 Hey everybody, welcome to TechSoup, especially if this is your first time we want to welcome you. This is the new member orientation. We are here to find out how can TechSoup, TechSoup get in Tunkai. TechSoup support your organization. We're going to tell you all kinds of ways in just a moment. Before we do, I would like to do a little housekeeping. If this is your first time, this is how you can engage with us. Please use Q&A feature. You can type your questions in the chat room, but we prefer them in the Q&A. We're going to email you the slides with the hyperlink after this within 48 hours. And if you need the close caption, please use the CC button at the bottom of your screen. And now I get to introduce our panelists for the day. My name is Aretha Simons. I'm the webinar producer here. But we're going to have Nick Vanheet is the senior director here at TechSoup. And we have Kevin Mohall. He's a TechSoup customer success manager. And then we have the one and only Kelly Garriott. She's the associate manager for TechSoup client services, which is also like our customer service. So I'm so excited to be here. And I always learn from this webinar. So Nick, I'm going to turn it up to you. Have a great one guys. Well, good day everybody. I often start with good morning, but we have a spread of folks from across not just the US, but I think even a few folks outside of the US on this webinar today. So I'm not going to make any assumptions about what time it is where you are, but welcome to today's new member orientation for TechSoup. TechSoup is an organization unlike any other. And sometimes it takes a little bit of clarification to share all the different ways that we help and support nonprofits with technology. And if you're new to TechSoup, and that's the primary audience for today's webinar. Today I'm going to walk you through the different elements of TechSoup and how we can support you and how we can help you. But before I launch into that, it would be great actually to just share with you the wide variety of mission types that the nonprofits who are on this call right now are engaged in. And as I'm looking at a list right now, thanks to the wonders of technology of some of the different nonprofits that are attending today. I see activity codes that cover a whole host of things. I see missionary activities, a community theatrical group, aid to persons with disabilities, a several United Way locals, some organizations that literally that work specifically on supplying money goods or services to the poor. Aid to persons with disabilities, soil or water conservation, non charity libraries, visual arts, private grant making foundations, community service organizations, low income housing, daycare center, preservation of natural resources. There's a huge variety to the mission types of 501C3s and nonprofit organizations out there. But at the core of all of it is the people who are working in these organizations, you have made a specific decision to work in an area to try to help and build better community, whether it's local, national, or globally. And it's just always really great to see all the different mission types people have on these calls, because it's a reminder of how much good work is going out there is going on out there. And I just want to start by saying thank you to all of you for doing that good work. As we get into TechSoup itself, we've already talked about the panelists for today. And I'm actually going to start with what we call the buzzword alert, which is several herbs that you may hear bandied about both in TechSoup and then more broadly in communities that work with nonprofit technology. The first one is digital transformation, which many people may know the definition of but if you're newer to the concept of thinking about tech and nonprofits. Digital transformation really is just a buzzword of how to make your nonprofit more tech savvy, how to leverage technology to help you achieve your mission, manage your staff, share communication and information to interact with the community outside your own specific nonprofit, all forms of digital transformation. Another term you'll hear talked about is civil society. And really when we say that what we're talking about is non governmental people and organizations. This is a way to think about nonprofits around the world doing similar work that are very mission oriented trying to build a better world that civil society. Another technical term that you may hear bandied about is cloud adoption, which sounds more onerous than it really is but it's really just using more modern web based technology tools. And the truth is, everybody on this call is doing that already, because you're on zoom right now and zoom is a web based tool for technology right so cloud adoption is the final one I wanted to mention. Now let's go into the question of what exactly is tech soup and as I said at the top today's webinar is really designed for folks who are newer to tech soup. It might be because you are a new staff member of a nonprofit that already uses tech soup, or it might be because you are leading your nonprofit and you have just signed up for tech soup and this is one of the first instances where you've interacted with us. But let's get into the little detail of what is tech soup here. Well, first of all, we are a 501 C three nonprofit organization in the United States, and we are part of a global network called the tech soup global network. And our mission, both in the US and globally is to help civil society nonprofits charities organizations like you to build a more equitable planet to do the good work of building better communities more more resilient communities of helping people in need. And the important part I really want to emphasize for our US audience right now is that we are a 501 C three organization ourselves. We know what it means to run a nonprofit because we are a nonprofit. And so that immediately means that we understand quite deeply what the challenges are that nonprofits face when it comes to specking adopting and using technology. And by saying our work, our mission, like you all have a mission focused on a specific community need our mission is to support nonprofits and making a more equitable planet using technology. How do we accomplish that. What do we do. Well, one of the first big things we do is we host a catalog of affordable technology products from major technology brands. We have a stock Dell into it Adobe, many others. And we