 Thank you all for joining us. Welcome to Navigating the World of Donated and Discounted Resources for Nonprofits. My name is Becky Wiegand, and I'm the Webinar Program Manager here at TechSoup Global. I'm happy to be your host for today's event. We have three esteemed speakers joining us today, so I'll quickly get into an introduction of each of them because I'm really excited that we have these three folks on the line for the first time really bringing these three organizations together to talk about the landscape of donated and discounted resources and technology out there for nonprofits. Many are also available to other kinds of charities, foundations, public libraries, depends on the different programs, but there's a lot out there that you can be accessing to help benefit your organization and save money so you can use that money instead toward meeting your organization's mission and needs. The first of these speakers is Gail Samuelson-Carpentier who is a Chief Business Development Officer at TechSoup Global, my co-worker Gail. I love being able to work with her. I don't get to do it often enough, so I'm really happy to have her on the line. She's been here really since the inception of TechSoup's strategic structure of our product donation program which allows nonprofits to find a large array of donated technologies in one place while still reflecting each donating company's unique philanthropic goals. So she's the one working with companies like Microsoft, Adobe, Symantec, and has a whole team of people that are out hunting down new deals and new discounts and new donations for the sector from all of these different companies out there that provide technology resources and more. So we're really glad to have her joining us. You'll also hear from Matthew Pardoni. Matt is the business director, I'm sorry, the director of business development at Independence Sector where he manages their affinity program. They're a nonprofit coalition of over 500 nonprofits, foundations, and corporate giving programs with a mission of advancing the common good by leading, strengthening, and mobilizing the nonprofit and philanthropic community. He'll be talking specifically about their affinity program today where you can also receive discounted, valuable offers from different organizations and companies out there to help you again save money so you can use that instead for meeting your mission. Lastly, we'll be joined by Lynore Freeman. She serves as Good 360 Senior Director of Nonprofit Relations where she oversees several departments comprising of their retail donation partnership, membership, and order processing. With over 20 years of experience working closely with nonprofits, retailers, schools, and faith-based organizations, she is one of their premium people providing customer support. So we're really glad to have her on as well. She'll be talking about what they have to offer. And in general, all of these folks will be talking about the different options for you to access donations and discounts to save your budget. And you'll see assisting with chat my co-worker, Allie Bazdikian, in interactive events and video producer here at TechSoup. She'll be joining us on the back end to make sure that you're heard and that your questions are captured. So Gail and Allie and I are all located in TechSoup's headquarters in San Francisco right over here on the map. And Matt and Lynore are located in DC slash Virginia. So go ahead and let us know where you're joining from today. I always imagine that I'm in the Bahamas. So I put my little arrow down there that I'd love to be there. Let us know where you're joining. And while you do that, I'll go ahead and take a quick look at our agenda for everyone. I'll do an introduction of TechSoup briefly since Gail is going to dive more into TechSoup and what we do for those of you who are new to us during her presentation. But she'll also be covering a broad overview of donated discounted resources for nonprofits like said including TechSoup, but also mentioning JourneyEd, Digital Wish, NMMA, Google, and many more. And then we'll have Matt talk about independent sector, what they offer through their affinity program, and their annual conference which is right around the corner. Then Lynore will take us on an overview of Good360 and their resources. We'll have time to share some additional resources and have time for Q&A throughout. So feel free to ask those questions like I said as they come in. We have folks joining us from all over the country. We've got folks in Ohio, Texas, Washington, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Illinois, Montana, Canada, New Jersey, Colorado, Nevada, all over. So thanks so much for being on the line. For those of you not in the U.S., be aware that some of these programs may be directed at folks who are in the U.S. If we have programs that are in Canada, we'll try to let you know. But we can't know everything about all of the programs that other companies and organizations offer. So we definitely recommend checking them out even if you're not U.S.-based. So quickly, TechSoup Global is a global partner network of 63 NGOs around the world serving more than 120 countries with technology resources, support, and knowledge including events like this webinar. You can see where we are on all of these dots on the map. All the little green ones are where you can connect with Netsquared local groups where you can meet up with other like-minded nonprofit professionals and talk about the technologies that help your organization reach your full potential. We serve organizations around the world to the tune of 615,000 NGOs reached. So we are almost everywhere and we're happy about the work that we do that has delivered nearly $5 billion in technology products and donations to the NGO sector. And not just NGOs, I mentioned earlier, charities, libraries, and foundations as well. You can learn more about our programs and in particular our product donation programs at TechSoup.org which Gail will get into in just a couple of minutes. But before we do that, I'd love to know from where you have previously thought donations or discounts for your organization, have you already reached out and utilized some of the resources that I've got listed on the screen? There are probably many others that I can list as well. And even within TechSoup's programs alone we represent donations from all kinds of companies like Microsoft and GrantStation and Symantec and Adobe. But go ahead and click on the ones that you're already familiar with or maybe utilizing it at your organization. You can select as many as apply to you. And if you have others that aren't on the list, feel free to chat them into the box because these are great resources for all of us to know about. And there may be some that you've accessed that we aren't familiar with. Many companies have their own donation programs that they may administer directly. So maybe you've gotten donations directly from Dell or maybe you've gotten direct donations from a local business or a grant making organization has