Hi, it's Bridget. Welcome to Above Life Channel. The purpose here is to inspire your spirit and to fill you up with hope and I do that through sharing weekly channeling videos with afterlife celebrities. So this week I am sharing a channeling with Elvis. Now, this is not the first time where I've chatted with Elvis, but I'm bringing him in here very special because my intention is to share right now. It's December 2018. It's the holiday season and my intention was to share videos with you that get you in the holiday spirit. And so I had a list of folks from the afterlife that I wanted to chat with because of that. Now Elvis, you know that blue Christmas song kind of made sense to talk with Elvis. And when this conversation first came up and Elvis entered my list of who to channel with holiday spirit, I was chatting with my husband and I said, oh, we should do Elvis. I should definitely talk to Elvis. And I said, I wonder what his favorite song is. And right away he answered me. Like I'm driving in the car with my husband.  Elvis answered out like I could hear him very clearly. He said, oh, little town of Bethlehem. And I said, well, that's kind of not what I expected necessarily. But he said, oh, little town of Bethlehem. And I thought, wow, OK, I know that Elvis is into the gospel music and he loves it very, very much. And so I guess it shouldn't be a surprise. So let's find out more from Elvis today. Shall we? All right. Come on in Elvis Aaron Presley. He's already here. He was already here in the beginning because I tried to do an intro for this video. And I was like, because his energy came in. He's so sweet, you guys. Watch the playlist. You'll see my other conversations with Elvis. He's just so sweet. He looks very handsome. He kind of, he first starts out with like his military uniform on like a hat. Like I don't know if he was in the military during the holidays or if it was around the holidays or something. But there's like, oh, no, no, no. He's talking about like toys for tots and how the Marines started the like charitable giving kind of that. He's talking about that. Like there's a pride in that. And he's talking about, yeah, the toys for the children. That's what he's taught showing me children and toys. That's what he's talking about very specifically. All right. Okay. And so he's nodding to that. He's, yes, like honoring that. Thank you. Kind of a thing. Oh, nice. That's very sweet. All right. So when I saw you earlier, I felt very Hawaiian vibes. So I tried to, I'm thinking, what can I wear that's a color that would be? I had to wear my purple, of course, but because it puts me in a good mood. Yeah, you know that. But I had to wear like something coral or something else that would feel more, you know, a little more tropical when I'm really not in a tropical climate right now. But I felt a lot of Hawaii for you. So can you talk about that a little bit?  So I invite you as you're watching, connect in with your heart energy and feel that energy that Elvis is bringing forward. It's so, he's just like relaxed. He's like, there's such a tranquility, a peaceful energy about Hawaii for him. And it's just like being on vacation. And it's more than just being on vacation, you guys. It feels like love. Like he adores it. Like this energy is just he loves it. Loves it because I see the lays and there's big orange and red flowers on his lays. And it looks like yellow. Actually, is it orange or yellow? It looks more like yellow. It looks yellow and orange and then like little white ones too, I can see. And he's like really, it's really hot. Like he's kind of brushing his, his head and he's like perspiring a lot. It's warm. It's really warm. And he's got the white jumpsuit on is how I see him. It's really warm. But he's, we're in his favorite place energetically, his favorite place on Earth. Okay. Which is Hawaii. Is that true? Yes. He said, it has my heart. He said, it has my heart. Hawaii has my heart. He said, Hawaii has my heart. He said, he says, yes ma'am. Okay. All right. So it's the holidays Elvis. And it will be wonderful if you would share some insight with us. And I specifically chose you to share during the holiday season because there's a lot of people that need positive inspiration during this time here. Lots of hope is needed here. And I thought you would be a good one, a good spirit to connect with, to share that, to feel that energy. Why is the holiday season so very special to you in the afterlife? Now, as a human, you can chat about that if you'd like, but I want to know about the afterlife. How is this part of the year, this ending of the year and the beginning of the year, and the holiday season specifically? So there's multiple religious and spiritual holidays that are observed during this month. And would you talk about that a little bit? He says, I'd be happy to. Yes. And he says, you know that I am a fan. Okay. I'm trying really hard not to use this accent because I'm horrible at it, you guys. And I know I am horrible at accents, but sometimes it just happens because I can feel them and match it a little bit.  As a person, when you look at my human life, he says, I was a fan of Jesus. He says, my mama raised me to be polite and to know the word of the Lord. And so, many of you will relate to that too specifically. And I would say to you, I would suggest to you to lean on that. Lean on that faith. Lean deeper into your faith during times like this that are special or specialized. He doesn't say that.  It's kind of weird. Everything's heavy. It's in the heart. He's speaking right to the heart, my friends, as you listen. He says in times that are deeply emotional and personal for many, loss is pretty obvious. He says loss is devastating. And we miss those we loved so deeply, so dearly. He says so dearly. We miss. We recognize their absence. He says during the holidays. And he's speaking from personal experience is what it feels like really. Is that true from human? Are you reflecting on the human experience? The loss of my mother? Yes, he says. My mom. My mama. My mama, he says. Yes. And he says many of your viewers, he says, we'll relate. We'll be able to feel that, understand that because they feel that too. Those of you who are watching, you feel that too. He says. So I share this with you. Grief is not something you can share. He says it doesn't, you don't share grief, but you can share hope. You can lean into your faith. And what you believe is, and he says, right for you, right for you. For me, during that time, I looked to God. I did my best. I did not make the best choices, but I did my best. And I knew that he would always see me through. Can you talk about, yeah, gosh, I can't even move my hands right now. Everything feels really heavy on my hands and my arms. And he's just really focusing on the heart chakra. So you guys, please feel that. Please take a moment to connect into the heart chakra. Energy. Yeah, he's not using his hands a lot. Maybe that's why I don't get to use my hands. Just concentrate on the energy. I'll feel it in my heart chakra. Archangel Michael is also here. I mentioned that for those of you who are intuitive or psychics or mediums that are with watching at above life channel here. He's here. Archangel Michael is present, too, to help me with the connection. So it's very pure in this regard. He says, oh, you're doing a good job, Bridget. That's what I always just said. You're doing a good job, Bridget. Thank you. That was sweet. See, he's so sweet. Oh, so sweet. That's polite. So charming, too. Okay. Okay. Focus. Be Bridget than Bridge, not the person. Okay. All right. Sorry, you guys. I like Elvis so much. He's so nice. All right. Okay. So share with us about spirit then. How do you feel about all these things you've mentioned? You mentioned Jesus specifically. You also mentioned God and you refer to him as he. And of course, Bridget will notice this. Yes, I do. Can you talk about that in relation to, I'm going to use and move my hands. Oh boy, they feel really heavy. In relationship to being a spirit. Elvis, tell us about that. You were so pious as a person and you were raised that way. Tell us about that now in the afterlife as you, as this is the holiday season. And there will be many that will identify with the religion or a practice like that. And there will be many that who do not. So tell us from a spirit's perspective, how do you feel about that now? What is that like for you now? He says, every day is a holiday. He just kind of, Cox has had these smiles real big and he looks at me with these eyes. Oh my goodness. And he says, every day is a holiday. He said, that's pretty much what heaven's like. And I want people to know that. You all should know that. He says, is every day is a holiday.  But it's not really a mystery. See, not so much as Elvis speaking, not so much of a mystery.  There's love all around you.  Like we're the center, light pink, white. And then there's this like core white divine love. And then this pretty kind of echoing vibration. That's light pink, very pink. That's the paradise. And you think it's a place, it's not a place. It's all around you already. And he says, there's no one person in charge. There's no one soul. He's telling me there's no one in charge. So like afterlife, there's no one in charge. I know you'll find that hard to believe that it's not just chaos here. It's chaos here where you are at times, isn't it? I know, I know. You see, we are really connected at heart. He shares this kind of image of like a heart radiating out. We're all connected at heart.  