host that catalog as a way for nonprofits to not have to go all over the internet scouring every single source of information for what offers are available to them. Coming to tech soup gives you much more of a one stop shop ability. You can see different offers available specifically for nonprofits. And it makes it a lot easier to understand what's available to your nonprofit. In addition to the catalog of products from these major brands. We also offer tech soup branded services to help nonprofits when you are choosing technology platforms. When you're installing them on your systems. And when you have to manage and administer them. And that applies for both software and hardware. We also provide educational courses and trainings to help nonprofit staff build their technology skills and expertise. We all know that in the modern world of technology, change seems to be accelerating day to day rather than slowing down. And sometimes it's a lot of work simply to keep up with what the latest version of a particular software platform is able to do. And sometimes the questions nonprofits have around that are different than the questions small businesses and corporations have around it. So when we build these courses and trainings, we build them with a specific nonprofit audience in mind and using the feedback we receive from nonprofits directly about different platforms that they're already working in. Finally, tech soup does its own grant based programming to strengthen global civil society, almost always around topics of technology right. And we've become known globally as one of the primary places where nonprofits and civil society go for technology. And therefore we sit in a fantastic place to help nonprofits and if there are grants out there that try to serve nonprofits on technology tech soup is really able to deliver on those missions. So with that overview of what is tech soup. Let's dive in a little more deeply into some of those specifics. And let's start with what is really still the primary engagement point for most nonprofits who come to tech soup. And that is the product catalog that we host. What we've shared on the screen right now is a screenshot of the homepage of tech soup.org. And I'm highlighting for you with the two beautifully artistically drawn red lines, how you navigate to the product catalog, and how you browse the product catalog both links take you to the tank to the same thing. This product catalog has been built over the course of a few decades now. And one of the important things to call out about it is that tech soup builds these relationships with folks in the product catalog with the specific goal of making these tech platforms and products more affordable and more available to nonprofits. And that includes yes negotiating pricing on some of it. So pricing can be a major locker for technology sometimes it can be more expensive than nonprofits can afford. So where we are able. We really work with technology partners to give nonprofits better pricing options than you might find on the open market. One of the major brands that we've worked with for a long time from the very beginning of tech soup really is Microsoft. And, you know, no surprise there because Microsoft obviously is one of the dominant brands in global technology. There are a few specific things from Microsoft that tech soup focuses on these days, looping back to that cloud adoption the theme that I mentioned at the front. Microsoft 365 or Office 365 Enterprise. This is the cloud based version of Microsoft Office. If you have been around for a while. If you've been around for a long while like me you'll remember back in the old days where folks used to actually get office on a CD ROM, and you would load it on to an individual computer. And that was how you had office but today of course it's very different you download it directly through the web. You apply updates etc downloaded directly from the web. That cloud based version of office is something that tech soup and Microsoft provides nonprofits together. There are some cases where folks are not ready or don't want to use the cloud based version of Microsoft Office. There's lots of reasons for that and if you're one of those organizations that wants to use an older version of office. We do also provide access to Microsoft Office on premises on premises is the version I was talking about when I say like you install it on one computer and there it is. The on premises versions of Microsoft Office are available either with software assurance, which is basically it gives you upgrade privileges over three years, or $118 without software assurance. We also provide access to the windows pro full operating system. So if you need to bring a computer up to windows 11 pro, we can help you do that. And we can also help with upgrading windows 10 up to windows 11 or at least making sure that you are running the most recent secure version of it that you can. So these are the main parts of the Microsoft relationship that we find most nonprofits are working with tech soup on Microsoft of course is not the only partner we work with another very well known brand that we do a lot of work with is Adobe. I have come up in my career at times being very engaged in the creative side of writing and designing and laying out digital and print assets and, you know, Adobe's tools have been one of the primary ways that designers and folks who work in the visual arts have have gone digital over the last 20 years. And at tech soup. The Adobe offers include creative cloud, which if you are a designer yourself or work with a designer you know that creative cloud is probably the preeminence design package. That can help you build anything from prints to digital to video I think there's audio elements available in creative cloud. And it's a super exciting offer because you know the $5 admin fee and then the 1999 per month is quite a bit of savings for you. But it's not the only thing that we have from Adobe we also carry acrobat pro DC acrobat pro DC is the way to manage PDF. Portable document format Adobe invented that format. If you're not a designer, but you still work with PDFs acrobat pro DC is probably about the best platform you could be working with them in. And then we have a new offer from Adobe that a lot of nonprofits are excited about right now it's Adobe Express. Adobe Express is probably best described as a simplified version of creative cloud. It doesn't take as much technical knowledge