donated in kind expertise to your work. So let us know. And I'll give just a few more seconds to allow everyone to participate. And then we'll go ahead and bring Gail on the line and have her take us through a broader overview. We have a couple of people commenting that they've gotten donations from local businesses or received grants. We have one person mentioning E-Rate which applies mostly I think to libraries. One person mentioning APCUG. Another person mentioning Adobe, Microsoft, Home Depot, Contessa, United Way in Kind Center. So this is great. And we can chat these back out so that you have a list to follow up with that goes above and beyond what we'll even be covering today. This is not intended to be all-inclusive but we want you to have a good idea of what all is out there for you to access. So with that, I'd like to go ahead and have our first presenter, Gail, join us on the line and tell us what's all out there. Help us navigate the world of these donated and discounted resources for nonprofits. Welcome to the program, Gail. We're so glad to have you. Becky, thanks so much. We get to see each other on a regular basis but she's right, we don't get to work together nearly enough. And in fact, I've had the pleasure of sharing the time of information I'm going to share with all of you on the line in very different locations. I think this is the first time Becky we've ever done this for a TechSoup audience. Isn't it true? Yes, this is the first time that we've all gotten together to do this for TechSoup's audience. So long overdue. Sounds great and I can't tell you how happy I am to have Matthew and Lenore here because I think it's important that nonprofits understand that there are an incredible array of organizations that are there waiting to help you fulfill your mission. And certainly, as Becky mentioned, I have had the pleasure of being the key business development person here at TechSoup. I need to admit it's been 14 years. So when I started, there was no such thing as online philanthropy. So we had the pleasure, the team that was all starting at that same era to create something brand new. So whether you love TechSoup or you think some of the things are strange or peculiar, you get to either say thank you or blame me, mainly so. Thank you guys for showing up today and wanting to learn more. The slide we're looking at gives you a sense of what we have collected underneath the TechSoup umbrella. And as Becky said in her earlier great overview, we exist to help bring together resources, knowledge, training, forums, webinars. We know that the average small nonprofit has budgets of a million dollars or less. That's not a lot of money in the 21st century to operate on. And we know that everything that we can give you to make you better helps you to fulfill your own missions. By bringing these wonderful companies underneath our umbrella we can combine education with access to donation and discounted rates. So this is a chance for you guys to ask any questions in chat if you have particular questions about any of the company offerings. What I can tell you is that at the end of each fiscal year we wrap up our programs and there are still piles of resources that could be distributed that have been taken up by the sector. So the first thing that you should do is make sure whoever handles your IT understands how many things you have at TechSoup whether it's as simple as going into looking at the Pitney Bowes offering if you're still doing direct mailing or Cosvox if you're doing online fundraising and event management. Those are all things that people may or may not recognize. You'll see a lot of promotion about the names that we all know, the Microsoft, the Adobe's, the Semantics. So it still bemuses me that on the forums I get people saying, oh, when are you going to have QuickBooks? QuickKit for people. And two, it makes QuickBooks. You'll find it here. So if you have any questions about particular company offerings this is a self-serve process. It seems like a good number of you have already registered on TechSoup. That's the first place you would begin. Once you are in our system once we have validated your organization by your mission, by your physical location, by your legal status while we've captured your operating budget, you can then click through and place anything in your checkout card. At checkout you'll find out in seconds if you qualify for a donation just like our own universe. Becky may be interested to I donate too. I may be interested in her philanthropy but we're not going to mirror each other. Each of these companies have determined for themselves who's going to receive their philanthropy. Many of them are incredibly generous but at checkout you'll know in a second if you qualify if you don't. At that time in the vast majority of cases you're paying a small administrative fee which comes back to TechSoup which enables us to cover all of our expenses. It generates a good chunk of our operating capital so we can continue to do online content and programs and outside the U.S. expansion to be able to help more nonprofits. So I don't see anybody here that has questions online about these particular programs so let me go a little bit further here. So this is part of the experiments in addition to bringing on new partners all the time. I wanted to let you guys know this is a secret so don't share it with anybody. It's just for the webinar attendees. We have just in the process of finishing an agreement with Western Digital they are going to be bringing some hard drives online that you'll see on the site in the next month or so so we're very excited about that. I usually try to keep one or two secrets for webinars so you guys can feel like you're on the inside loop for things. Boost is another one of those secrets. We launched this about two months ago and we know that for many organizations and you're trying to get your handle on how do I benefit from TechSoup. Boost is a way at one very small fee you get access to a whole array of products that we take the admin fee down to zero. There's special hardware offerings with deeper discounts. There's access to really great advice from people who know the nonprofit landscape. There's a $25 voucher you can apply to request and there's a lot more so if you're interested in getting some hand holding and getting some of the best ways to start working with TechSoup Boost is something I would highly recommend you take a look at. Going on to the next thing here's another experiment that we just launched not too long ago. This is a company called JourneyEd they also run the Academic Superstore. This is a family of purely negotiated educational discounts. Now unlike TechSoup where you're used to getting things for pennies on the dollar this can go all over the map. Some of these discounts are up to 85% off retail some of them are maybe 1% or 2% but what we've been able to do in working with JourneyEd and their unique family of companies is that they have allowed those educational discounts previously only made available to schools and to students. You