There's a lot of power in that. That's how most of us are connected. Whether that spirit is inside of a person or not.  He says there's nothing like that. There's no separation. There's no sorting of people or spirit based on behaviors. He says, so tell me about the God concept of God. Oh, and Jesus. He says, well, Jesus was a person. That is true. That's a fact that most people will be able to accept. He says most of your viewers will be able to accept that. And I do accept that too. I believe Jesus was a person. And so Jesus was a person. Yes. And talk to us about God. So was there like a father and a son and all that? He says, that's a story, isn't it? It's a life story. He says, it's not mine. Thank you for helping me to be politically correct. To avoid some of the sticky stuff that comes with that conversation. So talk to us about God then. What is God? It's spirit. He says, Holy spirit. Holy. Like, and then he shows me like full fullness. He's not talking to me. I'm going to be clear right now. He all of a sudden just stopped talking and he showed me pictures. So what I believe of the universe and of cosmos and of a source or a prime source or a creator is a coordination of energy. That's a disc or looks like a disc, kind of like a wheel with spokes and stuff and how all of us are interrelated and connected and some more directly than others. That's how I believe it's a patterning. It's a sacred patterning. And I do believe that there is a source energy, but it's not a person. It's a collaborative, cooperative, co-created energy. And we're all part of that. That's what I believe. And so he's kind of showing me like universe and white light, like a God light energy source and how we're all part of a oneness. And so he says, Holy spirit is what he says. So that's how you interpret it. Now it's interesting because now when he talks about after, from his afterlife perspective, now we're talking to Elvis everyone. When he talks about his afterlife perspective, he's talking, he's not talking. It's a sensory experience like he's showing me. It's very visual and it's very abstract and it's not definable with our brain. But we use other terms like God or I use, as you know, God, creator, source, universe to describe that consciousness, that connection, that creative energy that supports us as a wholeness and a oneness is a great way to describe it. It's difficult for the mind to process. So we use terms that we can use and we have shared belief systems in groups and networks where we can come together as community and understand and share the common understanding, common beliefs. And they're different. There's variations and there's different ways to interpret the energy of whatever God is. Wow, this is kind of deep. You know, this is pretty powerful and Elvis says this is why it's hard to use words to describe it. Yes. So he says it's beautiful. Bridget, he says, it's beautiful. Please tell them it's beautiful. It's just, it's a beautiful feeling. And the closest thing is your heart. He says your heart, the feeling, the energy, emotion. Emotion is what he's using. He's not talking intuition. He's talking emotion, energy. He's talking like Clairsentience, my friends, Clairsentience. Remember Clairsentience is the second gift of sensing feeling. If you feel overly sensitive or highly sensitive or like an empath, that's what he's talking about. That's how he's sharing this afterlife. His perspective as a spirit in the afterlife of the holidays and of these big concepts that quite frankly, I'm very surprised that you are bringing, that you are bringing these in. But I appreciate it so very, very much. The comments will be very interesting. And Elvis, I fully expect you to help me with those. Use your, use your magical spiritual powers to make it not so tough for me. Okay. People are going to nail me to the wall. I think with some of that, which is fine, whatever, right? It is one of this. Teach his own to each her own. So God's not a woman, huh? Come on. He laughs. He says, who do you think are channeling? I think I know. Okay. I know the truth, ladies. We know the truth. Okay. For those of you who are very serious watchers of above life channel, I hope you know that I'm just kidding, right? I'm teasing. I got to tease a little bit. Okay. Elvis, is there anything you'd like to leave us with? Can you give us any insight into 2019? Let's ask him that. Why not, right? Insighting to 2019, next year, new year. He says, it's a big one. Okay. Well, it's always a big one. Can you be a little more specific? And he says, the grass isn't always greener. That's what he gives me, kind of analogy. He's not speaking directly, saying it. He's kind of talking to me now at a higher level. So I can't quite get his accent or anything like that. It's like he's moving away a little bit as he's giving the information and advice. He's stepping up into an energy platform that's more ascended, which means just a higher vibration, which means as a spirit because he's looking at the future kind of a thing, which I hate predictions just so you know. Write that down. Bridget does not like predictions. Why? Because why Elvis? Because we co-create our experience. We are all creators. We work with our teams in the universe to create this awesome experience. So we're not so awesome sometimes experience. That's why I don't like predictions because you create your future. You do. I totally believe that. Go ahead and comment below. I'm getting a little sassy, Elvis. Sometimes I get sassy when I talk to you. I love it. So 2019 is a big one. What do you mean by that? And the grass isn't always greener. What does that mean? It can be a little more specific for us human brains that need details because now I'm like what do you mean the grass is always greener? He said spring is good for planting. What? What? This doesn't even sound like Elvis. He's trying to be funny. I think he's trying to be funny. He says really you want me to tell you all the secrets of the world? I can't do that. I'm like I know. I know. The spring does feel better, you guys. Like March, April. It feels like a better. So if the energy has been really tough for you lately, it feels like spring, March or April just definitely feels better. It feels like there's a long pause in January too from what he's showing me. It looks like we start the year but there's kind of like this pause. So if you are the type that does like New Year's resolutions or vision boards or goals or word of the year, all those kinds of things, stuff that I do like with my clients and my small groups and stuff. If you do those kinds of things, just be aware that the timing might be a little different. You might do them the second or third week of January, not the first week and that's okay. It kind of feels like there's a long pause getting into the new year. But then things pick up a little bit in February. It kind of feels like business as usual. But then in March and April, it feels like it opens, like a light. Like it feels better like energetically. We feel better. We feel better. That's good. That's really good. Okay. I'll take that. I'll be okay with that. Yeah. And things shake out a little bit in the end of the year. Like November seems a little like turbulent maybe. We're used to that though. Our November's, especially in the United States, have not been the greatest in the last couple of years. Let me just say. A little tricky. But it's a time of change too. So that's all right. The fall kind of shifting in. All right. Well, thank you. This has been a channeling a very interesting and dynamic conversation. Dynamic with Elvis Presley in the afterlife. And we've interpreted some things here. So I've shared a little more of my insights as well. And let you watch that. So be kind in the comments, please. I'm just going to ask because you guys, I try to read the comments and when they're super like icky, it's hard to read them. So please be kind. But you can comment. Go ahead and comment if you want to. It's a good way to be able to meet other people too that have like-minded views. And that helps, I think. It's good. It's good. All right. So this is Bridget with Above Life Channel. Thank you so much for watching. If you've made it this far, this has been an afterlife conversation with Elvis Aaron Presley. And I would like to encourage you to like this video. Give it a thumbs up if you do. If you know somebody that would like to watch it, that would be interested in watching, go ahead and share the link if you'd like to. And then please, you are welcome. You are totally welcome to comment below. And I totally encourage interesting dialogue and different viewpoints that are shared in a very respectful and kind way. That would be great. Thank you so much for watching. I appreciate you very much. Remember, the purpose here, okay? The purpose here at Above Life Channel is not just to inspire your spirit to fill you up with hope, but it's to remind you that this is your life. This is your life. So live it. Just live it. Thanks for watching.