of how platforms like Adobe illustrator or Adobe Photoshop work. Adobe Express is intended to let you deliver really good looking graphics but perhaps without a little less technical detail where you can use templates and kind of establish themes to build those out. Another really popular brand offer available through TechSoup for nonprofits is into it QuickBooks. We saw very clearly during the pandemic that nonprofits still relying on paper and pencil accounting systems were really put under the gun when staff could suddenly no longer go on site. Because you know worksites were shut down offices were closed people were isolated at home. And if you weren't using a cloud based accounting system, things got very difficult very quickly into it QuickBooks has been one of the biggest ways folks have made that transition. QuickBooks online is probably the most popular version of it that we provide access to right now. There's an advanced version of QuickBooks online as well. And yeah, iterating by the way you'll get a copy of this deck after today's webinar. These underlined areas are live links that you will be able to click through from the presentation. And I call that out because there's an online FAQ for QuickBooks online that a lot of folks find pretty helpful. I just want to call that out to you. Those are by far. Those are not by far the only offers available in the TechSoup catalog. There are many, many, many others and I just have a few up here on the screen to kind of illustrate the diversity of what those offers are from TechSoup. The last thing to do really is if you have some specific needs for your nonprofit in terms of technology, and you're registered with TechSoup already. Please take a look at that catalog you may well find that there is pricing in there that is realistic for your nonprofit and you can grab one of these products to help you achieve some component of your mission or manager infrastructure in a way that's helpful. By the way, I do want to call out right now that while this webinar is intended for folks who have joined TechSoup, we always have nonprofits who are not yet TechSoup members attending this webinar, you know, to learn more about why you should join TechSoup at all in the first place. This is a really important piece to call out because as I said, when we negotiate the pricing that we can negotiate with some of these technology brands, it's with the understanding that we're providing this access only, only to nonprofits. And so it makes it really important that when folks come to TechSoup and they take a product, they are a nonprofit, and that requires that you show us that you're a nonprofit and that is part of the signing up and joining TechSoup process. So if you are not yet a TechSoup member and want to take advantage of some of these catalog offers, then please on the homepage of TechSoup.org in the top right hand corner, there is the button to join TechSoup. You have to take that step first before you can use this catalog. Right, moving on. Another big piece of the offers TechSoup provides access to is around hardware. Especially during the pandemic again we know that access to hardware and supply chain issues became a real hard place to navigate for a lot of folks. Our hardware catalog includes both brand new items that you can get from Dell, HP, Lenovo and other brands. We also have a great refurbished computer program. In fact, TechSoup was one of the pioneers in creating demand for the refurbished desktop and laptop market. Because again as a nonprofit, we don't have to look at the world just through the lens of a corporate profit margin. We look at it through different lenses including what's environmentally responsible and what's green. And so this early version of green tech thinking was that we shouldn't just be filling landfills with laptops and desktops that are no longer being used. They should be refurbished and perhaps other nonprofits could use them. And of course there's a price break when you're buying a refurbished versus a brand new computer. We're available through TechSoup and we're pretty proud of that program. The Dell, Lenovo and HP offers our $0 admin fee, which means that you don't pay TechSoup, but you are still have you still pay Dell, Lenovo and HP for the hardware you're getting from them so I want to be super clear about that. This hardware is not free, but you're getting a break in the cost because you're working with TechSoup. JourneyEd is another popular option for folks who find like smaller pieces of hardware that they need you can get through JourneyEd. And as I was just mentioning the refurbished hardware catalog really is one of the one of the big things that TechSoup is very proud of and I definitely encourage you to take a look at that. You need to be a TechSoup member to use these offers so if you're not yet please use that join button in the top right corner of the homepage. Make sure you get your nonprofit signed up with TechSoup. This is how you navigate to the hardware section in particular. The website is perfect ours included. And so if you go to the homepage of TechSoup.org, you won't see hardware listed on the homepage you have to go first to the product catalog. And then you go to the hardware tab here on the left and then you'll get to the hardware options. As I said, it's not just technology branded products that TechSoup supplies access to. Over the years it's become very clear to us that nonprofits don't just need help finding tech or affording tech. Sometimes the hardest part is once you have it. How do you deploy it? How do you train staff to use it? How do you make sure that you're choosing the right type of license for the platform that you're talking about? And so over the years TechSoup has developed a line again of nonprofit specific technology services. And so, first of all, you find those services under, believe it or not, the services tab in the navigation. So just calling out where that is for you here. And there are a whole list of them. And we add a few more each year as we find that the need is growing for that. But let me just highlight a few important ones. The help desk service is something that we provide and is particularly popular with smaller nonprofits who probably don't have a dedicated IT staff to manage their technology stack. The help desk services really designed to like help a nonprofit manage a specific item. So instead of looking for help managing a much broader set of items, then you