can now as a nonprofit get access to that wide array of opportunities that give you a chance to really again save money, get more technology at a lower cost so you can put more funds back to mission. So we as I think a $10 admin fee you can request this on TechSoup you'll get access to a co-branded private site and then you from there can make your request but again this is not the same as TechSoup so make sure when you're going online do your due diligence. Shop intelligently but we think that you'll find a huge array of really great resources that are things that you may not necessarily have gone through and been able to take advantage of. And I'm looking at a note here from Sandy online. Hi Sandy, thank you for joining us today. You are in the middle of getting your 501C3 approved. In our case you do absolutely need to have a final letter from the IRS giving us your EIN number so I don't know if that will be true. For the other groups I'll let them weigh in on that question when Matthew and Lenora are talking but for our purposes here at TechSoup you have to be active in the IRS database to qualify so thank you for letting us know. Going on TechSoup sure if you are looking at needs and resources to make yourself more effective go to TechSoup. I wouldn't have spent my last 14 years here if I didn't believe that but there's lots of other great organizations and normally in this part when I do this for outside groups I do talk about independent sector. I talk about good 360 but I pull those out because I figured these guys can talk more intelligently about their own groups than I can but there are lots of people as I said out there waiting to help you. One group that I'm particularly fond of is Digital Wish. It's a small nonprofit based up in Vermont and they are working directly with teachers in the classroom so if any of you work in education or you know that there are other activities going on that touch schools in your universe that there is in fact a place where you can go donate as a parent or somebody who is interested in the school to support a teacher's fund to get resources into their school so you can shop for a classroom. You can take advantage of a wide array of activities and resources and so if you haven't gone to DigitalWish.org you should and I think it's also a thank you for putting it up on the chat line. It's also under.com but you have both options. Also for those of you that are a little more adventurous these are organizations that represent key manufacturing or international groups that bring in together types of functionality so whether it's housewares or realtors or manufacturers or the toy industry. Each of these organizations when you reach out to them and these links should be clickable back to those organizations on the PowerPoint. This is something where they have access to not consistent inventory. When you come to TechSoup you're going to be working at programs that have inventories available 365 days a year so whenever you need them you can get access to it. These folks will probably have inventory that goes up and down if you have a particular program, a campaign, you're opening a new children's center. You might go back to them and ask for specific assistance and they are sometimes able to help sometimes not but it is definitely a group that you should be thinking about checking on, building your own bookmarks to say hey when I have this need let me contact the people that congregate this type of functionality and they can help you reach out to places you wouldn't normally get access to. I'm so pleased to see in the overarching analysis slide that you've had Becky that many people have already taken advantage of the good programs at Google for nonprofits. This has been an interesting overview because you have so many people that obviously know Google and I recognize I've got to update this logo Becky because this is the old Google logo. They changed that just recently. But when you're looking at Google you have to think through not just one or two things but you can take advantage of all of them. So whether you're wanting to promote an activity, your organization, their ad grants will help you tell your story more effectively when you're looking through search engine optimization and visibility. If you're working in building a brand or telling your story by a video, your YouTube program is just brilliant. The apps for nonprofits, if you're not using traditional software on computers and you're wanting to do things in the cloud, it's a great suite for you guys to take a look at. Some people love it. Some people have things that don't work for them and that's part of why in TechSoup and in this presentation we point you to lots of resources. We know it's rare that one resource fits everybody's needs. And the most important thing here is that your needs as an organization get met not that you're shoehorned into the solution that fits 90% of the people out there. If you're looking at telling your story in terms of physical footprint or doing something in terms of environmental issues or if you just wanting to show a changing landscape, the Google Earth program, I've had a chance to work closely with that group. Both are really great about hands-on assistance, giving you a chance to understand their tool. And certainly the one today by Google, their mobile fundraising platform is another option of dozens out there that you can use to try to, again, tell your story, generate interest and make your organization more sustainable. The other one that we just finished, Dreamforce, so we were just chatting about our colleagues, Matthew and Lenore, based out near DC so we were discussing before this presentation started about traffic issues with the Pope in DC, we had our own variation of that in San Francisco over the last week or so with Dreamforce, which is the International Congregation to Everybody on the Planet who uses Salesforce. So we've all had our traffic issues. Salesforce has from day one been able to donate key resources to nonprofits. What I will tell you is that if you're needing to collect your data and if you don't have an active CRM, this is a wonderful resource. It is, however, a complicated resource. And so like anything else with technology, make sure that you have the resources to put it together, to use it effectively, to be able to make sure if you don't have the expertise in house, there's going to be tons of resources out there of people, whether it's in Salesforce itself or other people, that can help you make that CRM a functional and fit for your organization. It is not a turnkey solution and it's something that requires some time and commitment. So just like you wouldn't want to change your house without careful thought and consideration, same thing should be true for how you collect your data. So hope your CRM will make that a better universe for you. And then going forward, here's something that a number of you have been throwing up in chat and this is worth spending a little bit of time. So if you have questions and you're thinking about how