 Hi, thanks for joining this special text and posted online discussion for executive directors, we call this ED chat. Now I know that, and we all know it takes a lot to run nonprofit and it can be overwhelming sometimes so today's chat is about how our nonprofit thrives and when I say I'm talking about yours and text because we are 501c3 as well. And we do have a feature speaker who's going to come on in just a moment, but before we get started I do want to let you know that we are recording this so you'll get the recording within 48 hours probably later today. And when you close this session of survey will pop up I would love if you would fill out that survey and let us know some other topics that you want to hear about. I think this is your first time here with us at TechSoup I want to show you how you can engage. Please stay on mute for the quality of the recording. And if you have a question maybe in the, you know, if you don't put in the chat and you want to ask speaker or ask anyone, use the raise your hand option without your screen. Now they change the live captain there used to be a closed caption button, but what I've done was enable the closed caption if you want to disable them. There are three dots on your screen and you can disable them so I'll have to change the slide. So, I want to move on to basically what the chat is about. We are in this together, like I said they're nonprofits who are here today. You may be a new nonprofit you may be a midsize you may have a long history, but we do this work together serving our communities to keep it them saved and help with disabled to feed the hungry so I can go on on but I personally want to thank you for what you do. So, we want you to invite our EDs to our ED chats and up to all of our webinars. I would love if you become a feature speaker, because I'm going to just Nancy in a moment and she wears multiple hats so I know a lot of you wear multiple hats and you'll be able to share some insights to nonprofits that can help them so copy my email down because screenshot of that is a stylist at TechSoup.org, and I would love to hear from you so now, I'm going to move on and introduce our feature speaker today is Nancy Shirley she is an executive administrator of dream partnership. She is a Pennsylvania nonprofit organization that creates post secondary education opportunities for young adult with intellectual disabilities. Now, listen to this as the only employee of the organization, she wears many hats, which include fundraising, social media, website management south of me to a lot of you. Yeah, I thought so that is sort of I can go on and on the grant writing and grant compliance. And she's also a consultant so besides doing all that she helps other people started their nonprofit so Nancy I'm so excited that you're here today and thank you for sharing. And as I said, later on you all get to share as well as Nancy I'm going to turn this over to you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Arita. Thank you for having me today. I actually met Arita we were doing a presentation for question pro, which is a technology platform that is now available on TechSoup, and we were utilizing that platform. I love TechSoup. So I got to talk to Arita and tell her how much I love TechSoup and how much it helps me do my job every day. So that's how she asked me to be a speaker. I'm sure she'll tap into some of you to speak as well because you all look like you have amazing organizations. I'm going to share my screen here and just go through a little bit of what dream partnership is all about. Are we good to see everybody can see that. Yes. Great. Thank you. So dream partnership. As Arita said I am the only employee I'm a part time employee actually we started our. Sorry, I can't. Sorry about that. We started our nonprofit in 2012 where we had our founder Donna Parton has a daughter with Down syndrome and Demi was getting ready to graduate from high school. And she saw all of her friends going to college and she said mom where am I going to college so Donna said well let's find out what's available to you. And unfortunately, there were no programs here in Pennsylvania I believe there was one. We set out to change that and created dream partnership. So we, as Arita said, we grant funds we raise funds through grants, we grant funds to colleges within Pennsylvania to start programs specifically for students with intellectual disabilities. We also raise funds to provide scholarships to those students to attend those programs. So within just 10, 10 years now we just had our birthday. We have granted over 234 scholarships to students totaling over $967,000. We have 10 programs right now that we provide funding to that we started all of those programs. Students that apply to those programs are also eligible for scholarships as well. We just expanded our network to include other programs that we did not fund to make their students eligible for scholarships as well so there's some of our, our students across across the state here. And this is my contact information. So as Arita said I am the only employee of dream partnership. I also consult for other nonprofits here in Pennsylvania. And when we first started with the concept of dream partnership. We actually had a fiscal sponsor. And it was another large organization here in Pennsylvania so we started out with them as being our fiscal sponsor until we were able to get our own 501c3. And then we were under their umbrella for a period of time and then we decided that we would go, we would move out on to our own so when we did that. There was a lot of things that we were not handling. I was not handling because the fiscal sponsor did that for us so payroll. All of the compliance filings with charitable organizations through the Department of State, our bookkeeping or checking account, all of those things, social media or website, we were not handling those things. So we had to learn on the fly and quickly acclimate to having all of those functions fall within our own organization. So we'd always had our