might want to look at our managed IT offer, which I'll get to in a second. And at the front talking about Microsoft, that Office 365 is, you know, is the preeminent cloud based office productivity suite. But even implementing and deploying Office 365 takes a little bit of work. Some nonprofits are able to do it on their own, but many, many more do want some help doing that. And so they work with TechSoup with our Office 365 migration service to get that working for them. The same applies by the way for office standard. And we have support services for those as well. The key is what I was just mentioning in conjunction with help desk. If you're looking for sort of a broader long term relationship to help manage all your technology stack. That's what the managed IT services. So you can work with TechSoup to, you know, handle the different platforms that you've got maybe some of the different hardware it's a holistic broader bigger way to manage your IT stack. And now one specific thing in that services menu is the digital assessment tool, which is a really interesting tool that TechSoup has custom built. And the digital assessment tool lets nonprofit staff run through a series of questions to assess their digital maturity as a nonprofit across a variety of different tech topics. So security, right? How secure is your nonprofit and it'll run you through a series of questions around that. And this is a great tool, particularly for leadership for executive directors or board members who maybe want to get a more concise view of how can they help their nonprofit do a better job using tech. Digital assessment tool is a great way to bring some focus to perhaps where you want to make those changes or update your technology use. We also know that technology for nonprofits is a really primary issue when it comes to communications. If you think about your website, whatever email platform you're using, so much technology work that nonprofits do is revolves around being able to speak to supporters to the public to board members to help potential donors, maybe to a client base that you're already working with. And so we have come up over time again with digital services around marketing and your website. We do website consultation and development work. We consult with nonprofits around their own digital marketing and outreach strategies and what platforms they are using. And a newer one that we're working with now is the Google ad grants service. More and more nonprofits are taking advantage of this great service through Google. It essentially provides you with access to $10,000 a month in Google advertising, but you have to think through carefully how you want to deploy that and implement it and how to fully use it. And so those are some examples of services. Within that services stack also now onto the next slide is something tech, something called excuse me for bubbling with my words there. TechSoup courses, and this is part of the education stack that TechSoup has built over time again, really oriented around writing for a nonprofit audience. What are the needs of folks who work in the nonprofit sector specifically? What are the platforms that they need to learn more about? My go-to example here is always Microsoft Excel, which if I had to pick one program that I've used more than any other over my career, it's probably Microsoft Excel. And there's so many great tips and tricks and ways to use Excel to quickly speed things up and to do analysis. And so we have courses around Microsoft Excel, but far more than just Microsoft Excel. In fact, we have in the TechSoup courses stack an entire group of courses all around Microsoft and the various offers they have. And that's the Digital Skill Center. But there's numerous other courses and education resources available through there. And just some quick overview numbers there. I mean, we have both English and Spanish courses, not every single course is translated, but we do have bilingual courses in there. We've got over 70,000 learners so far that have come into that courses platform. As I said, they're all specifically designed for nonprofits. One cool thing about TechSoup courses, you don't have to actually join TechSoup to use these. We very intentionally left these wide open for anybody who wants to come to the courses platform and take those courses. Because we know in some cases, it might just be a nonprofit volunteer or staff who are not necessarily like associated with a specific nonprofit, but they find a course they're really interested in learning more from TechSoup and so they can take it. And again, as I was saying, like Excel is one of the big ones, there's data management customer relationship management cybersecurity and tons of other offers in that courses platform. And again, the Microsoft Digital Skills Center is a great place within that platform to learn as much as you can about the different Microsoft platforms that you can get through TechSoup, etc. There is a specific track within the courses platform, a track being a combination of several different courses. It's the foundational skills track. And the courses team definitely feel that this is like a great place to start if you're not sure where to go first and you want to learn more about various different tech skills in the courses platform. Look for the nonprofit foundational skills track. And again, when you get this deck after the webinar is over, you can click on this link here it'll take you right there. Now, another great thing about TechSoup and working with with us is that you do get to interact with life human beings whose job it is to help nonprofits find the tech they need troubleshoot it manage it, etc. So we've got two superstars of the TechSoup human side with us today. Kevin Mulhall and Kelly Garrett. And they have spent. I'm going to call it years now of their lives talking directly with nonprofits one on one, trying to solve a particular problem. Something's not working properly. Don't know which license to choose that kind of stuff. Kevin works with the customer success team which is making sure that your the products that you have are working the way you need it. Kelly is working with the AMG group and what they do is like really help you troubleshoot the relationship with TechSoup itself, like if you're stuck on something something's not working for a download etc. So, Kevin and Kelly you're going to take it from here and just share a little bit about how to work with each team