do I get asked and you're going, okay, appreciate the resources, good information. What do I do if I don't see what I need on this list? And certainly you're going to learn some more great information, some wonderful resources. But one of the things I can tell you, the least helpful thing and unfortunately the way most nonprofits begin this and hopefully everybody on this webinar are going to be people that have bypassed this but you would not be totally surprised to learn that many times a nonprofit person will walk into a company and look somebody in the eye and say, I'm doing really great work. I need you to give me X because I do really great work. Interesting, probably true, but not something that's going to be a compelling scenario for anybody. Certainly not for the person who's sitting there going, why would I be doing this? Because if I wanted to give to you, I would have given to you already. I don't know you at all. And so this is where I'm sharing a little bit of my personal philosophy about how you make those asks. When we started putting together a family of donors and when we started with TechSoup, we had two, when we were working initially, a little bit of Microsoft and a small program with Lotus Notes. It is, everything's grown from there and I think if I were going to put money on it, I would say a big part of it is because I have been able to develop a triple win philosophy that I'm happy to share with you guys that I know works. Triple win is simple. It means that you want to go through and say, all right, I need X. What am I going to do with it? How is it going to change my organization? How is it going to change the delivery of my mission? What benefit is the world going to see if I get this? Once you have that captured, then you need to talk about in your own head or you can write it down, either way works, is to say, then how are my people that are being served by this organization going to benefit? What step up does this give me? What advance does it give me? Once you have that in mind, the hardest part then is to say, and I want to get this from the Best Buy down the road, you need to then give them equal time and consideration. That Best Buy is going to be asked by, because each Best Buy has a certain amount of local donations each organizational site can give you. So I'm going to use this as an example, and if you guys didn't know that you now do, you have to go through and then say, what's going to make this a win for them? I know how it's going to benefit my organization. I know that if I get this asked, what it's going to do for my recipients, then you need to think through what is it going to help this organization achieve in its own rights. So walk in with that answer first to say, you know, I would love to ask you for this. We are happy to do a photo shoot. We're happy to do an article for you that you can share with your in-house PR team. We would be delighted to showcase how we're going to be benefiting this Best Buy donation as we go through the event. We'll do signs. We'll put you on the website. Make it a win for them as much as it's a win for you as it's a win for your organization. So those are all things that really will make you stand out because you will be talking to people as a peer rather than to somebody with your hand out. And those are all things that you might want to just put in the back of your mind. Any other questions that I can answer here? I see there's one C6's. At this time TechSoup does not deal with anybody but 501C3s. So that is unfortunately overarching dictate that we can't serve any organization within that group. But if you do have a C3 organization that's part of your organization, they can certainly take advantage of the TechSoup offers. Okay, don't see any questions regarding this making your own unique ask. Just want to thank everybody for their time. Certainly, we didn't get a chance to go through every resource that exists out there. If you're looking for places where you can get discounts or support, some of the for-profit options where you can get tech, if you don't find it on TechSoup you'll see here under for-profit. For non-profit resources, these are again hands-on organizations that support non-profit work, goes through, gives you advice, ideas, knowledge, collects great information, certainly does hand on consulting if that's something that's beneficial to you. And then just for those of you that have been listening to this program, this gives you again a quick snapshot with links to all the different resources. Some of the other things that I think you might want to take advantage of that we didn't have a chance to talk about under the for-profit options. You have just a couple to call out there on the bottom right-hand side, optimisely.org. There's a wonderful discount program. If you're working on your website and you want to do some testing to say, oh, is it better to use this picture or that picture? Is it better to use this headline or that headline? They have a resource that can help you a lot. Also going down to that last item for Udemy. Udemy is an educational content program and they have a packet of information where you can create your own content. If you want to educate your volunteers, your supporters, your new staff, and then they also have a cash grant program that can help underwrite your development. So that gives you a high-level overview. It's fast, I know, so I'm glad that you have slides available to you and if there's any further questions at the end of this presentation, you'll have my direct email. I try to be as accessible as possible. So please, if you have ideas on things you wish you could see on TechSoup, if you have ideas on how I can better benefit you on behalf of the whole nonprofit community, please don't hesitate to reach out. And Becky, I think I'm at time, so I'm going to pass this back to you. Thank you so much for that, Gail. A lot of stuff covered in a short amount of time, but really great resources. And don't worry, you will get the slides again. And for those of you who got that final reminder email shortly before the webinar, that also had the slides linked on the right side so you can open up the deck and click through on any of these links at your convenience as well. Just before we move on to having Matt start, on that question about C6s, that's for mostly Chamber of Commerce and real estate associations and civic groups. Even though TechSoup doesn't serve C6 nonprofits, we do serve C3s, but we also serve public libraries in the IMLS database or libraries with a C3 or if you have a Friends of the Library program that's a C3, and we also serve churches. Now many of these other organizations and companies that are listed may well serve C6s. So don't consider us the end-all be-all. That's just our program and kind of the construct of the relationships we have with our donor partners. But many of them may make donations available to you, especially your local community groups. If you're reaching out to somebody in your community and you're from the local Neighborhood Business