own incorporation and our 501c3, but we'd never really handled any of that. So we had to quickly acclimate quickly figure things out for ourselves with some help from other organizations. One of my favorite things is to utilize other organizations and partner with them, especially small organizations to be able to share resources and information and I've always been an information person. I believe in sharing as much information as possible and and trying to help others, you know, especially with something that I've already done. If I can help somebody else do it quickly, efficiently, easily, then that's, that's my goal. So that's one of the things I love about TechSoup TechSoup has so many things that I've been able to to acquire so many different platforms and programs that I've been able to acquire to make my job easier and on a shoestring budget. So even though we grant a lot of money to colleges and to for scholarships, very little overhead. I'm a virtual, I have a virtual office. We don't have a lot of money that goes to operations. So most of our, I would say about 90% of our funds go directly to programs and scholarships and grants other grants. So through TechSoup, I was able, you know, when we first started, I just kind of wrote down a list yesterday of how many things I've actually used from TechSoup and I've got 123456789101112 things, just off the top of my head and I'm sure there's more than that. You know, as I, as I go through my daily, my daily work but even just to start, you know, I started with QuickBooks. I've never used QuickBooks before. I was able to utilize the QuickBooks paid easy application and those webinars which were so helpful and I suggest that to anybody that's just getting into QuickBooks. He had so many quick, easy things that made my job easier. So through QuickBooks, I'm able to generate all my, my donor letters, my donor thank you letters when I get a donation. And I use the desktop version. I don't know that the online version is as easy to use when it comes or to modify one of the other organizations that I that I consult for. They use the online version and I tried to set their letters up and it wasn't quite as friendly as the desktop version was. But I was able to utilize that through QuickBook, through TechSoup that QuickBooks made easy those webinars are fantastic. He has a fantastic product grant station in order to find my grants use that all the time. Microsoft Office, just being able to access Microsoft Office and use the, the emails and the cloud. So to be able to have that SharePoint access to files. So if I'm not in my office at, at home, I can access them when I'm on the road, very easy to use. Let us Adobe pro Adobe pro is fantastic. You know if there's one thing that I always suggest people get it's that it's amazing. The free version is fine but the pro version does so much it doesn't cost a lot of money. I think with the TechSoup version, it's like good for four years. It's amazing it does it converts Word documents it converts Excel documents it lets you take an Adobe file and edit it and change it and it's it's life changing it lets you scan things that lets you organize pages get rid of delete, delete blank pages. All kinds of good things so that definitely is a product that I use all the time and if I'm without it I notice it. Adobe express the new premiere subscription I just started to use that it's free through TechSoup. It's amazing. If you've ever used canva for any of your social media posts. This does the same thing but it's got a bunch of templates. But in addition to having the templates and really easy to create, you know static ads for for your social media posts. It also lets you schedule your posts through Facebook, Twitter. And also Instagram and I believe LinkedIn I don't have a LinkedIn account but it lets you schedule out so I've literally created for our scholarship awardees. I create a scholarship awardee of the week, and I scheduled that out through May of this year. So that in itself, it's amazing. It's got so many other things that I haven't even touched yet it's got I think video editing and other things that come with that subscription. It has a branding available so you can put your logo in there you can pick the colors that you use all the time for your branding and utilize those. And it's free. It's, it's fantastic thing to take advantage of if you can take advantage of it right right right now I think specials going on right now. The coven 19 technology grant we were able to utilize that. In addition to creating post secondary programs we also created a an aquaponics program at slippery rock University, and they decided they would create their own 501 C three and while they were in that process, we acted as their fiscal sponsor. So during coven. They had just started out on their own. Now they did have some grants, but I was able to utilize that coven 19 technology grant and get computer, a computer for them printer for them. And so with toner cartridges toners for us, they covered the zoom, zoom subscriptions technology subscriptions, which was fantastic. The zoom subscription, you get that through tech soup as well it's a lot, it's less expensive. And with today we're using it today actually laptops I've been able to get laptops, you get discounts through Dell HP Lenovo. monitors, they do refurbished monitors which is great they do some refurbished computers as well, been able to take advantage of that. The hotspot mobile mobile through through beacon able to utilize that it's that was very low cost I believe I got the modem for free and then I paid $120 I think for the year for hotspot. Let's see question pro use question pro all the time it's they have a free version which is fantastic. But I do pay for this. They're having a special right now for this the actual paid subscription which allows you to edit your links but with that question pros fantastic. If you're doing any kind of surveys, whether it be internally externally. It takes your data it's very easy to use and then it takes your data once it's