and we'll start with Kevin Mulhall. Very kind words. And yeah, it's a couple of years. Kelly's got me. I think beat by two approaching year four actually started an account management so it's been quite a quite an enjoyable journey. It's a pleasure of course to be speaking with you all today. Again, my name is Kevin Mulhall. I'm a technical customer success manager here at TechSoup. For those of you joining us today that may not have heard of the customer success team, totally understandable. We're about a year old. And we kind of sit somewhere in between everybody that you work with and people that you probably haven't heard of. I'm going to have some additional information regarding our team in a later slide. Before beginning. Everything was, was the poll question still available for this session. Otherwise, I could just jump on forward. No, let's move forward. Alright, excellent. Okay. So moving forward here. It's here. It's here, Kevin. Sorry. Oh, excellent. Okay, cool. Yeah. This has just been a very, very interesting question as it was launched a couple of months ago. Our organization currently using Microsoft or Office 365. Of course, you wouldn't need to answer this will give it about like maybe 15 seconds. The last couple of months the numbers been growing exponentially so it's, it's, it's exciting. And it's probably also maybe a confusing time for some. So we're at 77%. So we've kind of down a little bit from this last group we started three months ago I think at around 58 or 61% and then actually made it I think to 90% last month. So this is exciting this is going to be new to a quarter of you people at the very least, maybe even new to more of you than that. So jumping in here to Microsoft cloud licenses available here. We're going to completely break down everything that's within the slide. It's really just a discussion at a higher level of how these licenses themselves exists, because there are different types of 365 licensing, which I'm sure is very confusing. So we have essentially what are web only licenses, and then hybrid licenses. So in the case of a web only license which would imply that you need access to the internet. We have products such as Microsoft business basic and office 365 enterprise e one. If you have volunteers that you're needing licensing for I want to decide bar for a second. But there is actually a specific license type for them. It is the frontline or F one or F three license that would they would need to to go with it's illustrated here under the office 365 category. Getting into a hybrid license what's a hybrid license, a hybrid license is the web applications, plus the office standard or even really actually professional plus suite that many of you are probably familiar with the desktop apps. So these particular licenses which an example would be the Microsoft business premium license, the office 365 enterprise e three license, etc. They would include not just only the web access but the ability for you to download the full desktop apps at no additional cost beyond the cost associated with the license itself. On top of the ability to download it, the license the desktop apps you can actually get up to five total download instances have two laptops downloaded on both. No longer do you need to buy one license for one user, one user can carry that subscription license over to five different devices. It's a fantastic offer. And it really I think goes above and beyond even what many of you will be used to with the office standard suite. One thing I wanted to also draw attention to here towards the bottom of the slide is Microsoft Azure. What's Microsoft Azure. The elevator pitch version of it is that it is a set of services cloud space services that Microsoft offers in addition to 365. These types of services can be managed databases like SQL, they could be virtual machines if you are currently running like a virtual desktop cluster where people are logging in remotely. You could take that to Azure you don't necessarily need to have this just in an office environment anymore. If you're out of the office even better. Azure services is a way to get that the reason that we bring that up also is that there is a grant, a yearly grant that Microsoft offers its $3,500. It's a great way to get introduced to the platform. And from my perspective I've seen it help replace a lot of different things backups of servers in some instances, virtual machine environments, etc. You have to apply for it every year. The process isn't really too difficult. It's a lot of money that they put on the table and it's a great resource to learn more about. Let's dive on to the next slide. For those interested in beginning to the journey the 23% of you towards Microsoft cloud solutions. There's a three step process. First, you'll need to create an account at the Microsoft nonprofit portal. Next, you'll need to have that account validated by our validation support team. This typically takes between five to seven business days, though Microsoft does say that it can take, I think the language now maybe reads to like 10 to 20 days. It usually doesn't so, you know, take heart. And then the last part is introducing the cloud manager tool to your general tech soup account sounds like a lot we've got a ton of resources to help guide you through that. So the CSP introduction tool like to kind of just understand what that is is it just really essentially allows you the ability to work within the cloud store front to buy licenses subscription licenses directly. Again, tons of resources that we can help you about that. As you can see here on the slide chat is available. You're starting to go through the process you have questions. We're here to provide answers. I'm actually used to work with this team. So I've kind of made my way through all the progress and I've seen it from front to end. It can be a little bit challenging, but this is again where get us involved in the conversation and we're going to help you navigate through this. Next slide. So, again, about the idea and concept of help and getting help specifically from tech suit. We have cloud consultations free consultations for Microsoft cloud products will would include things like helping register at the Microsoft nonprofit portal, choosing the right licenses. Fun fact, there's 348 different subscription license types. I don't know them all, maybe no half of them. It's, it can be a little bit overwhelming totally get it will help narrow down your choices