Development Association, you may find businesses that are happy to donate to that because they have a local vested interest in seeing that community thrive. So never hurts to ask. And I really like your triple win advice scale. I think that's great advice to walk in with ideas of how it helps you, how it helps them, and how it will make everyone successful. So I'm going to go ahead and move this along. If you're asking questions, we are capturing them and we'll have time later on to get to some more. But I'd like to go ahead and have Matthew Perdoni from Independent Sector join us. Tell us a little bit about what you do at Independent Sector and a little bit about what organizations can expect to find through your affinity program. And he's going to actually show us where to find some of these resources on their website. So thanks so much Matt. Welcome to the program. Thank you Becky. I'm Matt Perdoni, Director of Business Development at Independent Sector. I'm very excited to be here today. And IS is really excited to be working with TechSoup in connection with two important IS initiatives that are upcoming National Conference and the IS Affinity Program. So I'm going to spend the next few minutes explaining each of these and how these resources can benefit your work. So the first, and I'm going to walk you through, I'll share my screen here and walk you through the affinity program as I discuss it. So the IS Affinity Program is a resource list providing a centralized location for the latest, not just in technology, but also professional services and a host of other useful tools for nonprofits of all sizes. So the program launched in May of 2014. And with seven partners at that time, it's really grown over the past year, plus year. Now we have over 15. And that's really been helped by identification from our networks about what's important to them, what they're looking for, and just general clarification of what a program like this should include. The concept is not new, but what we're really trying to do is come to the table the best and the most beneficial resources possible. So it gives access to resources that are specially designed to enhance and improve nonprofit operations. And we're also able to negotiate special discounts and exclusive offerings with our affinity partners. So typically the discounts are available to anyone in the IS network. And what that really means is you are an active and live user of our registered user for our website. So for those of you who don't have an active IS user account, when you go into the affinity program or elsewhere on the site, you'll be prompted to log in, just follow the prompts and create a user account, fairly quick and painless process. And once you do that, you'll have access to resources here in the affinity program as well as lots of other things that I have to offer. So one example is you'll go through the page here. And once you click on these Learn More buttons toward the bottom of each of the profiles describing the partners and what it is that they have to offer for TechSoup here, you'll click on Learn More button and it will bring you redirect you to the page of the partner. In some instances it's a general page that describes what it is the partner has to offer. And in other cases it's a page that's specifically dedicated to the IS affinity program partnership. And in almost every instance, like I said, the discounts of the special offers are made available to anybody in the IS network. So whenever you see IS members in community, that means that as long as you have that user account, you're going to be able to take advantage of that offer. In some instances it's a very few number of instances. It's limited to just IS members. And if you're interested in membership, you certainly are always interested in reaching new members. You can learn more about that in the membership tab at the top of the page there. So the most common way that we make people aware of the affinity program and exploring the benefits is through the webpage itself. We also have a newsletter that goes out that briefly lists the partner offers. That's to science really expand awareness of the program. So the results from the earlier poll really reinforce what we're at right now which is continuing to spread the word about the program, make sure that everybody knows about the resources that are available through it. And our relationship with TechSoup certainly is going to help us do that to a greater extent, broaden that reach. But we really want to hear from the users, from you as well. So please feel free to reach out to us. My contact information will be provided here at the end of the webinar. Feel free to reach out with any recommendations about the matter in which the IS network is made aware of – in which people like you are made aware of affinity program offerings for the addition of new members, recommendations for new members. And if you have any recommendations like I say or also if you're interested yourself in becoming an affinity partner, we're always very interested to learn more. And again, we really want to make this the most valuable resource possible. And as we continue to expand and look to fill this out and look to fill it out in specific issue areas, whether it's technology resources for public policy professionals or for folks at the leadership level, we really want to make sure again this is the best that it can be for your sake. So any and all feedback is definitely encouraged and requested. And there was a question earlier about C6 eligibility for us. Again, for most of these offers it's going to depend from partner to partner. But basic threshold is do you have an IS user account? From there for the most part it's in some instances it's wide open, others it's just nonprofit generally. So C6 is C3, C4 is C5. C1 through 21 or wherever we're at right now, everybody's welcome. So that is the brief overview of the affinity program here. The next thing I'm going to talk about just briefly is the IS National Conference. If you go to ISembarks2015.com, which you'll see at the top there, that is the microsite for the 2015 conference that will be this year in October, Miami. Again, it's from the 27 to the 29. So it's preceded by a day-and-a-half pre-conference program, the Public Policy Action Institute, then we get into the regular conference program, shaping up to be a fantastic event. Again, this year like every year I'd highly recommend it to anybody in the sector throughout the event hall and opportunity to engage with providers of donated at this kind of technology through our exhibit hall, during our initial session program, and as part of the regular conference program. Really our conference is the, I would say, the sector's premier networking event. But that really shouldn't overshadow the caliber of the content that is delivered each year. So TechSoup is deleting a session this year, preparing to be hacked on October 27th at 4 p.m. It's going to discuss the most effective ways to balance between toxic security and transparency and how to prepare