people fill out the survey. It takes the data and it puts it into ready made graphs. You can choose what type of graph it is. You can export it easily it exports the whole report to word to excel to PowerPoint to Adobe PDF. It's very easy to use something that I use a lot, and it also does different languages. So you can do your survey in Spanish as well. The only drawback is if you don't speak Spanish, the replies are in Spanish. So a lot of people don't realize that if you have a Microsoft online the nonprofit nonprofit version even if you if you had the cloud version, you can take something and you can have it automatically translated. So it only works on the online version for me. You just pop it into you open up a document you pop it in, and then you have that that translation option. And it also does audio transcribing. So if you're in a meeting and you have a zoom audio file and you forgot to turn the transcribing on or, or you don't have the subscription to the transcribing. You can take that audio file and you can upload it into word online and it will transcribe it for you even with the time signatures. So you can use that to go into it for your meeting minutes or you can use that for your video if you're doing a video with closed captioning multiple uses for that and you get so many minutes per month and I've never run out of the minutes and it's so quick and easy. It does a fantastic job and that's only on the online version of Microsoft. You know, I could go on and on and on you guys, you know, web, our website we use WordPress for our website. Now I will say, we do, we did hire somebody to design the website for us. And whenever there's an issue with the website, I can do a little bit, but I do get it involved. So we have a fantastic local IT company that I can call. They can help I suggest local, maybe a little bit more expensive, but it's worth it to have somebody in your backyard that you can call that's familiar with you and you're going to get a live person versus, you know, some of these these some of these other organizations that are, you know, high level, where you have to leave a message or, you know, and when you don't have time to deal with it with an issue you need somebody to be on the phone with you right away. So I could go on and on forever. I think you have some questions. I want you to finish your thought because I know like you're dropping that there are a lot of questions and I'm going to start with the question that's in the chat room. Feel free to put them in chat or you can leave them in the chat. Carol asks, why do you walk away from a physical sponsor but someone else asked earlier so you can answer these both together. How did you choose your physical sponsor and explain to everybody what a physical response because not everybody understands what a physical sponsor is. Sure, sure. So a physical sponsor is basically a nonprofit that you would partner with. If you don't have your own 501c3 or you're applying for it because it does sometimes take a long time depending on what type you're applying for. So the physical sponsor basically is someone or an organization that can apply for grants on your behalf or run donations in through on your behalf. And then basically there's like a separate accounting for that for your organization or for your program. And when we first came up with the idea of dream partnership. My, the founder was on the board of United cerebral palsy of Pennsylvania. So she talked to the executive director there at the time, I believe he was a CEO, and they agreed that they would become a physical sponsor and apply for the initial grant to get to get dream partnership up and running. So, while to start that was, it was fantastic that they were able to take, you know, take, take us online and help us while we were getting around 501c3 and were being incorporated. Unfortunately, because they were a large organization. They charged us an administrative fee, and that administrative fee was based on how much, how much we paid out. So even though we were giving a lot of grants that was, and we didn't, we didn't have a lot of overhead as far as employees there were two of us at the time. They were charging us for the grants that were, that we were giving out so on $100,000 grants, they would, you know, ding us $30,000. So when you have, yeah, so the administrative fees you know throughout the year, even though they were providing some services became pretty absorbent, especially when you're a small, a small nonprofit. And that's, that's why we decided to go out on our own. We already had everything you know our own 501c3 where they had our own incorporation but those admin fees were just crazy. So, when we became a fiscal sponsor for the organization, the aquaponics program. We would charge them and admin fee per se is just whenever we applied for grants on their behalf, we would include some admin within the grant. And so, for them, you know I handled their payroll they were all 1099. So I've handled their payroll for them through QuickBooks which is really easy to do, you know, ran their expenses. And then we do have we, we do, we don't do a full audit because we're under that threshold where you need an audit but we do have a financial review every year. So, their finances also come up in our, our review as well but they're broken out by program. So you can see, you know, our funders to be able to see who, how much money is actually spent for that program versus our other programs and then our overhead program. Excellent. Thank you for saying that. Alika, I hope I'm pronouncing your name at ALI KI. You want her to repeat a platform but can you refresh your memory on yourself to kind of what she was talking about at the time that she mentioned the platform. Thank you so much. Yes, I think it was already answered by some of our colleagues in the chat. I believe it was the Adobe Premiere. Adobe Express Premium Plan. Thank you. And in my understanding is that this is free for nonprofits and that also you are able to create content and schedule