and match the right license type for you. Recommendations for services and courses. You've got it to next point earlier, like, I want to learn how to use it. We can help with that process. Implementation of your licenses. Again, getting these licenses assigned to users. And then getting the desktop apps downloaded these types of supports and guidance are things that we can help drive through because it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If the product is there, but you can't get it and or you can't get it and use it successfully. It's unlimited free support right we're here for you there's obviously a lot of people that are coming to us for support, but just know that this is going to be you engaging with us and us walking you through to the end of the process successfully it's not you're not going to get left halfway in the circle I hear it all the time where people are seeking support and they just they feel kind of lost. We are here, we are I guess the lighthouse the shining beacon on the hill to help you see this through. So if we could jump to the next slide please. This is actually the the last one for me here. So what is customer success. Great question. We're a small team. There's five of us dedicated to assisting customers with a variety of different things. Technology review and planning. So on top of things like the digital assessment tool which if you haven't used just give it a crack the best 1520 minutes that you'll probably spend learning more about yourself and then how you should probably consider existing in a in a virtual it space organizational strategy. You have a food bank, you have a mental health service a social referral agency, etc, needing a little bit of understanding and how can I get all these things to work together I have programs and missions. How can we connect those to the resources and how can those resources, then drive our success. It's a, it's a circle. It's not going off in different directions, technology and programs work hand in hand. We're there to kind of help clear out some of the fog that kind of exists from that because there's a ton of offers. What makes best sense for me. What we work with you to find out what does opportunities for potential volunteer and financial support. I actually had a call this morning that was actually perfect guys paying out of pocket for his own organization, totally get it. It's a tough place to be in your want to do great things. This was individuals working actually with individuals to help those who are blind working with technology. It's a tough place to be. If you don't have the resources for it. It doesn't mean it can happen. There are other ways to achieve certain things. You may not necessarily get the latest greatest best product. But there may be something that fits your budget or is comes in at no cost. It does exist chances are our team knows about it. So triaging managed support projects and services. There was a ping in earlier in the chat from an MSP. So our team, we do co kind of have a take that space, understanding that organizations are sometimes more comfortable working with someone local. I'm from the Midwest, specifically Ohio. We want to totally get it. It's almost like we're built that way we have our communities are neighborhoods, the people that we trust, we consider us part of that that equation, and then providing quotes and invoices for bulk product requests. You're looking at for example about getting hardware right refurbished hardware. We work with our program team there. You're looking at onboarding, you know, 2030 4050 different licenses of a product. How what does this look like, you know, how much does it cost what does this look like 30 days 60 days 90 days in the onboarding process. Like how how would we see that and it's like here's the prices. And again that's where we tie in the services that we provide specifically within customer success. So with that, I'm going to pass it on over to Nick Kelly. And again, thank you for joining us this morning or afternoon. Great, thank you Kevin and and again I see a ton of really good questions in the chat and the q a will try to hit these out as as much as we can during the session today. Now I want to move on to Kelly Garrett from the client services side of things and Kelly's going to help under help you understand with more clarity how to navigate managing your relationship with tech soup itself. And how to get you to the right resources that you might need access to all you Kelly. Hi everybody, I'm Kelly as an reduced I'm the associate manager for the client services department here at tech soup us. Basically the client services department is where you'll be talking to customer service who helps with account management helps you better understand products helps you navigate our website, things along those lines. I've been here since 2017 and I'm so happy with being with tech soup and helping nonprofits it's a great way to be in customer service and feel like you're doing some good out there so Nick next slide. Perfect so one thing that we hear a lot from our members when they contact client services, also called the account management group is navigating our website and finding out more about our products. Tech soup is a nonprofit organization that partners with other with corporate partners, such as Google Microsoft into it all the things that you've heard about earlier in this webinar. And our partners try to give us as much information as possible to put on on the product page or the offer page to ensure that you have all the information that you need before you check out with a product or service products and services can be donated or discounted. So you need to look out for in the description and also sometimes in the product name you'll see something that says access to discounted rates. That's usually discounted product where you're paying tech soup, you're paying the partner. Um, so this is an example of one of our most popular products QuickBooks Online Plus. You'll see that it's listed here with three tabs that's highlighted right there underneath the login page above those three tabs you'll see what donor partner is providing this product the category it's in because we do have a great option of in the top left corner category. You can search by types of products instead of by donor or company where you're picking by like Microsoft or you're picking into it and looking at only those specific companies, products and