what's up how are you guys today we're doing something a little different we are here at Boucherie in New York City doing a little what I would eat at a restaurant vlog and this is actually a restaurant that we reviewed on Best Burger reviews one of the best burgers in New York City and overall they have you know a pretty good food quality and stuff that I've been able to eat even on my very restrictive diet so let's go inside have a seat at the bar and spend way too much money on lunch so I came here because I thought I was gonna be able to have a steak sandwich but they only serve that on the weekends and I just missed that last time I did have a burger when I came the other day with just plain onions and fries on the side but it was still a little fatty so instead what I'm gonna have today is steak tartare which is usually always okay for appetizer it's just lean beef and then I'm gonna do just the filet mignon with some fries on the side and I mean guys that yeah the prices are a little crazy but in New York to get decent quality stuff that's kind of what you had to pay so when I came a few weeks ago I had frog legs appetizer plain burger for entree some fries on the side it was just way way way too much fat just way too much so today we're gonna do the steak tartare which is much leaner than those frog legs which are like fried in butter and then the steak entree with fries on the side is gonna be a lot less fatty than like all that bread that soaked up all the butter and the really fatty burger meat so that's kind of what we're trying to I mean French restaurant isn't the best to do low fat but that's kind of what we're trying yeah so I usually stay away from seafood but you know once in a while it's not that bad so you know out of all these appetizers the only thing that is reasonably low in fat is the steak tartare you know escargot ton of butter soup ton of cream and butter maybe the soup of the day would have been okay depends on what it is pate is basically pure fat we don't do salad you don't do salad fries are always nice there are always concerns about like the seed oils and what they're frying them in but as long as you don't have a more than once a week it's okay the mushrooms on the side would be good too that's not a bad choice but probably a lot of butter and usually when I go out I'll have steak frites almost the entire time steak and french fries is always a safe bet mashed potatoes might actually be not as bad because they don't use the seed oils to fry them but I really like french fries and you can kind of make mashed potatoes at home but you can't do french fries at home all these sandwiches it's like cheese and butter it's just way too fatty plain burger isn't that bad of a choice and then all this other stuff is either seafood or really fatty I guess beef pork and yawn if it was with white potatoes would be an okay choice too you know revenue only a lot of dairy fat eggs don't really want this stuff we did get bread and butter which I usually do have because just you know a little bit of butter on dry bread isn't that much fat and the bread is really one of the only things you're gonna be served in the restaurant that's gonna be relatively low fat obviously you don't want to drink the tap water but today I'm having a lager that's the beer I usually like so I'll either have beer or cider sometimes wine if I really don't want to drink anything I'll order like a bottle of just Pellegrino or something but if you guys missed the healthiest alcohol video that we did like a few months ago I basically went over saying like a decent beer is one of the healthiest things you can drink at least from like an alcohol perspective but the natural wines are okay ciders okay beers okay for the most part this is a Kronenberg which is a German lager so I like never get hangovers I never feel anything when I when I have like two or three and it's definitely a whole lot healthier than a New York City tap water so we just got the tartar which is a lot of meat I didn't have time to have the bread and butter maybe we'll have that a little bit this is just grilled bread which is nice sometimes like they don't give you that much bread with Tartar or it's like really really fatty but with a lot of oil but this is perfect might skip the quail egg yeah I mean like if I wasn't filming a vlog I'd have time to have the bread and butter but yeah steak tartar is always one of my favorite things it's a lot of work to prep yourself you know they have the beef nicely diced up in cute tier perfectly mixed with all the ingredients this is a lot of meat it's like eight ounces of raw beef very good though I like to have the bread and butter on my stomach we're having so much protein yes so the main reason we're filming this is because I filmed like a whole day of eating yesterday and the files got corrupted or something so take two I kind of wanted to like try all the steak tartars in the city but we're moving soon and I do not have time normally I get like a strip steak or ribeye for dinner instead of filet mignon but if I'm having steak tartars it's a lot of protein so I'm one of the smaller I should have got the small this is definitely tartar for like two people and there's some tarragon in here too I don't really like tarragon but it's not that much I chose like the perfect time to come it's like three o'clock our tar is pretty good I felt obligated to eat all of it so I'll have some bread and butter yeah I mean I don't like get to go out to eat that much but when I do find like a place or a restaurant that has like stuff that I can't eat with all my dietary restrictions I tend to just go to the same places butter looks pretty good it's not just like regular yeah no longer can they wait a few minutes on the stick yes so there's not that many downsides to the restaurant butter usually maybe it's a little inflammatory but I've never really reacted to it the other dairy products so like milk and a lot of cream and sometimes can be an issue the bread obviously it's not organic but even though the amount of negative stuff that can be in bread is kind of minimal compared to other foods so although the restaurant bread and butter might not be the highest quality from like an inflammatory perspective it's not nearly as bad as like the fried foods and some of the lower quality animal proteins like pork and chicken now for the beer you're not going to like overload your liver without all just from the percentage perspective and then in regards to how they make it you know it's kind of like a natural fermentation there's some B vitamins in there that help like counteract the the negative effects of the alcohol but beer cider flogger generally the healthiest thing you can drink at a bar you know you're saying someone hydrated you're getting some B vitamins you're not telling your liver with super high alcohol percentage yeah so most places aren't really gonna have like a super extensive organic or biodynamic wine or like organic cider selection so if you do find a place that does might not actually have like food and other stuff that that fits the bill but you know New York there's so many places you can go to like one restaurant if you want some appetizers and beer another place for the odd trade but then so you can kind of bounce around a little bit if you do find some places you like it is a lot more convenient to find a place like this to do everything so this is our entree we got filet mignon truffle butter onions this is like a perfect perfect entree normally comes with like a spinach puree but I told them not to do that because you know we don't want spinach we don't want vegetables but you know onions are good on my diet filet mignon is of course lean red meat so that's good on my diet and then the truffle butter but it's not the end of the world but it's okay it's such a small amount and then the culprit of this meal we definitely won't be having the ketchup very high in flavonoids carotene don't want the ketchup but the french fries usually fried and vegetable seed oils is the issue I mean I enjoy these so much and I can't make them at home myself so I like having these like once a week I mean there's like one reason that I go out for restaurants it's for french fries because I'm not about to have a bad of both oil in my kitchen and I'll be like peeling and cutting potatoes all day it's a little more soft but still good this is actually like pretty big fly I thought it was gonna be smaller that's uh it's definitely I ordered medium rare but this is like blue rare which is fine online but uh that was a normie I would definitely not approve of the it's pretty good the fillet is so tender grain-fed filet mignon look grain-fed meat isn't that bad the tits will just grow a little bit but you know if you're eating bravo testicles once a week you'll be fine and do you feel like a geriatric mignon though no problem with the fries is crispy and good for like five ten minutes but then not even fast so normally you would want to get like a beer and a bottle because glass on giraffe obviously it's like rinse with the regular water so it's not that big of a deal I mean it kind of is but this is um this is visual proof of business expense for marketing consultation services this thing I'm joking you guys know we did a I think we did a video on potatoes a few months ago too about how they're like the healthy carbohydrate a lot of minerals great choice of starch I wear everything french fries a bit of vegetable seed oils not the best I don't know maybe I'm used to like my key screen to meet high quality salt because this definitely needs more salt but it'd be like maybe they used to put a lot of salt and then people complain there was too much salt fucking geriatrics well I was I was like cool after the part time it's like the elevator music probably won't get copyrighted see guys all we're missing is some 5 foot 11 Russian drill you know and I paid to beat me up later so we're missing or Ukrainian you know I am I don't mind it can't even get her some Russian vodka they have it and my little expensive I mean you know I was gonna like blow my brains out of move to Mexico so who cares how much money I spent on lunch right fucking here about to buy like a fucking 24-hour gold condom and shake around 200,000 I'm like the funniest person in New York 100% my creativity goes beyond health products yeah like why aren't why isn't one girl of every ethnicity snorting illegal substances off my penis every night like it surprises me it surprises me that's not happening really does really does honestly 100% I guess more believable that that would be happening then that it wouldn't be happen whatever I can't believe I'm actually going to fence this for life I was full I look so fucking tired well it was the title of this video petite Italian boy jokes on 16 ounces of meat oh yeah more views yeah yeah thank you I'll take a look at the dessert menu so this is a real reason I came here ever dessert I can actually you guys still have the pineapple coconut bullshit right he didn't hear me I have one that one yeah yeah yeah from apple right huh from apple what can they do? Tartain, Wadi, Cocoa, it's the coconut cream with the pineapple and the tar right yeah yeah yeah so normally I can't have desserts because it's like Balderian shit but this is probably has some there in it but it's at least coconut cream and like pineapple I'll show you guys in my name yeah so crème brûlée is like all egg yolks and crème that's out another crème brûlée that's out Paris Brest choux pastry that's a lot of butter praline cream it's all very like this might not be that bad Paris Brest but it's still a lot of butter and cream chocolate snow good I'll be awake for three days this is what we're having coconut cream pineapple peach gel this is I've had this a few times I like it's a lot like only dessert in New York City I've