it to go out on various social media platforms. Is that right? Correct. Yeah, yeah. So if you've ever used a product called Hootsuite, it's similar to that. You're able to create the content. You're able to create templates so that you can just populate the new information that you want and then you can schedule it out. So again, I've used that to schedule all of my media posts through at least my scholarship media posts through May. So, I mean, you could do it through the end of the year if you wanted to or next year or anything like that, but it is free. You can get up to 10 users through that. So if you've got multiple users in your organization that is that are creating content. And you can use it. It doesn't have to be social media either. I mean, you could use it for brochures. You can use it for anything. With that, like if you've got multiple users up to 10 through the subscription, you can share content through that as well and your branding. So you can have one person set up the branding and then share it across all the users so everybody's using the same colors. They're using the same font. They're using the same logo, which makes it a lot easier. It's nicer when you can have that uniformity across the board. So thank you. So I'm going to go to this question from Kenny and then I'm going to answer a question in the chat. Kenny says, do you use a CRM from Pepsi? So he was curious about that. You know, I don't I use question pro and that's that's about it. I don't use a customer relations management tool. Okay, thank you. So there's a question in the chat. As a mission driven escort, they have two physical sponsors and they mentioned the physical sponsors. Can I, they want to know if they can access various tech suit partners and programs if we are not a 501 C3. So, before you had to be a 501 C3 to have access to tech suit but now we are allowing physical sponsors to to provide products and services on behalf of the people who their physical sponsors over so I hope that help that answer your question. Okay, so Sandra asks, how can you get other nonprofits to collaborate if we already have your 501 C3. Great question. So, collaborate, like how, you know, I know just locally here, you know, nonprofit people we just kind of stick together we find each other, you know. So, depending on how, you know, what kind of cooperation you want, do you need to use a facility, you know, a conference room. Is it, you know, to share information to share mission work. You know, I know we have local. And I suggest everybody joins their, their state association of nonprofits so we've got panel here. That's one way and there's there's also other other groups of nonprofits. You know, depending on if you're, you know, if disability is your focus or Christian ministries is your focus. You can go around and just see what's out there to find to find your niche sometimes it's going outside of that niche, you know, finding the, you know, we've got keystone music here that has a facility that, you know, also coordinates with the Christian ministries group. So, you know, it's just really just talking to people and making those those friendships and those relationship building and you just never know. You never know what you're going to find. Perfect example. That's why we have a chat here today. As I mentioned earlier, we all go together and I want you guys to connect with each other. And we're talking about how we thrive. Carol put in the chat. Our nonprofit is in Lagos, West Africa, she mentioned the name of the nonprofit, they're looking to partner with other nonprofits you want to know, you know, how can we do that. How can we do that with a global partnership there in West Africa, we're here in the US, and right away, she got in response from Alika, her brother announced your name right. And she said we want, we would love to partner with you so this is what I mean by, we work together, we are in this together so if you have a need, if you have a question put in the chat network with each other. Carol, she wears many hats but she does it officially I knew that right away the first time heard her speak I was like yeah I gotta have her on. And as you can tell when she was, you know, going through all the product she's using. And I know that she wears many hats but she does it efficiently so I do appreciate you sharing that so I'm going to stop here and just allow anyone to use the raise your hand option is right at the bottom of the screen where the reaction is so you can ask your question, or just even make a comment because about how you thrive. And if you're not sure you're a new nonprofit and you need questions. Answer. This is the time to ask right here in this hour. So go ahead and feel free to use the raise your hand option if you can't get to it, just go ahead and unmute yourself. Don't everybody speak at the same time. I will, I'll mention a couple of things. We, I miss you Carol, I miss you. I miss you Carol Carol so thank you for your passion. I, you know, I do this every day I talk to nonprofit every day. I did 501 C3 to 24 years grant writer grant review or grant giver. So this is I'm in this with you all. This is not just a job for me this is not just, you know, a contract or anything. I'm in this with you. What I wanted to know is, how you guys with doing with your fundraising, kind of fundraising ideas to have for this year. Do you have a strategic plan. Who can answer that. Are you ready do you have your budget set are you ready to meet the end of the year goals. Anybody want to share and feel free to jump in Nancy. My name is Daphane. And I'm with prevention zone, Inc. where we provide resources for exonerees children with incarcerated parents and we have a youth group that we work with called young people gathering and that consists of a group of kids who live in a positive environment, and they have issues as well. And I started that group with my son and his friends back a few years ago because they all graduated in 2021. So, but that's what we do. And, but currently to answer your question, we