for the worst. So if your organization's hacked, you're ready to respond in the right way. This represents the type of content that we're really continuing to try to incorporate this technology and infrastructure become more important to nonprofits, especially with technology playing such a big role in the engagement and the retention of younger constituents and supporters. So that is the overview of the conference. And what we wanted to do is make available to everybody on the webinar here and at your organization's special discount code available to attend the conference. So if you go to that registration page listed on the slide here and apply that code, TechSoup 200, you get $200 off main conference registration. So that's giving you the summer sale pricing that expired last week, but this will be active through the time of the conference. So still plenty of time to take advantage of that. We'd love to get everybody there. If anybody on the line is interested in getting their names or ideas in front of the conference audience, much like the Affinity program, we're always interested in reaching out to or establishing partnerships, relationships with new folks and making our network as strong as it can be. And feel free to get in touch with me if you're interested in getting in front of our audience. So that is a brief overview of the conference. And if there aren't any questions specifically to this, I'll turn it back to Becky and go from there. Becky Thank you so much, Matt. And one of the things I really like about Independent Sector and much like with TechSoup is that we talked about what kind of organizations can access the different donations or discount offers available. But the resources on the websites are so rich and deep. So if you're a newer organization or maybe not even newer but you just want some more background on your IRS Form 990, well you can go to Independent Sector and they have a whole section to help you learn about the 990 and what you need to do with it and how to have good governance of your organization. They've got that on nonprofit leadership, on policy, on governance. A lot of really great resources. TechSoup's resources like webinars, articles, blog posts are free and available to anyone. So you don't need to be a registered C3 or a library to access those. And you can just come to our site and find them available to you at any time to help you improve the way that you run your organization. And TechSoup is specifically focused around the technology application. Independent Sector really helps focus on overall governance of your organization. So a lot of really great resources to find there. So thank you Matt for that overview of the affinity program in particular where you can get those technology discounts through their program but also for just highlighting Independent Sector for organizations who may not already be familiar. Now I would love to go ahead and have our next speaker come on. We have a couple of questions in the queue but I'm going to hold those for Q&A toward the end because they're more general about how to best access donations and in-kind gifts from grantors if they may not already be on some of our lists. But before we do that, I'd love to have Lenore come on and talk about Good360 because you may find that there are a lot of companies who are donating that you may not already have been aware of that are doing it through Good360's programs. So welcome to the program Lenore. Tell us a little bit about what you do there and about Good360 and what people can find through your organization's program. Well thank you Becky for allowing me to share Good360 and of course including us in your presentation today and I'd like to thank everyone for attending as well. So as Becky mentioned, I'm Lenore Freeman with Good360, Dan with Good360 over 20 years now working as your Senior Director of Nonprofit Relations. So some quick facts about Good360. We are recognized as a non-profit leader in product philanthropy since 1983. We consistently ranked five fourth as one of the top 10 most efficient charities in America. We have distributed more than $7 billion in product donations to nonprofits around the globe. We operate at less than 2% of the value of products donated. And we serve nearly over 40,000 non-profit organizations. So who donates to Good360? Here is just a few of the logos of some of the donors that we work with and that we partner with. We do handle product distribution for about 125 of the Fortune 500. We distributed more than 50 truckloads a month throughout the United States. We also take those one-off donations making it quick and easy for the company. We assist them with creating strategic giving programs that allow them to both give back and receive benefits for those donations. So here at Good360 we have about 360 degrees of good. Now what does this mean? For companies, we assist them with boosting their bottom line, build employee engagement, and improving sales. And also assisting them with saving some of those funds that they had to pay to liquidate or maybe store or destroy some of those good donations. And then for nonprofits, we work with them so they can receive a product that means or make a difference between keeping or cutting those vital programs. And also allow the nonprofit to stretch their budget by requesting products through Good360 and use those funds for those other programs. So we try our best to help leverage the funds that you have access to to receive the donated goods that we are able to receive from these various companies. And with people, we also make the connection too because they are able to assist with fulfilling and helping nonprofits crowdfund, paying those shipping and handling fees. And I'll talk about that just a little bit more down the slides here. So who can register with Good360? Good360 we work with nonprofit organizations that are 501c3 public charities. We work with schools, churches, libraries. So we work with all size groups, small or large, again to assist them with meeting their community needs. You can register by going to Good360.org in the upper right-hand corner, click on the link that says catalog, and then go right into sign-in to register. It only takes more than five minutes of your time. So once you become registered, there's three different ways to get donated goods through Good360. You can request the products through our warehouse which is all listed in our new online catalog given place. We also provide one-time donation pickups that is available in your community. And then we have a strategic program that we partner with local retailers. Excuse me, just to name a few like they're back and beyond, Home Depot, Pottery Barn, and Disney, where we have a 12-month partnership setup where they will donate specifically to their assigned recipient that is connected through Good360 membership. Now I mentioned our new giving place. This is our place where we have just recently launched in March of this year, 2015, where we're able to release a few new tools that assist you that allows your