ever been able to eat flan is just egg yolks and crème again for fitter rolls it's ice cream I can't eat that ice cream and sorbet sometimes actually I will have lemon sorbet if a restaurant has lemon sorbet I'll usually have it but a lot of the time it's not that good let me actually get some of the lemon sorbet just to try it probably it's gonna be a fucking $200 one $200 lucky whatever I'm like I have like a trillion dollars I won't care that much but this place barbouna this is there's really restaurant really good lemon sorbet there but then I would have like lemon sorbet a few other places it wasn't that good also sorbet is probably like one of the deserts you want to avoid the most because the water they use for it is just regular New York City water so from like a liver health perspective sorbet is good but from an overall health perspective it's not that great not that great but I mean I'm fucking sitting here looking for a beer is telling you guys what's healthy and what's not grain of salt inside yes so I had my mechanic at the car yesterday and Uber from the Bronx to Westchester was $80 for $8 you can get like a Latino girl from the Bronx to play with I don't know maybe I need to start looking into how to print money yeah so if you guys want more Frank a day drinking and a restaurant content for every $200 sent to me I would I mean we're moving out of this EMF hellhole in a few months so I guess you guys gonna be shit out of luck all right boys you have another business expense lemon sorbet and the coconut cream dessert so most of the time I go out I don't actually have dessert because they don't have lemon sorbet or something on that menu but this is some type of like coconut cream dessert with a lot of lemon some pastry so overall you know I'm assuming that the amount of dairy in this isn't that high I've actually had this like two times so far and I haven't like had any digestive issues with it and let me sorbet I always do but again the water tap water stuff always using it as the concern yeah the fat content of this coconut dessert is probably a little high so that's the best thing to be having so this is like coconut cream tart probably just like a ton of coconut cream a little bit of cream dairy cream sugar and lemon this is really good it's like the third time me having this it's kind of crazy because like if I had my own restaurant and hearing to my dietary restrictions this would be like the only dessert you could have these are all foods I normally have in my diet pineapple coconut oil like fits in really well those few weeks ago when I went here I asked the bartender if the pastry chef was a male or a female unfortunately it was a male so I did not ask for their number although what's the chance it was like some cute femboy pastry chef you know maybe I should have been I might actually vomit on the way to my car 200 grams of mastocom yeah just a napkin please you give me the you give me the check to see I told you guys it's gonna be like 20% tip 200 see these New York City restaurant prices like I'm gonna have to sell one of the tires off my car the only downside of lemon sorbet is it takes so long to eat enough sugar in this not really that sweet but I guess that's what the almond mom's like no right guys don't know what an almond mom is it's like an older lady that makes her husband shove an almond into his urethane like some aderexic older lady I don't know actually I forgot a lot of these um most of these restaurants don't have a sorbet machine so it's usually not made in health it's usually like some frozen sorbet they like that's it guys so thanks for joining hopefully I kept you wildly entertained and this was a nice change of pace right in the video files don't get corrupted like they did yesterday now we'll have to send them into like the FBI to fix them like you guys can go to frankthisbar.com if you'd like to check out all my other social media pages and all of my interesting businesses so now maybe when you go out see if you're traveling whatever you have an idea of what you should be having but as usual if you guys can please drop a like on the video leave a comment down below make sure to subscribe and check that notification bell and I will see you guys soon hopefully I won't be hand handling on the streets of New York City they put up the plaque I'm not supposed to be back here it's like the host is down but best burger of the week


Good morning and welcome to CMC Markets on Friday the 21st of June and this quick look at the week beginning the 24th of June And it's been another week of records for US markets We've seen a record close for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Got within a whisker of its previous all-time close from October last year We've seen a significant tilt in monetary policy from both the European Central Bank this week as well as the US Federal Reserve with the prospect that Markets are now pricing in The probability that we could well see an interest rate cut from the US Fed as early as next month Now that still for me seems a little bit excessive in terms of Expectations I still don't buy the narrative that the Fed is on the cusp of cutting in July I think there is distinct possibility. We will get an interest rate cut I think the only debate is around the timing and I think that's in that context the US payrolls report in a couple of weeks time will be crucial Or will be certainly a key determinant in whether or not we get that move in July US 10-year Treasury yields Went back to levels last seen in 2016 with a 10-year briefly dropping below 2% But what's interesting about this particular move here is the formation of this candle We've made a very sharp new low, but we haven't been able to consolidate the losses Down through that to level now this candle here is now starting to look slightly positive And that would suggest to me that maybe just maybe this downside thrust that we've seen From 3.25% at the end of last year to 1.97% Now or certainly on Thursday could be running out of steam and potentially We could get a bit of a correction start to play out with Yields edging back up to 2.1 or even 2.2 percent I feel that the move lowering yields has come too far Too quickly. We've also seen a significant move high in gold prices And again on the daily chart we can see that here But what's interesting is though we've broken above the 1380 level what we've got here is On the cusp of what could be a potential doji we've made fresh new highs highest level since August 2013 But as I'm speaking to you We haven't been able to consolidate Most of that thrust higher and depending on where we close today Friday the end of day Friday could determine whether or not We get a little bit of a pullback all the way back to 1350 Or any even as low as at 1320 it certainly looks overbought on the every on the on the daily Oscillator so we've seen record highs on the S&P what's interesting about the S&P move is That it hasn't been followed by a similar move on the US small cap index And if you think that this move into risk is Denominated pretty much across the board and is widespread then you would expect to see a significant move higher in the US small cap index We're not seeing that we're seeing significant divergence between big caps Like the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 small caps aren't investors aren't as Enthusiastic about and that's a little bit of a red flag for me So we are still in an uptrend don't get me wrong US stocks still remain fairly well supported as Do European stocks we've seen a nice little move higher in the FTSE 100 But what's interesting about this move is again We haven't really been able to follow through on the moves higher despite the implicit easing bias that we've seen from central banks this week the Bank of Japan the Federal Reserve and The Bank of England and the ECB have all been a little bit dovish when it comes to Downgrading growth forecast. What was interesting about the Fed was they didn't downgrade their growth forecast They kept it unchanged Even though they revised their inflation forecast slightly lower So I think the Fed has bowed to political pressure to a certain extent to try and Go more dovish the big question is is whether the market is correct in pricing in three interest rate cuts as Opposed to maybe the one or two that I would expect to see and I still feel that July is Potentially too soon and I think if the data continues to improve for the US That could increasingly start to get priced out. So What's what am I keeping an eye out for over the course of the next few days? Well, obviously there has been a slight softening of tone around trade and that could be another key factor that determines Where bond yields go? We've got the G20 meeting on the 28th of June and US trade negotiators and Chinese trade negotiators are now talking to each other So the big question now is whether President Trump and President Xi of China will meet and attempt to draw a line Under and diffuse the recent deterioration and the rise in the tension between the US and China trade talks Optimism is high. That's reflected I think in some of the moves that we've seen this week that some form of detente will be arrived at which keeps the prospect of a deal on The table now, I think a deal is unlikely But certainly I think a commitment to talk further would be fairly well received by the markets The one elephant in the room at the moment is something can entirely unrelated To the China US trade talks and that's the unrest in the Middle East Which has been ramped up a little bit higher in the past few days after Iran shot down a US drone With the prospect that the US might retaliate now We've seen a significant rebound of the lows in Brent crude We've managed to get back above 64 dollars a barrel But ultimately what we need to see is a significant move above the 250 day moving average and momentum Has still turned negative on Brent crude people talk about a hundred dollar oil if a shooting war breaks out at the moment You can't really price that All we can do is look at the price action and the price action is we're still getting lower highs We are still getting lower lows albeit. We weren't able to make a new low this week So we do have a little bit of a short-term base in and around these lows here And that's something that we need to we do need to be aware of we were able to stay above $63.80 we could squeeze a little bit higher 67 or 68 dollars a barrel. So That's one of the other key I Think one of the key and factors in the geopolitical picture going forward as far as events are concerned Haven't really got an awful lot this coming week apart from the G20 We've got final revisions to us first-quarter GDP and you've UK first-quarter GDP They're not really expected to tell us much more than we already know The first quarter the final revision to US first-quarter GDP is expected to remain A wrap up around 3.2% after that big jump that we saw in the second revision from 2.3% So not really expecting any change there UK first-quarter GDP again Expected to come in at 0.5. It's really the business investment numbers that are a cause for concern at the moment Against what we're seeing with respect to the political paralysis around Brexit We also have an IPO which goes on conditional trading this week the train line IPO that starts on the 26th of June and on Conditional trading we saw it really jump out of the blocks from 350p to trade At around about 400p in the first day of conditional trading and this is one of the thing with this train line IPO Is this one of those rare beasts? It's an IPO. She's actually profitable So probably means it won't be very popular, but I digress it's valued at an estimated 1.68 billion now around about 2 billion because obviously it's traded at a premium and The company made a profit of 10.5 million pounds Last financial year on revenues of 3.2 billion pounds and that's the first annual profit It's made after three years of losses and the company's raising 75 million pounds in order to help improve the technology and Potentially expand into other areas of travel like buses and aviation So has the potential to be a significant disruptor in the travel sector. We've also got full year earnings from carpet, right? and As you may well recall They went into administration Earlier this year But the business is now starting to turn itself around. So those full year numbers Should give us a good indication Particularly in the most recent quarter as to whether or not the turnaround plan that's been Undergoing at this moment ongoing at this moment is Continuing to bear fruit. We've also got four year earnings from stagecoach and we also have Quarterly earnings from the likes of semiconductor micron technology Nike Q4 and FedEx Q4 now FedEx will be particularly interesting given the rebounding US retail sales that we've seen in the past couple of months because generally Logistics companies tend to be decent bellwethers of economic activity in an economy the more parcels that get delivered the more parcels that are Across the country generally tend to give you an indication of how optimistic people are and whether or not people are buying goods and services So Those are the key things that I'm keeping an eye out for over the course of the next few days That's it for me this week. Thank you very much for listening. It's Michael Houston talking to you from CMC markets


