hey, do you have any experience in this? And getting them going. So some things that they want to do, they want to be sure to be working with the social media manager and having campaigns go out to recruit streamers. And of course, once streamers start fundraising for you, supporting them, liking them, resharing their promotional posts, because it's just more marketing for you. And then also they'll want to work with the graphic designer streamers use a lot of graphic assets like overlays and logos and that sort of thing. So if the nonprofit can provide branded things to the streamers that helps create a unified look makes it all more seamless. And the more the streamer feels supported, the more confident they can be, and the more likely that they will fundraise for you again in the future. Studies have shown that once a streamer does a fundraiser, they are very likely to do it again. And ideally you've positioned yourself to be the one that they fundraise for every time. You know, I love that because I think that is the secret to sauce to so many engagement pieces is that having that collateral those assets that you can turn over. Also, it keeps your branding message and your branding promise more pure because it's frightening to hand over control to third party fundraising where a message might get mixed up, or a brand isn't, you know, color specific or the logo gets shifted or, you know, this the messaging gets all jacked up and then you're like, you know, that's not really what we wanted to communicate. Right. Or the fundraising is, I don't want to say disingenuous, but it's not really aligned to what the organization is doing. Nor does it really cultivate future donors.  Right. So I love that you said, yeah, said that. Yeah, the assets are just so, so important. Talking points, videos, whatever. Streamers love to have that. Yeah, I think it's really smart.  Well, how do you see this? Yeah, you're like a Karnak. How do you see this going? Like what's the future? What's the timeframe on this? Is this going to grow? Is this on the downside? What the technology is changing? What? I think it's definitely going to grow. I mean, who knows where we'll be in a few years, what the kids will be into at that point. Obviously the older I get, the less I feel like I know what the kids are into. But I try. But so the statistics are currently that live streaming is expected to grow 15 times this year, just in 2023. So it's only going up. And of those 7 million streamers on Twitch, only a small slice of them are doing these charity streams consistently. There is a large pool of content creators out there who could be ambassadors for your mission. And I think it's only going to grow from here, definitely. And what I'm hoping to see is that we do eventually find a way to bridge that gap where we get some of these streamers maybe to come to our gala and stream a portion of the gala to their viewers, and viewers excited about the idea of going to one of them and also getting their feedback as far as storytelling and messaging, because at their heart, these are very creative people know how to make fun and engaging content. And so I think there could be a lot of two ways street helping each other out there.  It's amazing. And so it's really about finding that fit and then nurturing that fit, just like we do donors, you know, we want a one time thing. I mean, we want to get people to be familiar with us to be champions. And you use that word that I love Ruth, you know, ambassadors, we want to cultivate that, you know, as part of our journey. And I think it's a really wonderful fit. And I agree with you. I think it's smart to be thinking about that next gen wave of donors. Their behaviors and their desires are not the same as previous donor generations. So we need to be thinking about this. It's not the same. Yep, I agree. I agree. We have found that the younger generations are wary about institutions, they're skeptical, but they believe in their streamer, they have an authentic connection with their streamer. And so if the streamer says, hey, you should donate to the Trevor Project because they're out there doing great work, then the donations come in. Yeah, I love it. Well, this has really been an enlightening conversation. I know for a lot of our viewers, you know, you see auctions and you see Ruth's title as benefit auctioneer. And we have this like viewpoint in our head of what's great and what's not great. And to layer in this new concept I think is really engaging and really interesting. Before we let you go, Ruth Grayson of Bliss Auctions, can you briefly give us the names of some of those platforms like Twitch that you gave us earlier? Yes, definitely. So the platforms that folks are streaming to, you've got Twitch, YouTube live, Instagram and Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn even has streaming. Don't forget about eSports. That's a whole side conversation when it comes to streaming. I think there's a lot of potential there for collaborations. And then the fundraising platforms that streamers are using are Tiltify. That's the biggest one. Then you also see some on Skip Butter, Donor Drive. I had one more. Soft Giving. That's it. Soft Giving is another one. So yeah. It's been amazing. You know, check out Ruth at Bliss Auctions.com. She's got a great website that gives you a lot of really insight into how this piece of our fundraising is changing and how it doesn't always have to be the same thing that we can do innovative pieces of it. And I really like, Ruth, that you're speaking to this concept of really understanding the different segmenting that we need to be thinking about. Not all fundraising works for everyone. And the more we can understand that diversification aspect, I think the stronger our nonprofits and our entire sector is going to be. So I love how you joined us today and given us this information. Again, I'm Julia Patrick Jarrett-Ranson. The Nonprofit Nerd will be back with us shortly. And again, we want to make sure that we give our gratitude to our presenting sponsors that include Blumerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Your Part-Time Controller, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Fundraising Academy at National University, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Nerd, and Nonprofit Tech Talk. These are the folks that join us day in and day out with amazing guests like Ruth has been with us today. Okay, Ruth, you really painted a new picture for me. I really want to be more engaged in this concept because I think to your point, this is a major communication journey that we're going down. And those nonprofits that jump in and understand this connective tissue, if you will, with this next generation of donors, they're going to be a lot more successful. I agree. I agree. Thank you so much for having me, Julia. Oh my gosh. You're great. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. It's been really fast. And everybody, as we always like to end every episode, we end with our mantra. And it goes like this, to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here. Ruth, thank you so much.