started having two annual events. We started last year with the one that we are planning for right now as we speak it's March the 12 here in Houston, Texas. And it's an awards event. Excuse me, for people who have been an asset to criminal justice reform. And so we, we, we have lifetime achievement awards. I've got my little miss right here. We have an advocate award, where we recognize people who have been an advocate for children. And then we deal a lot with mental health we award someone that's in the mental health industry, and then public government, which is like our official government people like senators and so on like that. Then we have the champion in the community and this is three different categories so we honor about 14 and 15 people, and we did it last year and it was a success. We recognize how people love to get awards and me I'm real simple, you know, to for someone to recognize me, I be like oh you don't have to it's okay, but when we started spreading the word about what we're doing to honor people they was just elated. And this year, our achievement is going to be going to Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. Hold on for a minute. What are you successful you said it was a success what do you consider successful because at the end of the day. Yes, right. Yes, yes. So what I considered a success and I'm just rambling I do apologize. But what I consider a success was when, when we finished up all the books put in all the expenses and everything, we were able to get a check back. And so which mean that we did, we didn't reach our goal, but we got about, I would say about a fourth of our goal which wasn't a lot, but it was our first time. And so it was a trial and error event for us for the first time so this time. We're pretty much on top of our game and so our goal is to raise $5,000 and we don't want to over, you know just say oh I want to raise $100,000 this year, we're not there yet. And so, don't say that. Okay, I got you, I got you. We've been going for three years now so. Yeah, that is correct we won't say that, but you know just roll higher than what you want to make. Yeah, tell everybody your goal is $100,000. Okay, I sure will. Yes, yes. Thank you and there was a comment in there in the chat room for you thank you so much for sharing that. Thank you. So, I want to say, you guys, we are global now so this is just my opinion you don't have to take my opinion like I don't give professional legal advice when I'm doing those 501c3 either. But now that we have zoom, if you're not profiting from your in person events, people are doing events on zoom. I've seen the DJ I've seen people play instruments on zoom and do all kinds of rockers on this all kinds of ways to make money. Everybody's different, just my opinion. So, I'm looking at the chat room some great comments. Melissa you got you joined quad it's been super helpful. Love to hear that. We need to start with plans for fundraising grant writing for annual fall, fall festival. Beautiful fundraising events are awesome, and I see your hand raised that bit from Senate Tony oh I think that's how you pronounce it. Go ahead. Okay, hi, I am, I'm so lucky I just was like fiddling through trying to find when your next cinema. My vision was and it was like now so I came on. So, I'm very glad to to be able to read that to hear you and to hear this. So, so my thing is this I have a set say Biff is a San Antonio black International Film Festival. And we commence every fall this is our fifth year so I'm just like amazed that we got to year five because we just started. It was just like no budget no plans it was like a need to have a black International Film Festival here in San Antonio so we just started. And so it is a blessing to reach year five and so for me, the big challenge is one, trying to get a consistent audience that will follow us continually and support us. And so that has been a challenge, as well as always the whole fundraising thing I really just one year want to get two years or a year in advance, because every year we're working working working toward the festival. And then it happens and then we're starting over again from scratch, and you know the year of like January we're starting trying to get everything together for October. I wanted the one is any suggestions on how to get more folks on on in terms of volunteers we have we're with volunteer match. And we've been getting a few interns in here and there, just consistent I'm looking to build a consistent working team. And to have an operating budget with that team so that I can bring on more people to assist with the planning, and so that we can get a year out. So any suggestions for with this is our first year operating fully as a nonprofit we were using a fiscal sponsor. We got our nonprofit status late last year. No, getting it last year so we're just now getting the board and everything in place and moving as we go so everything is always happening at one time instead of a breath. I'd love to hear other people's experiences on trying to build a volunteer ship trying to, you know, at least get the planning a year in advance to get operational budget in to have a staff any, any feedback on that from other experiences would be great. Yeah, you guys feel free to unmute yourself and Nancy you want to pop in Carol who got great advice, anybody want to share with her some ideas that you have some things you've done that works successfully. Sure, I will. My name is Sheila, and I am a founder of a nonprofit here in Atlanta, Georgia, called Metal Wellness Academy. We focus on mental health for youth and families. And we do that through activities. One of the things that's been successful for us is to partner with teachers in schools. Honestly, that is where we've, we've gotten the pool of our volunteers. A lot of teachers want to make improvements and changes, not only to the education system but to their like operations in your schools. And so we actually have a lot of our volunteers are teachers, and just listening to you being a film festival, I