I am welcoming you to today's TechSoup webinar on new member orientation. The purpose of this webinar is to help folks and nonprofits who are new to TechSoup to understand what are the things TechSoup can do for you. How can we help your nonprofit? And we're going to talk about a lot of different ways that we can work with you. And there'll be some time for some question and answer at the end as well. And as Kelly and Aretha were both saying, if you want to go ahead and submit questions using the Q and A feature in the Zoom dialogue bar, where it says mute, stop video, et cetera, there's a Q and A section in there that you can use to ask your questions. So without further ado, let me get rolling here. And I'm actually going to start with what we call just the quick buzzword alert. Because there are some terms that may pop up in this webinar or in other interactions you have with TechSoup. I don't want to assume everybody thinks that they know exactly what these things mean, or maybe we have different versions of what we think they mean. And maybe we don't know what they mean, they're just a buzzword. And so I just want to put a little concise framing around those things. The first term you may hear a lot in technology and nonprofit circles is the notion of digital transformation, which can sound large and bookish. But really, if you boil it down honestly for your nonprofit, what it means is just it's becoming more tech savvy. It's using technology tools to accomplish your mission, to keep your operating system going. The second term you'll hear is civil society. And lots of folks are members of civil society. And when we talk about civil society to TechSoup, what we're really talking about is non-governmental people and organizations. And that's what nonprofits are. That's what 501c3s are. And we all have a mission or an objective that we're working on. But broadly, taken together, we call that civil society. And then finally, there's a specific term. And since we work in tech and close to the marketplace of tech a lot that we hear a lot, which is cloud adoption. And it doesn't need to be mysterious. When we talk about cloud adoption, we're really just talking about using more modern tools that are web-based tools, as opposed to tools that you just download to your computer and just use on your computer. That would be what we call an on-premises tool. But a cloud-based tool, cloud adoption itself is, yeah, using those tools that are constantly linked up to the internet from your local machine, they receive updates that way. Perhaps you're backing up data into the cloud itself. But that's all that means. All right, now let's get into the meat of what is TechSoup and how can we help you? And let's start with the very first thing that I think matters a lot here. Like you, TechSoup is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. And so that means a couple of things are important right up front. We understand how nonprofits are different than for-profit organizations. We know what it means to have a tight budget, to try to do more with less, and to constantly push the edge of what we can do with the tools that we have. And we also understand how a nonprofit's budget works, right? And the budget cycle itself and how you propose a budget and how you articulate what the goals and objectives are of your programs for that year. So we share a very common body of knowledge with you. And we're a nonprofit that actually cares a lot about how other nonprofits are using technology. In fact, that's one of our core mission areas. Our mission is broad, but one of the most important parts of it is that it includes supporting other nonprofits who are working with technology to build a more equitable planet. At TechSoup, we have a perspective. We really think that technology can be a powerful and very helpful tool. There's a lot of obstacles that nonprofits have to overcome to using technology, and we're here to try to help you overcome some of those obstacles. But we really think that tech itself is a tool that can do a great amount of good in the world when placed in the hands of nonprofits. The third thing we do is we host a catalog of technology products, and it's priced specifically for nonprofits from major brands like Microsoft, Dell, Intuit, Adobe, and many, many, many more. We'll look a little more deeply in a few minutes at what that catalog contains. But what's cool to know about this is TechSoup actively negotiates with these corporations and works closely with their philanthropic arms to really try to make these products more affordable for nonprofits. That's important because we know that price can often be one of the things that stops nonprofits from being able to adopt a technology or to use it fully, and so we try to help where we can to make things more affordable. But in the modern world of technology, it's not enough just to buy a piece of hardware or to own a piece of software. There's so much work that happens after the fact in terms of setting up that hardware or software, making sure that it is configured correctly, that it's working with your other systems, that it's installed correctly, that updates are happening. All of this management of technology is a huge service industry in the for-profit sector. But again, at TechSoup, we try to offer those services at an affordable price point to nonprofits so that you're not alone, meaning that we are there to help you beyond just getting a piece of tech. It's actually like how to use it, how to train yourself on it, how to install it and optimize it. We also, in that vein, provide a specific set of content courses and trainings to help nonprofit staff understand technology and build their technology skills. We have an entire TechSoup courses platform, and one of the major elements of there is the Microsoft Skills Center, and that's a very specific thing designed to help folks bring up their skill level. For instance, how many of us have looked online for tips and tricks on how to use Excel? It's a very powerful program. We know it could do something, but you may not know exactly how to do it, and we try to provide that kind of technology skills and training for nonprofit folks. And then finally, like most of you, TechSoup also provides its own programming based on grants. And broadly, we are a key player in trying to strengthen and build the resilience of global civil society. We're not just a United States-based organization. TechSoup, in fact, is also called the TechSoup Global Network. We are around the world. We work with nonprofits in countries around the world to do the same kind of work that I've just outlined here for you in the United States. And so that is a big way of saying that we do this because we really care. And we think, again, that technology can really provide a very powerful tool in the effort to make the world a better place. So as I said at the front, this training today, or this webinar today, is really designed to help new members to TechSoup understand how we can help and what the things are that we can provide in terms of services and products and training. But as Aretha and I have been looking together in the past at the folks who are attending these webinars, one thing that we actually noticed is like there's an awful lot of folks who attend this orientation webinar who are not yet qualified and registered with TechSoup. So before I go any further, I want to call out for you that in order to use the TechSoup product catalog, you do need to be a qualified nonprofit in the TechSoup database. And that really means that you have become a TechSoup member. And that's how we can confirm that your organization is indeed a 501c3 nonprofit that you are eligible for the pricing, product services, et cetera that we provide. And if your nonprofit is not yet a TechSoup member, I strongly encourage you to please log on to TechSoup after this webinar is finished and begin the process of becoming a TechSoup member. This is the URL that you would go to and we'll send you a copy of this deck after the webinar is over. You can just click on this link, it'll take you right to the page where you begin that process. Or if you want, you can navigate to the TechSoup site yourself and the Join TechSoup link is in the top right hand corner. It's a button, you won't miss it. But it's important to note that it's not just that anybody can use the TechSoup catalog. It is very specifically for 501c3 nonprofits at the moment and you do need to be a TechSoup member in order to use it. All right, moving on. As I said, one of the big ways that we try to work with nonprofits and help is by providing access to a technology catalog that we have built over a couple of decades now, working with major brands that I mentioned at the top. And yeah, just to make it a little easier to see how to use this catalog, I'm showing you here the TechSoup homepage and there at the top is the product catalog link. You can click that for a drop down or there's an orange button right in the middle of the homepage right there, browse catalog. That'll take you right into the product catalog. I want to talk in a little more detail about what's in that catalog because this of course is a major part of how we try to help. We have relationships with a bunch of really great nonprofit or great corporations who are working to provide nonprofits with access to their tech. And Microsoft has been one of those partners from the very early days of TechSoup. These days, what lots of nonprofits come to TechSoup for when it comes to Microsoft products, they're looking at Microsoft 365 or Office 365 Enterprise. That's the cloud-based version of Microsoft Office, right? We've probably all come up using Microsoft Office, that package of programs like Outlook, Excel, Word and numerous others that lots of folks use in their day-to-day activities. Certainly Outlook is like a staple of email communications for most folks. And the cloud version, Microsoft 365 is really the place where nonprofits want to be these days. It's backed up to the cloud. You can access it from multiple locations, from multiple devices. It's much more secure. There are many nonprofits who still want to use the on-premises version of Microsoft Office and we have that available as well. But Microsoft 365 really is where you want to be. The on-premises