organization to spotlight the good work that you're doing via our online profile and dashboard. You're also able to create crowdfunding promotions via our new wishlist tool, allowing supporters to help cover the cost of shipping and handling. You will also have access 24-7, 365 days to access your product donation request to check on the results of your crowdfunding wishlist tool, how you're doing, the timeline and how much money you have raised. And then you're also able to showcase to the supporters how those donated products are making a difference. Through our storytelling tool, and that's the impact story tool. Moving along, this is just a quick visual so you can see when you create a wishlist. Creating a wishlist again is asking supporters to cover the administrative fees for the Good360 donation. And just a few quick tips. When you're creating a wishlist based on the inventory that Good360 have access to, that will be vital to your organization and your community needs. With this wishlist, if you can quickly explain how that product will make a difference, be specific. Tell how it will help a real person if you can. Create a strong headline, something that will catch their attention to intrigue them to want to learn more and to read more. And also if there's any good photos that you can include, any good visuals are great. And making sure that you have signed releases if you are using photos of children or adults. Making sure that you have that proper release. And then there's also a few links where you can download these toolkits, tips to help you understand how to create a wishlist and how to promote that wishlist. It's available through the Good360 website. So moving along, creating an impact story, again this is where you can tell how the product assists your organization whether it was used internally or if it was distributed among the community. But this is a way to submit the information back to the donors that will engage them and encourage them to continue to give. So they are very interested in learning more. Getting the most out of your Good360, a few quick points here. If you could maximize and also appoint one person to manage your Good360 account. Make sure that they are receiving our weekly communication knowing what is available, knowing new programs or donations that's coming through the pipeline. Playing ahead, ordering these products and knowing that you have an event that's coming along towards the end of the year or maybe back to school or the holiday just being able to prove the site and to make those requests early on instead of waiting to the last minute to make the request. Assessing your product needs on a regular basis, making sure that you fully understand what your internal and your community needs are. And then take a look at your budget to see what you are buying through these retailers that you can ultimately receive through Good360 and save some of those funds and use those funds on other vital programs. And then using our wish list to crowd-sign, to raise those administrative fees by allowing your supporters and Good360 network of supporters cover those shipping and handling fees. And then as always, finding creative ways to use the different products that you have access to through Good360. And here, just staying connected with us on and through social media, you'll see a few of our handles here at Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube. You will also have access to some of our newsletters and our blogs that we post online and that you will have access through MyGivenPlace, your online portal and dashboard. So this pretty much wraps up what resources that Good360 has, a high-level overview. You're able to always go into our website, check out the additional resources we have. If you have any questions, you can feel free to contact us. And our contact information will be provided at the end of this presentation. And Becky, I am going to stop at this time. And thank you again. Terrific. Thank you so much for that, Lenore. We did have one question that came in just now asking whether Good360 makes access available to nonprofits that are in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Do you happen to know offhand? Well, we do. We work with, again, nonprofits and non-governmental organizations. The only thing is sometimes it's kind of limited based on the donor company where that product can be distributed. But I still encourage them to register with us because as those opportunities become available, we will reach out to our network of registered members. Great to know. I know often with many programs they may have difficulty, especially if it's providing physical product donations with shipping. I see limitations on a lot of the shipping labels and information saying that it's restricted to the lower 48 or may include Puerto Rico or Alaska or U.S. Virgin Islands, but it may have an additional fee. So something to consider and to keep in mind when you are checking out those other options out there. Great. Well, I am going to go ahead and open us up to questions. Thank you, Lenore, for that presentation about Good360. And I mentioned in the chat that we know Good360 is not specifically providing technology donations only because they have a catalog that has lots and lots of products. You saw all of the vendors from Pottery Barn to William Sonoma and everybody in between and Beth and beyond. So they provide way more than tech donations specifically, but because they also provide electronics and office supplies and computers, we wanted to include them in this webinar because it is such a great resource and we want to make sure that you know about it. So thank you for that. I am going to go ahead and open us up to some other questions as we get wrapped up here in the next few minutes. We have a question from Sally who is asking about kind of best advice. So maybe this would be good. Any of you can feel free to tackle this, but I will point this one at Gail to start. Advice on how you reach out for donations if you are a brand new organization. Does it help if you are affiliated with other nonprofits or that you are part of a coalition that is asking or you are collaborating with them? Does that help give Gravitas to a request when you are reaching out to a company to help support your organization with in-kind donations? What do you think Gail? I think anytime you can show that you are an active member in somebody's community, it is always a good thing. The one thing that I have always learned is that there is absolutely no way to know who is connected to any given organization. You might be sitting across the table from somebody and it turns out that their spouse sits on the board of somebody. In this case, name-dropping, furiously showing that not only are you a good organization, you are stable, you are doing good work, you can talk about it occasionally, but to show that you are networked across things. So you are not doing this just for your own enlightened self-interest, but you are really participating as part of a larger community is a very