services. So really great way to review you know what you know platforms available for it so that means you know is it PC or Mac with the product ideas is it available is it out of stock. We definitely do have things go out of stock. It can take us a little bit of time to get them restocked purely because these are donation and discount programs, and some of our partners have only a lot at a certain amount per fiscal year. So something to keep an eye out for is you know is it available. Is it out of stock. Is that why I can't check out. Um, the three tabs that are highlighted underneath the login button. We always highly recommend thoroughly reading all three tabs they usually answer most questions that we get from members. And so it saves you some time, you know, going through those tabs and finding that information. I'm always here though to help clarify anything or if you're not sure what you're reading. Absolutely can assist you with that, but it is a great. We try to make it itself service as possible to save you some time. One thing I do like to recommend is looking at that middle tab the subscription details. It's not always labeled that it can sometimes say system requirements, it can say hardware. There are some options for that middle tab, but that usually isn't really good in depth information. Like for example, QuickBooks Online Plus is only available to folks that want to start a new account. It can't be applied to an existing QuickBooks Online account, but you can start a new one and transfer your company file over to the new donated QuickBooks Online account. That subscription details explains all that stuff. So that's a really important piece of information. So that's why I would say check out the middle tab. It usually has some info that you're going to be like, oh, or that's what I was looking for. One other thing to keep in mind also before you check out, reason we say read everything go over everything call us chat with us email us if you have any questions is a lot of these products and services are non refundable and non exchangeable. Because you know, we can't recoup some of these licenses and it means another nonprofit isn't unable then to use the license or the service so it's something to keep in mind is that you really want to make sure you're, you're solid on what you want before you fully check out. Because once it's processed and fulfilled, a lot of times we're going to have to deny refund or exchange request per the policies that check out. Awesome Nick, I'm gonna have a move to the next one. So if you do need any assistance, best place to go is in the top right corner of our website is the help button. So when you click on there you're going to see that you have some great help topics listed here there's also an FAQ, you have to click on that blue FAQ to have it pop up. Now we have some contact us information down here so if you have to fax this document it's listed here, you need to mail us a check. We have our mailing address things along those lines and you'll see customer support is listed there. If you click the contact us, it will take you to a contact us form. And we do have three ways of getting in touch with client services and the account management group. Next slide please. This is the contact us form. Basically you have the option of either submitting a form, you know you put what your issue is your contact information. Always highly recommend making sure you provide that EIN tax ID, and any, you know an email address that works so we can get back to you of course but the EIN tax ID really helps us locate your account. So we can review everything before we reach back out to you. If we don't have that information we're not available to find the account based on your email address or other information you provided. A lot of times we're going to have to ask you for that information before we can hop in supporting you so I always say you know when you call chat or email make sure you've got that EIN tax ID ready because that's the easiest way for us to look up your text to account in our systems. You will also see that below the contact us form we do have our hours and phone number for our call center. So you're welcome Noah's go there and we do usually put up disclaimers if there's anything going on, like if we're backlog or you just have some delays as a nonprofit ourselves you know of course sometimes we're a little stuck with resources and we have busy times of the year like the end of the year. So emails can definitely take a little bit longer than say giving us a call or using the chat support. And that leads into the chat support if you look at the bottom right corner there. Right there if you'll see it says chat. That is available it's for a live person it is not an AI bot that you're speaking to you are speaking to one of my team members, just like if you called us just like if you emailed us you're always getting live support with tech soup. It's going to be an AI giving you stuff back so I was just asked please be patient with our folks they'll get they'll help you sometimes have to look things up, but chat you'll definitely get that. And then go ahead and next slide Nick. And something to keep in mind is that we are Monday through Friday we're open chat supports pretty much every Monday through Friday it's always going to be open from 7am to 4pm. Here and there you know there might be a three day weekend we're closed on a Friday or you know we might have an all staff meeting we have to, you know shut it down for an hour but for the most part, you're always going to see that chat. We're going to see that chat and bubble on the contact us page and a lot of our other pages to on the website so www.techsoup.org, a lot of times you're going to see that chat option. There's also a chat option for getting in touch with our cloud services specialist that Kevin Mulhall was talking about for you know assistance with office 365 stuff. You'll see those chat windows on you know office and Microsoft 365 page is all the other pages you'll see our regular chat to get regular support. It's always listed right there and it is on that website on our website at the bottom of the contact us page. That is open from Monday through Friday from 7am to 12pm Pacific time we are our office even though a lot of us are remote nowadays, our office is on the west coast so it's always going to be a time that we're based on. And then contact us form submissions. That's probably the slowest way of