would think colleges and those that are in those majors are looking for exposure. So I would recommend maybe looking at to those educational institutions to use them as volunteers. Thank you. We've utilized some of that but I appreciate that thank you. It's getting the commitment to be consistent and building those relationships so that it's an annual thing or I can continually have people come aboard. Thank you. I would go to the high schools most high schools now have AV classes, and majority of kids need to have volunteer time for their college applications. So that's an untapped resource that is continuing it changes every year with a new batch of kids, but it is a constant. And I read a lot of college applications for scholarships, and I can tell you they need those volunteer hours so I would go to your local private and public high schools is where I would go. Excellent. Thank you Carol. I knew you had a nugget to share. Thank you. Hey, I see Abigail congratulations she said their quarter bowl was three to 5000 per quarter, and they've already got $1,000 already so that's fantastic great to hear that. Lots of other comments in that room I'm going through. Laura says plan, just kidding. We're working to create a fundraising plan for 2023 and 2024. That's good. That's good. Plant putting things in writing. I promise you, it's so good for you and it'll help you to go back, especially as as your board, you should be looking at your goals and your plans and hitting those targets and making assignments, not just one person, you know with the plan and, you know, I don't know, wearing multiple hats like we all do. But if you assign people and give them a deadline that that should help. So, hey, Crystal, currently working and planning to open a local donation only restaurant that moves our nonprofit organizations that fuels our nonprofit organization sorry, which is more giving more love where we can continue to feed our local senior families. I saw something like that on YouTube somebody had a free restaurant. So I don't know but anybody have any idea how she can secure some financial donations beyond the $10,000 or more. We have Grant Station coming up we have our Grant Station program that's coming up but anybody else having the advice. Basically, you're, you're seeking to get the larger grants. Probably what I want to know is, I see you get ready to answer a question and see what size grants do you currently have had to have you apply for. Because I don't know how long you've been existing. Yeah, so we're, we're 10 years old in October of 2022. We're about ready to hit our million dollars in scholarships this year that's coming up we're on track for that. Through the years we've been able to find donors and foundations that have continually supported us. So it is a challenge to find new, new donations new donors new foundations. Sometimes you know you just got to send cold call stuff out there you just have to send you know you can go into Grant Station. They have the address out there sometimes they don't have an online application and you just send them information and just do it every year for a couple years, until they get tired of you sometimes you just got to be down the door. But yeah I mean we, you know, we've gotten $1.5 million grants, we've gotten $100,000 grants, you know this past year I think I was up to like $153,000. And again, most of that goes to our, our programs for scholarships. And then we do, we do have two fundraising events annually a golf tournament and then we have a it's called a living the dream event, which we have the students from our local program here come in they help host it. We do have committees so we have like standing committees through the board that help us organize that every year so because we continually do the same event. We get, you know, we have the same mailing list, you know, we, we increase our people coming in to the event. And so we really start fundraising for those events early. So, you know, at the end of the year I'll send something out to everybody and say, you know, please, you know, remember us for your budget this year. And also, I reach out to, you just never know the, the large companies that do that have things in your community so we've got a casino, we've got, you know, our power companies are Comcast, we've got you know our cable companies are banks banks are fantastic for not only financial scholar sponsorships for some of the events, but also for volunteers, because a lot of those corporations want their employees to volunteer they want to see them out in the community. So, I've been able to utilize, you know, make friends with my bankers and, you know, get, get them one scholarship committee get them one or our golf tournament committee, and they show up and they get credit for it with their throughout their community. Thank you. Laura said operational funds. Yeah, that's what everybody want to know right because we get grants for programs but what about the operational funding. Any suggestions on how to gather these much needed operational funds to hire staff, who, who was getting operational grants or operational funding anybody want to share feel free to unmute yourself. And do you know what operational funding is. Thanks Carol again. We give grants to admin funds because we understand it takes admin to run the programs. So I think the key in reading grant applications is really laying out where your admin funds go. It's the best opportunity to get those admin funds. That's a good point. That's a good point. So someone asked. They have a head to schedule as, as an executive director which platform can they find a virtual assistant and volunteers manage social media platforms. Fiverr is a good one. Upwork, I think somebody put those in there. Very good. I saw a question from Gail Samson you want to send this and you want to unmute yourself Gail and introduce yourself you don't have come on camera if you don't want to. I know I can do that hi everybody nice to get a chance to meet you. I got to thank Aretha because this is