good part of your personal narrative. And one, if you can practice it so you have it included briefly in the elevator pitch is always a great idea. Thanks for asking. Terrific. And I would agree that I think anything you can do to bolster your organization's reputation when you are making an ask, whether that is partnering up with other organizations or maybe long-standing ones, especially if you are new, gives you some good standing. I wanted to also mention we ran a webinar last week. I didn't link to it here because it didn't occur to me that it might be relevant until just now with these questions that are getting asked. But we ran a webinar with GrantStation last week and we are in the middle of a GrantStation promotion that ends today at 5 p.m. Eastern, I'm sorry, Pacific Time. So if you are interested, they spent quite a bit of time talking about how new organizations can use their database to seek out funding and in-kind donations as well as just grant funding and to really find those sources that will help support them as startup funds. So if there are organizations on the line that are interested in that, you may want to check out GrantStation. You may want to go to TechSoup.org slash GrantStation today because they have a special offer that is only lasting through the end of the day today for $99 for a one-year membership for their database, which is a grant-seeking database. And they not only help you find state, local, and federal grants of cash, but they also can help you connect with in-kind donors too. So a great resource to check out. But again, it didn't occur to me to include in the slide deck until I saw some of the questions coming in. We are almost at time, but I wanted to ask Alex this question. If any of you have any idea, and so this is to any of you three, about how to get travel discounts to help volunteers be able to travel to an area of need. So maybe if they are an emergency response organization, and you need volunteers to be able to travel for forest fire prevention, or fighting them, or Hurricane Sandy, or something like that, any tips on where people can get funds to help with travel? I can probably help a little bit there. I know the chat list listed that some really good ideas. And frankly, having people donate their frequent flyer miles is probably the fastest thing to do this. The airlines get overwhelmed with requests for things, and most of them will already have pre-existing relationships with major relief organizations like Red Cross, or other people that are dealing with emergency relief. Certainly FEMA has their finger on that pole. So I would say before you do that, talk to the overarching agencies in your community to say, hey, we're going to be helping out. We're going to be sending firefighters, or we're going to be sending something. Can someone help us with travel costs? And if you don't ask, you're never going to know what resources people can tap you into. And this is Matt, and I'll just tack on to that a little bit. I definitely would reiterate everything that Gail mentioned there, and I'm aware of Delta has a program that is sort of on point with this. We're looking into where you can at least get reduced rates for volume purchases. And that's something that we're trying to add to the ISVT program as well. So stay tuned for that certainly. Great. Yeah, and I also recommended that I've worked with organizations where we put up requests to include an option for people to donate or transfer their unused airline miles to us in the past. And it's been fairly successful, particularly if your organization does focus on a lot of traveling for implementing program work or something like that, then your audience knows that you have a need for that and may be more inclined to donate those unused miles before they expire, because that's no good for anyone, right? So I'm going to go ahead and wrap us up here since we're at the top of the hour and invite you to continue asking questions in our Tech Planning and Policies Forum. And we'll share that link in the follow-up email. Quickly I'm going to just flash on the screen the contact info of our presenters. You don't have to rush to write it down because you will have an opportunity to get this in your email box later. And I'd also love it if you could chat into us to let us know what one thing you learned today that you're going to walk away and either check out or try to implement to help your organization work more effectively and save some money on your technology expenditures. We hope that you'll visit some of the sites we talked about today, whether it's TechSoup or Good360 or Independent Sector or one of the many, many others that were mentioned. We hope that you learned something and we'd love for you to share that with us. Lastly, I'd like to invite you to join us for our upcoming events and webinars. We have a full menu coming up. You can learn how to keep your connected nonprofit or library secure in this Internet-enabled world. October starts the National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. So we'll be talking about Internet Safety and Security with an expert from Symantec and who trained thousands of TSA employees on best practices for staying secure online. Then we'll also have an NP Tech Chat on Civil Society Under Threat. This will happen on Twitter so you can follow this hashtag, NP Tech Chat on the 6th of October. Then if you're joining us from a library, we'll talk about Pinterest specifically for libraries and how to build a community using Pinterest social media to build boards and followers. We'll then be talking about Office 2016, the new office that is coming soon to TechSoup. So watch for more on that to come. We'll be talking about it for Windows users and then we'll also be talking about it for Mac users on the 22nd. And I just quickly want to mention that we have just opened up our next round of submissions for the contest that we're running with Adobe Creative Cloud right now. So if you have designed collateral using Adobe products, you can submit that collateral through the link on here. It takes you to a Facebook page where you can win up to $1,000 in prizes for your creativity and using Adobe's design tools for your organization. So join us for any of those. Connect with us at TechSoupGlobal on TechSoup.org and on our Facebook and Twitter. Thank you so much Gail, Matt, and Lenore. Really appreciate you sharing a bit of your expertise today. We're glad to have had you on the line. And thank you all of our participants for engaging with us and sharing questions and experiences in the chat window. We hope that you got something out of today's event. And we hope that you'll take a moment to complete the post-event survey that pops up when you exit the room. Lastly, I'd like to thank ReadyTalk, our webinar sponsor. They provide the use of this platform so we can present these webinars to you on a weekly basis. So please join us again and you can check out their donation program at TechSoup.org slash ReadyTalk. Thanks so much everyone and have a terrific day. Bye-bye.