software that we have, each license for Microsoft Office is $222 at this point, just to be totally transparent on where that pricing is. And if you get it without software assurance, that price can drop to $118 per license. And then we also provide access to Windows Pro full operating system. So this is your path to bring computers up to compliance with Windows 11 if you need to go down that path. And yeah, as I was saying, you can upgrade from Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise to Windows 11 through TechSoup. Another major partnership that nonprofits are extremely positive about is Adobe. And if you're somebody who works specifically in nonprofit communications, maybe you're a director of communications, maybe you have somebody on staff like a designer or a writer or somebody who has to produce your communications, pretty likely they've worked with Adobe products at some point in time. We certainly, probably on this call, everybody has worked with a PDF at one point in time. That's a portable document format, right? PDFs were invented by Adobe back in the day. So they have a long time interest in communications and those kinds of creative tools. And at TechSoup, we have access to Adobe Creative Cloud, which is kind of like the staple of what designers really depend on when they're creating beautiful visuals. Acrobat Pro DC is the specific standalone program that lets you manage PDFs as well. And then we have a new item in the catalog, which is Adobe Express, which we're excited about. And a lot of folks are very interested in Adobe Express. It is sort of a slightly easier to use graphics and communications platform. It's not as advanced as Creative Cloud, but perhaps a little easier to use. So if you're not like a trained professional designer and Adobe Creative Cloud is a little too intimidating sometimes, then you might want to give Adobe Express a try that might suit your needs, serve your needs better, and find it a little bit easier to use. There's a lot of templates in there that you can use to build out graphics, etc. There are some teams, memberships also available, which is Creative Cloud for education. And if that fits your nonprofit's mission, you know, you can dive a little bit deeper into the TechSoup catalog and understand how to get into that. Another place where lots of nonprofits leverage technology is in accounting and finance. And at TechSoup, we have thousands of nonprofits who've come to us to get our offers around Intuit QuickBooks. QuickBooks is a pretty well known global product at this point in time. There's, of course, very different versions of it, depending on how many people need to use it. But at this point in time, we offer QuickBooks online for $75 per year. And then there's an online advanced version as well, which is a little bit more money. And then I know that TechSoup has just started a new service to help nonprofits that have recently decided to switch to Intuit QuickBooks. And the service is like, how do you migrate your existing financial data into QuickBooks? So that's a service that TechSoup now provides. It's not a free service, right? We have to be able to pay for the things that we're offering. But if you are struggling with how to move your old data into QuickBooks, that's something we can also help with. And you can go to this online FAQ afterwards and get more details on QuickBooks. Those are the three biggest partners that we work with, but there are dozens more spread throughout the catalog. And so on this slide, I'm honestly, I'm just trying to show you some of the logos of some of the other corporations that we also work with whose philanthropic arms have agreed that they really want to help nonprofits and they work with TechSoup to do so. And we appreciate their partnership and, you know, we wouldn't be able to provide these services, products, offers and support to nonprofits without, you know, as they say in NPR, the generous support of some of these other folks that we work with. So we say thanks to everybody for their involvement in the catalog. But as I said, there's a lot going on in the catalog. We're not just software. There's also hardware at TechSoup. And I'll tell you what, during the pandemic, this has been a particular interest. We all know how supply chain issues have kind of really made it difficult sometimes to get things that you needed. And at TechSoup, you know, we certainly experienced the same thing, but we are one more source where nonprofits have been able to go and get laptops, desktops, and other kinds of hardware. We have relationships with Dell, with Lenovo and HP. Dell and Lenovo run some quarterly promotions with TechSoup that we participate in. And you can get some really good competitive prices on the hardware at those places through TechSoup. JourneyEd is another hardware provider through TechSoup that has sort of smaller bits and pieces that can be helpful. And I want to do a special call out to the refurbished hardware arm of TechSoup. So TechSoup has been one of the leaders in promoting this notion of we shouldn't just throw away old computers that are, you know, unusable anymore. I mean, if they really are so old that they're unusable, sure, let's recycle that. But newer items that just aren't in use can often be refurbished, just updated slightly or re-accredited as refurbished. And then, you know, you can buy basically what's a gently used laptop or desktop computer. It meets your needs. It gives your staff what they need, but you're not paying like full market rate for a brand new computer each time. And so that refurbished hardware program at TechSoup has definitely been one of the things that a lot of folks have really liked working with over the last few years. And, you know, if you are particularly working with like a green sensibility of really making sure that we reduce, reuse and recycle, then the refurbished hardware program is great to know about. And this is, again, the TechSoup homepage just showing you how you get to the hardware offers. You first have to click on the product catalog, then on the left, you'll see the navigation here for hardware. All right, so that's software and hardware available through TechSoup. Many, many more brands than I mentioned and kind of worth your time to go through the catalog and take a look at everything. But as I said at the front, that's not all that TechSoup does, because in the modern world, it's not enough just to buy a piece of hardware or software. Often, you also need support. Perhaps on the front end, just evaluating which specific product it is that you need. And so, for instance, the Microsoft 365 product that I mentioned at the top, there are several different kinds of licenses that are available for that. And if you need help figuring out which license is actually right for your nonprofit, well, that's a service that TechSoup can provide. And in fact, we provide a lot more than just that service. It's just an example. But these services are a really critical part of what we find in the modern world we need to be able to support nonprofits with. So, again, going to the home page to find these services, there's the navigation dropdown at the top of the screen. And each one of these is just a slightly different service. And we'll go into a couple of them here. The first one is called a help desk service. This is kind of like, you know, you don't know what help you're going to need, but we always have trouble with this particular printer. This is particularly true for folks who still have like a brick and mortar on site place. You can get a help desk service plan for a particular piece of hardware. And that means, you know, we can help you troubleshoot it when something goes wrong. As I just mentioned, Office 365 or Microsoft 365 has lots of different services associated with it. I was talking about how do you choose your license, but really on the back end, there's a lot of other stuff that has to happen, including how to migrate your email addresses into that, how to bring other data into it. And that's a service that TechSoup can help you with as well. And then even if you're using the on-premises version, we have support for installation of those Microsoft products. Managed IT is another service product where what we're actually doing is looking at the broader technology stack at your nonprofit and trying to help you manage that over time. You know, it's different than help desk where it's just like something happens, it goes wrong, we help you fix it, and that's that. Managed IT is more about having a holistic view of your whole technology stack and really thinking through what are some best practices you need to think about on that. And then finally, I want to call out in that navigation item, the digital assessment tool. The digital assessment tool is this great grant-based tool that TechSoup began building a couple of years ago now that lets a nonprofit go through a sequenced set of questions about different operational areas at your nonprofit and help you really assess how well you're doing and where there's room for improvement. This is a great tool for executive directors, for board members, or even folks who are specifically in charge of the entire IT stack. Perhaps you've got some funding available to you to modernize your technology, but the question is like which specific part of it do you work on. The digital assessment tool is a great way to better understand where your organization might need a little bit of help. And it's also a great measurement of your overall digital maturity. So to go back to that term, digital transformation I talked about at the top, the assessment tool really lets you kind of understand where are you in that path of digital transformation and help you build a roadmap into the future of where you might want to improve. We also know over time with our research with nonprofits that one of the big technology areas that is specific is technology that helps with communications, outreach, and marketing. And this of course includes fundraising, right? In fact, if you think about it, the modern nonprofit probably more than at any other time has to be constantly communicating with a lot of different audiences. Certainly you've got to communicate with board members, with your own staff. Perhaps you have a specific set of clients that you're serving that you also need to maintain a regular cadence of communications with. In many instances, there may be public leaders or press that you have to communicate with, or perhaps you even have like a large email list of 5, 10, 20,000 people who somehow are interested in the work that your nonprofit does. All these are different communications audiences and nonprofits put a lot of effort into talking to these folks all the time. Your website of course is one of the core tools that you use to talk to those folks all the time. And we've all sat in the internal debates within our own nonprofits about what should be at the top of the homepage on your website and should we do it this way? Should we do it that way? How often should we update this photo? One of the things nonprofits really need to help with is how to do that website work. And in many cases, it means do we need to redo the entire website? Or can we just get away with updating it? Should we change platforms entirely? And we've got a service that is really designed to help you walk through some of those questions and try to help you assess whether or not you really need a new website or what kind of budget would it take to get a new website? And so that website consultation and development services is a new offer. And we know that lots of nonprofits are super interested in what to do with that this year. Similar to that, the outreach portion of communications where we are not relying on people to come to us, but instead we're reaching out to them. And really we're