getting in touch with us so we always kind of say that's for non urgent issues, takes three to five business days on average. Right now we are in kind of the holiday end of year rush for a lot of folks trying to get their budgets covered and things like that so it's much slower for emailing us and on the contact us form then it is to just give us a call or use the chat support so if it's got an urgent issue that's right away I highly recommend the first two options contact us form. That's for less urgent issues or things that you can kind of wait on emails will always come from customer service at tech soup dot org. So you might want to add that to your email address book to ensure that you get our emails. That's always the worst when we're going back and forth and someone not getting our emails we keep getting notifications that they're looking for help so I was a good idea to keep in mind customer service at tech soup dot org. And one other thing I always like to highlight is on tech soup because we are partnered with so many wonderful corporate partners, like again Microsoft into it, Adobe Google. There are so many options there that we are experts on product support and it support, we can give you some basic tips and trips, tips and tricks, we can give you some, you know, installation support resources that the partners provided us, but something to keep in mind is that the offers on tech soup dot org, they're the same product or service that's out there on the commercial market. So that's not like we've created a whole new product offer nonprofits they're just getting the best possible price for the offer. So it's something to keep in mind that if you have functionality questions like or you want an IT support thing. That's when you maybe want to go to our help desk services that were talked about earlier, or you might want to give the customer a call really quick and say hey what's the system requirements for this if our product page wasn't able to assist you or you know you contact client services and we weren't able to answer the question. So, we can assist you with your tech soup account management, we can let you know if you're eligible, there is eligibility requirements on budget. We have location restrictions we have mission restrictions things like that that our corporate partners have put on their programs. So we can always answer eligibility questions. We can also help you navigate all the resources that are on tech soup dot org and how to check out and things like that. What we cannot assist you with is the IT support. We don't have we haven't, we don't have any IT trained professionals on the client services it's basic customer service skills that we've trained for. So if you have IT support needs again send you back to the services help desk and all that great options really solid folks. We also again can't assist necessarily with product support all the time we can give you some maybe some step by steps instructions that we received from the partner, but actual product support a lot of times we have to send you back to the partner that created the product, you know if you have problems with your Photoshop, you got to contact Adobe for help with, you know, making the Photoshop work better. And again in depth product functionality questions. Something that a lot of times the partners support representatives are going to be better knowledgeable on for you to ask them questions with that, since they spent all their time focused on that exact product, where we have a lot of products that we have to learn and be knowledgeable. And I think this is my client services presentation thank you everybody for listening to my feel and I'm sure I will talk to some of you on via email and things like that in the future I do like to hop in and keep my finger on the pulse what's going on with our members we can always make sure we can assist you all and all of our content and resources are up to date and the best if you ever have any feedback please feel free to let us know we always love hearing from our members about anything you think we can do better or if you want to send us a little what we are doing well, we always love sharing that amongst the company as well. So look forward to you all joining and happy holidays. Great, thank you so much, Kelly. And thank you everybody who came to participate and learn more about TechSoup today. You know, just the key takeaways that I really want to emphasize before we end today's webinar, you know, like you, we are a 501C3 ourselves, you know, both for good and bad. Sometimes it means that, you know, we are also scant resourced in moments where we really, we have a bit of a backlog. And so sometimes we need a little bit of extra patience so we can get back to you. But at the same time, we really do understand nonprofits very deeply because we are one. And that means that when it comes to asking and answering questions around tech, like we really get into the business of that, we understand what nonprofits can do and what they can't do. And so we want to be as helpful as we can to you in that. Also to reiterate that if you want to use that product catalog on techsoup.org, you have to have your nonprofit join TechSoup first. And again, as I looked at the list of the folks participating, there were tons of folks who are already TechSoup members, which is great. There's definitely some folks who are not. And so I really want to encourage you to take that first step, join TechSoup, use the sign up button on the top right hand of the screen. And that's the best way to do it. We're looking forward to 2023. And we're here to help answer your questions to kind of get you on the best foot going forward for whatever your tech needs are. For those of you who've been asking questions in chat in the Q&A area, we have been collecting those and collating those if you've grabbed Kelly or Kevin's email address because you're going to communicate with them after the webinar is over. Make sure you've got that saved or you've got an email opened already with it pasted into the two lines so that you have a way to get ahold of them. But other than that, thank you so much for your time and for your great questions today. And we are committed and promised to do the best we can to help you moving forward. And let us know what that looks like for you, okay? And Aretha, thanks again for a wonderful webinar. Great to see everybody online today and have a great rest of your day. Bye, everybody.