easily one of the, my favorite reoccurring events that she runs that you know I have been the chief business development director here at tech soup since 2001. When we, I started we were just serving the nine bay area counties and some of the inland valley. And I know that you guys are fully aware that we now serve the world 236 countries and territories around the world. And one of the things I do to try out. Thank you for the applause for the end so many of the programs that you see on tech soup, particularly in the US but as they've gone internationally are programs I've had the fun of developing for y'all. Basically, you know, part of what I wanted to say is that I serve on small nonprofit boards just because it's been a long time since we were a classic small nonprofit. And so one of the things that I know, and I'd be curious to hear from all of you. How often do you make an effort to say thank you to donors because most nonprofits really don't do that. And what we know is that if you send a gracious, ideally personal thank you to donors big and small. It's one of the quickest ways that people will go oh well I can give them a little bit more. And that builds a personal close warm relationship with your nonprofit. And so if you aren't taking the time to make those people feel valued, it's a, you know, it's like anything else in sales classically. You're always going to sell more to an existing customer, you're always going to get more from the existing donor. So, yes, letters and pictures are always great. And I'm going to tell one more story of Rita and I'll let you get back to your topic. You know, one of the things that told me how important this was is, you know, and our very early days as we were just beginning to go international. We had a packet of a thank you note and pictures from a organization I don't recall the name but their focus was to have down syndrome kids ride horses to build better physical health to feel more secure. And so they send us this big package about here's all the stuff we got from tech soup here's how it made us better we could book more kids our website was up and working more effectively, and pictures of kids on horses. We're presenting this to the Intuit exec team, including this very grizzled chief of marketing, who you go okay this guy's tough, and he looks at these things and his tears are in his eyes and he goes, can, can I keep these and we go, we brought them for you. And he goes, Thank you, I'm going to share this and you never know when someone's going to be touched, you're never going to be able to entirely predict that just simply sharing, you know, the impact that they may. Yeah, so you know that's that's my quick story. And I see a lot of people who are definitely using this and everything I have is yours so use it any way you want. But you know, so guys, you know, I just admire everything you're doing because starting small and building your organization is a tough road. And so it is absolutely one of the things that. Oh, I'm sorry I'm reading somebody who lost their founder to coven that that's tough. I'm sorry. Wow. Hey, whoever wrote this one I'm sorry I can't see your name I will respond to you directly on that one. But anyway, and Kassim thank you for asking me questions about what you're needing in West Africa. So, you know, I've looked at the top of the chat I've included a link to our technology wish list which is a forum that I monitor and I moderate. So, anytime you go, Oh, I wish they had this. Tell me there, because one of the things that that allows me to do is to share your personal message with organizations that I am approaching. And so you guys are my willing co conspirators and all of this and so the more often you post the stronger we all get and the more voices companies here to prompt them to begin this. And you know right now I'm finishing up. I can't tell you who it is because we haven't signed the agreement yet but many of you have asked for this. And so every time I would get a note from somebody, I would send it on and they actually ended up hiring a staff person to create a new nonprofit program. So that's the power of your personal messages, and the more of those I get the more good I can put them to and the better it gets for everybody. So, Aretha, thank you for letting me pop in and would see. I'm for everybody that's writing me directly I will respond to you in the chat. So, see y'all later. Yeah, thank you. I love it when you come to. That button that happy applause but thank you. So there was a question in the chat for Leslie she said give ideas again for social meeting I'm not sure Leslie would you unmute yourself and ask the question, because it is, it wasn't a full sentence. And I'm not sure if you're asking Nancy. If you're still here Leslie. Leslie bossy. This has been fantastic. I want to just make sure everyone's thoughts are clear. Do you have any other questions, any comments. We would love to hear how you're thriving or if you're not thriving I mean we're just in what day 19 of 2023 and you were like writing up any emails. What's the plan. Please share I promise you when you when you open your mouth to speak. It changes the room, it changes other people, it makes other people think sometimes you're dropping seeds, sometimes you're watering seeds so please share. This is Heather from over and above Africa. And I know that a question was asked about social media maybe she dropped but I have a question so I'm going to pick up that string so over and above Africa is a nonprofit that is working towards animal conservation and the way that we fund that is you know, kind of going where there isn't on the ground effort and also, you know, working on conservation to community efforts right. So empowering communities as well for animal cohabitation etc because that's where at the ground effort so a lot of what we do is fundraising. We have a platform that we use right now called one cause where we're investigating others. I will tell you that someone had a question regarding like how do you send thank you know