talking about email and ads most of the time. And maybe not everybody's using ads, but most of us are using email, right? These digital marketing services are another consultation area where we have interface with nonprofits. And then some folks on this call may already just be using Google ad grants. If you're not using Google ad grants, it's worth learning a little bit more about it. You can go online and literally Google that phrase. But the Google ad grant service effectively provides nonprofits with up to $10,000 a month and free AdWords advertising. There's some caps on like how you can run your bids and stuff, but lots of nonprofits get that service and then aren't sure exactly how to best use it, how to optimize it. And so we do have a service for nonprofits who are using the Google ad grants. And we can try to help you optimize that and evaluate how you should be using it best. A specific service, and I mentioned this already up front is TechSoup Courses, right? Where we're stepping outside of just this consultation between TechSoup folks and nonprofits. And the courses really are designed to be something where any nonprofit staff are, and in fact, frankly, anyone, but it's intended for nonprofit staff, and the courses are developed for nonprofit staff to build your skill set around some of the key technology areas. And like the catalog, there are too many courses to really list here in a specific webinar. But some of them that really jump out at folks are at the top of the page here for us, it's Tech Planning. If you're looking ahead at how are you even going to create a budget, let's imagine that you are an IT manager, or as we also know in many places, it's actually front office staff who often act as the IT manager at a nonprofit, right? If you are needing to plan out a budget a year ahead of time on technology, well, there's an awful lot of questions you have to answer for yourself about how to even plan ahead over the course of the next year. So Tech Planning is a great skill set to build. And then alongside that, as I said, Excel is a big one as well. So that's the digital skills one that I'm showing there. We have great stuff on email marketing, Google Analytics, as I mentioned already. But there are dozens of other topics in the TechSoup courses platform. And very well worth your time to just take a quick look there, particularly if you've got some specific staff that you think are asking for help on improving their tech skills, or maybe to yourself, but check out TechSoup courses. What I will point out is TechSoup courses is a separate actual platform from TechSoup.org. So you have to create a second login there. But hopefully that's not too much fuss to be able to do that. Oh, and to go into some more detail on that, yes, we have both English and Spanish courses available on TechSoup courses. And I think, yeah, it looks like we've got about over 70,000 folks now have logged in there. As I said, they are designed specifically for nonprofits. So the course material is really written with 501c3s in mind. Anyone can sign up. This is different than using the TechSoup catalog, where I said you really have to be a 501c3 to use the TechSoup catalog, like to get Microsoft and Adobe and stuff. But TechSoup courses is open to anyone. And I've already mentioned some of those topics and the Microsoft Digital Skills Center. So worth looking at it. The folks in the courses team did ask me to highlight for you the nonprofit foundational skills track. So this is to say that some of these courses are actually condensed into a bigger thing. And this track is designed to give you an overview of a bunch of different TechSoup courses. But you can see for yourself on the screen obviously from project management, Excel, remote team organizing, fundraising, grant writing, email marketing, all topics that most nonprofits need to pay attention to in one way or another. All right. So that's my quick deep dive into the different offers and supports that TechSoup can provide for your nonprofit. Now I want to do a little deeper dive into two very specific things. And these are led by Kevin Mulhall and Kelly Garrett, who are here on the call with us today. And we're going to start with Kevin. Kevin is a customer success manager. You may have heard that term sort of in a more corporate environment maybe perhaps, but at TechSoup what customer success is about is really staying focused on making sure that nonprofits are getting the best out of us that they can possibly get. So Kevin and his team work to make sure that you're getting the help you need. So with that, I'll turn it over to Kevin. Welcome, Kevin Mulhall. Thanks, Nick. That's nail on head right there. It's a pleasure to be speaking with you all today. Again, my name is Kevin Mulhall and I am a customer success manager here at TechSoup. For those joining today that may not have heard of my team, it's completely understandable. As we're probably the youngest department here, I think now within the TechSoup realm. I'll have some additional details regarding our team in a later slide. Before beginning, I'd like to start with a quick poll question. Not sure if perfect. Aretha, you're the best. Is your organization currently using Microsoft or Office 365? We'll give this maybe about 30 seconds. You should see it popping up on your screen. Feel free to answer. If you don't want to answer, that's of course fine as well. Very curious on seeing where everybody else or everybody lands on this. Give it about maybe 10 more seconds. Let's see what we got here. Wow. This is great. 90%. This is the third installment, I think, of this maybe. Fourth, we went from 67 on the first to 72 to 85 to 90. This is great. The word is getting out on 365. The benefits of 365, particularly around the granted licenses, which is fantastic. If we move to the next slide, please. Speaking to the offers themselves, the slide that we have here presents a breakdown of the pricing between the various types of 365 subscriptions. We have web-only offers such as Microsoft Business Basic, which is free up to 300 licenses for full-time, part-time, contract employees, as well as board members. If you have volunteers at your organization, you will need a specific license type for them. That would be the Microsoft F1 or F3. For the sake of time, I'm not going to go all the way into all of what you're seeing here on this slide, other than to follow up just simply what was referenced earlier regarding web-based subscriptions. In order to access the traditional office suite, which was discussed earlier that many of you are familiar with, your organization will need to request what's called a hybrid license. Some examples of this subscription type are Office 365 E3, which I use, Business Standard, Business Premium, and the Microsoft Enterprise E3 or E5 offers. I also want to draw a quick attention to the last item on the slide, Azure. For those interested in furthering their use of Microsoft Cloud, there is a $3,500 yearly grant nonprofits are eligible to apply for with Microsoft. With over 200 services, different services available as part of Azure, it's definitely something worth looking into. Next slide, please. Those interested and ready to begin their journey towards accessing Microsoft Cloud solutions for your organization, there is a three-step process. First, you'll need to create an account at the Microsoft nonprofit portal. Next, you'll have that account validated by our validation service team. This is a service we provide for Microsoft on the backend and typically takes between five and seven business days to process. Microsoft does note that it can potentially take up to 20 or 30. The final part will be introducing what we refer to as the TechSoup Cloud Manager or Cloud Manager tool to an authorized TechSoup user's account. Introducing this tool will allow you access the storefront where you'll be able to purchase licensing. The process is very similar to what you did when you registered first with TechSoup and that you simply verified ownership of an email address in order to complete it. If you find yourself stuck at any part of the process, we do have a team at the ready to assist via chat, which you can see here on the screen in the bottom right corner. Next slide. Understanding the move to the cloud can be a challenge for organizations. We offer a free consultation service. During a session with us, we'll be able to assist with registration, choosing the appropriate subscription licensing, provide recommendations for services and courses, license implementation, and ongoing support to you at no additional cost. Last slide, please. So as promised, I wanted to give you a quick introduction and overview of what my team does. For the sake of time, I've broken it down into five general areas. Technology reviewing and planning, organizational strategy, identifying opportunities for potential financial and volunteer support, triaging managed support projects and services, and providing quotes and invoices for bulk product requests. And with that, I'll pass it back over to you all. Great. Thanks, Kevin. And now for the second person joining us today is Kelly Garrett. Kelly's associate manager in client services. And client services has a different job than the customer success team. And Kelly's already been in chat answering lots of questions, and that's very much what that whole team does. But let me hand it over to Kelly Garrett. She can tell you more about our client services team. Hey, everyone. How's it going today? Hope you're having a good, oh gosh, is it Wednesday already? I swear working remote, my days just blur together, but I'm happy to have you all here and happy to be presenting for the client services department. Client services provides the account management and customer service to our TechSoup members or potentially interested members. So when you call our phone line, use our support chat, send us an email, you're working with the client services team. We are always here for help. And we do like to help members navigate our website, find the resources they're looking for. We can answer some basic questions, provide some basic support, and always direct you to where you can get better support as well. One thing that we always like to help members when they're just getting started with TechSoup do is navigate our website. So with the QuickBooks online here is our example. When you go to the product catalog, as Nick first explained earlier in this presentation, so you click that product catalog at the top of the screen, you can always then go over to the left and navigate by donor company category or hardware. So to get to this page, I usually say, you know, go to the donor company, click into it. Once you see the product that you're interested in, that's when you can click on that and it will load the product or the offer page that should have all the information that you need to answer most of your questions. We usually say that if the questions aren't answered on this product page, this is pretty much most the information that TechSoup has available about this product service, whatever the offer is, and if you have more in-depth ones, we usually recommend double checking with the partner that provided the product or service. They'll be able to answer a lot more in-depth stuff since their company created it, and all of our products are the exact same thing that's available on the commercial market. So QuickBooks Online Plus through TechSoup is the exact same product and software as QuickBooks Online Plus through Intuit. The main difference here is that the admin fee, which you see is always listed in red. Above that, you'll see that it does list out all the different categories you might be needing to look at. So, you know, what platforms can it be run on? What format is it? Is it available? You know, sometimes we do have stuff go out of stock. We usually are working on restocking it, but it just kind of depends on how fast a partner can get us new keys or new licenses, things along those lines. Underneath the login button, which that orange button, if you do log in, that does turn into an add to cart button once you're there. But underneath that, we have three different tabs that we can kind of name different things. It's usually description on the left, rules, eligibility and restrictions on the right. And the middle tab kind of changes names depending on what type of product or service the offer is. Always highly recommend clicking through all these because a lot of our partners have a very strict no refunds policy. The no refunds policy is usually because we can't recoup licensing or products that we can then offer to a different nonprofit. So if you don't decide you don't want it or need it, it's kind of just been wasted now and no nonprofit can use it. So we always highly, highly, highly recommend read through everything. If you have some questions, reach out to us. If we can't it to you, we'll get you in contact with the partner and make sure it's all squared away before you buy stuff. You want to make sure you're not just adding the cart and checking out because we do have some very strict refund and exchange policies per our agreements with the partners and agreements that check out. I did see that there were some questions. One thing for the QuickBooks Online, since this comes up quite a bit, is QuickBooks Online is a product that is designed for first, it's for organizations that don't have a QuickBooks Online already. That's safe for both QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced. Basically, if you have a commercial version already, you're going to have to do a data transfer to a new donated subscription. Intuit, unfortunately, doesn't have the ability to apply the nonprofit billing code in their system to existing accounts. So you do have to set up a brand new account and then do a data transfer over, which Intuit does provide support for. And we do have a great QuickBooks Online data migration service that you can purchase as well underneath the TechSoup Services option, which you can access to that donor or company drop down in the top left corner. Let's hopefully answer some basic questions about QuickBooks. It's one of our most popular products. And just again, those three tabs, highly recommend reading all the way through them to make sure you're making the right call and you don't need to try to refund or exchange the product. Moving forward, thank you, Nick, for getting in touch for support. Like I was saying, if you want to contact us, contact us, double check some information, ask us any questions. We are here to help. We do recommend always checking out our help topics and our frequently asked questions, which you can access by clicking that help button in the top right corner next to the login button or the join button. Really good questions. We're actually in the process of right now flushing these out a bit more and trying to make them more in depth and more available. So you will be seeing some improvements to this area in the future. Below here, you will see that there is the contact us. There's a couple different contacts that we have available. We do have customer support. We do have PR. If there's a company that wants to become part of TechSoup as a partner, there's that link, things along those lines. Something to keep in mind is that this is all for the U.S.-based organizations. If you have branches outside of the United States, please make sure your branch is registering with our partner in that country that's providing the services and the products in their own catalog. Unfortunately, you can't request products on TechSoup.org and send them to organizations, your branch locations outside of the country. A lot of the products are geolocked and won't work. So it's something to really make sure that if you are helping an organization outside the country, if you have a branch location, make sure they're registering their own accounts with our partners and not coming to here to ask questions and try to get products because they'll just get bogged down because they're not going to be able to move forward since it's only 501c3 non-profit organizations and libraries that have access to TechSoup.org. Moving forward. So on that previous slide that showed you the customer service, there was a contact us link. If you click that, that will take you to this contact us page. We do have our contact us form. As a fellow non-profit, we strive to get back to our member non-profits as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, with our unlimited resources, sometimes we do get backlogged, so it can take a while. It can take three to five business days to get back to sometimes up to a week. So if you have an urgent issue, I do recommend using our chat feature. It is on quite a few of our pages on TechSoup.org. It's always on this contact us page when we're open and available. And then we also have a phone line that is available from 7am to 12pm Pacific Standard Time that you can always call as well. So we've got three great options. It just depends on your urgency. Calling and chat is the quickest way to get support. The contact us or emailing customerservice at TechSoup.org will take sometimes up to a week to get a response. So that's for less urgent things, I would say. Call or chat with us. Chats open from 7 to 7.30 to 4pm every day. Again, Pacific Standard Time, we are located on the West Coast. So just keep that in mind if you're in a different time zone. That's always those people off sometimes. So we're always here to help. Next slide, please. Perfect. So as I said, the timing here is, sorry, chat supports actually from 7am to 4pm Pacific Time. That's our usual time. You know, we might be closed on a holiday, you know, if there's a three-day weekend. Occasionally, we have an all-staff meeting. But for the most part, Monday through Friday, we are available on chat for 7am to 4pm. So you have all that whole time frame to get in touch with us for speaking to a live, real person on chat. It's not an automated thing. We also have the phone support. That's a little more limited. That's just the 7am to 12pm Pacific Time. And then again, we have that contact us form. It's usually three to five business days. It could be a little bit longer. It could be a little shorter, just depending on what our volumes are. Everyone seems to have their budget reset at the same time. Everyone seems, you know, kind of go through the same thing. We are all in the same nonprofit sector. So we definitely have backlogs that can happen. One thing I do like to call out is TechSoup's customer service is customer service and account management. We are not an IT service. So we can help you with managing your TechSoup account. So you need a new representative on there. You are having login issues. You're curious about your eligibility. You want help navigating resources and products on the TechSoup website. We can help with that. What we are not able to help with is if you run into, you know, you need someone that needs to help you with downloading, installing a product, your product, you have product functionality issues, you have in-depth product questions, you need IT support, things along those lines that kind of go on beyond basic support and are more in-depth. That's something we won't be able to assist with. And that's when you're going to want to look at those TechSoup services where we have a great option of like a one-time installation support. We have a one-time issue fix. We have a five-hour setting, a lot of different options, which again, if you go to that donor or company drop-down in the product catalog, you will be able to click on TechSoup services and see all the different services we have. They are priced for nonprofits and they are connecting you to our partners that provide the services, BASC, and Tech Impact are usually the ones you will be working with, but we do have some other partners that provide different services and things along those lines. So highly recommend checking out the services if you run into any issues. And just a reminder that you're welcome to call us to see if we can help, but just anticipate that if it's a download, installation, IT issues, something like that, we'll probably be directing you to look at the TechSoup services page and help you pick out one of the services. And I know we have a couple more Q&A in here. Is the QuickBooks Online only available in the U.S.? I'm not sure. Let's see here. I just want to see one more question. Shall I wait for you to send me a user password to log into QuickBooks? I think we addressed that in the Q&A section. Someone was asking, are we sending a user password to log in into QuickBooks? No, you're going to have to register a brand new account, and then you will have to transfer your data over to your new donated QuickBooks Online subscription. And we do have an FAQ that can walk you through that stuff. And then the next question I see in here is, is the QuickBooks Online only available in the U.S.? That, I'm not 100% sure. I'd have to check our different companies. We're in pretty much every country around the world except embargoed countries or countries that legally have some issues going on. So there's a lot of countries. So I'd need to know a specific country and I could double check it for you. All right. That's all I have. Great. Thank you so much, Kelly. And thank you, everybody, for the great line of questions in chat. Almost every time we do this webinar, one of the things I notice in chat is, well, actually, there's two things I notice. One, there are some very common questions, which we do see all the time, but there's always some questions which we haven't seen before. And so I appreciate everybody asking. And again, for us, this is super helpful because this helps us do a better job at what our own mission is. Again, like I said at the top, we're here to kind of help nonprofits with technology itself. So when we hear real feedback from real people in other nonprofits who are using tech, it definitely helps us. So it's 1051 here on the West Coast. We've been at it for a while here, and I really appreciate everybody's time and attention today. As I said, we'll be sending out a copy of this deck afterwards in the follow up email, their live links in the deck throughout it. You know, I apologize in advance if one or two links, you know, maybe don't work here or there as you click on them. Just sometimes it's a matter of making sure that the link matches what is clicked on exactly. Also, Google is your friend on this stuff. And if you just go to the TechSoup site itself, you should be able to get around pretty easily within there. But I do want to just reinforce for folks that that TechSoup product catalog for the most part is for 501c3 nonprofits. And if you've not yet registered with your nonprofit with TechSoup, please do do that. It's the first major step you have to take towards taking advantage of some of these other offers that we put in front of you here during this webinar today. And as I said, if you go to the homepage on techsoup.org, it's right in the top right hand corner, you can join TechSoup there. And other than that, thank you very much for coming today. We appreciate all your time and attention. And I just want to also say that like, from one nonprofit to another, like, thank you. You've made an active decision to put your work life into something to help make the world a better place, whether it's, you know, at the local level or in your own community, or maybe there's some big global issue that you're advocating on, but thank you. We try to do the same here and appreciate all your time and energy. Have a great day. Bye-bye. See you, everyone. Thank you so much.