it's what you do well, when people donate to that platform we can readily send a receipt saying here's your donation and thank you we have like a can message. I don't know if you can help, but with what what happens what we're finding is like, we did this fundraising the first time last year. And, you know, we really like went beyond our expectations it was amazing. This year. And I don't know if it's economic downturn in the US or what it is but like the way we have our donations. And so we're thinking is that we're we're tending to preach to the choir, you know people who are concerned with animal conservation. You know, right, and we're sort of not getting the, who we know are inspired there's a whole group of like you know Greta Thunbergs the youth that are activated around environment. And I don't know if they're making the connection with like conservation is part of that whole you know climate change and environment. So we're always trying to post with social media but I don't know like people will talk about Canva and other things and like entirely volunteer based group, and I can't say all of us about tech savvy on social media so I would love any recommendations anyone here in this form has on like how you've utilized you know whether it's volunteers or what what platforms you're using to sort of boost and amplify your social media presence because we feel that that might be the key that we need to unlock. I know Nancy mentioned a lot but if you if you want to come and chime in. And why she's on meeting herself Leslie are you able to unmute yourself now. Okay Nancy. Yeah so I am the only person, you know that works for dream partnership I'm the only one that posts in social media. It's one of the hardest things that I have to do just to find content and to remind myself to do it because you know things are happening all the time I don't necessarily want to use my personal social media platforms. So I don't really post from my phone, but again, I use that Adobe Adobe premiere express premiere, which allows you to create the content and schedule it through the same app, it's very easy to use. And then usually when I'm, you know, I try at least once a week just to go out and see if there's any other content that I can share through social media but you know, and as far as like thank yous go. I send a thank you for every single donation every Scott sponsorship that I get every grant. And I include on my letterhead is the picture of the scholarship awardees for that year. So they're reminded every time they get a letter from me where their money is going. And I also change those letters up depending on what type of donation it is. So if it's somebody that continually gives us donations. I have a specific letter that says thank you for your continued support. And I sign those personally. Every single letter I sign. And I answered the question so I would I would go with the Adobe express premiere membership. Start with that. There's so much content there. There's so many templates that it makes it really, really easy to use and to schedule your social media content. And I will say too, I sat in on a, it was like a training sessions, one of the Penn State Harrisburg here, must have gotten a grant for it, and it was for nonprofits to utilize social media. And I sat on that, and it really helped me just kind of schedule it out okay you know I have to at least schedule one post per week. And it did help it ticked up the number of viewers that I have and the number of clicks that I get in comments, and they also suggested that I utilize them as a resource for internships, because the colleges have social media like that is something that they're learning about. So they have people there in class that they would thankfully lend out to nonprofits. So check your, your local schools, check your local colleges, your local technology colleges, community colleges. Usually they have internships that they have to fill. So try that also for volunteer work as well. Yes, hello. I don't know how to put my picture on but this is my first time. We do have this. It's called our, our program is called head up brain calm. I was injured in that in an accident where I have a traumatic brain injury. We have so many of those locally so we're trying to help those people with money, because that's our main thing. They need so many resources. So we do have our one C three. We do have all the everything we need but now we just need money. Money. Are you guys, yeah, I mean, are you guys applying for any grants or doing fundraising asking for donations. We did have our kickoff was we had the media there and it went very well. We raised like 7,000 that that event. We're having another. And one week, a social event to invite people to see what they want to do for us, like committees. Were you doing some things right that's great. That's great. So we have a few minutes left. Someone put Kenneth put how you get invited to be in this meeting regularly. I want to have this easy chat regularly and that depends on you guys so when you close the window the server will pop up. Let me know what topics you want to hear. Email me if you want to be a feature speaker I would love to you guys have so much to share a simons at techsuit.org I'll put in the chat. And lots of thank yous in the chat. Our website is techsuit.org which you probably know but you'll find all the events on the website when you sign up for one event, you'll probably get the newsletters for all of our webinars and all of our webinars are free So thank you so much for the comments and so much that I so needed this easy chat. Thank you so much for saying that we appreciate it. I want to leave the final goodbye to Nancy Nancy I want to thank you, you are amazing. I knew you will be a jewel today so thank you so much. Any last words to everybody. Thank you for having me I am, you know, nonprofit people, we are passionate people. I am passionate about technology, and, you know, to be able to stretch our dollars and stretch our time. Techsuit makes that available to us so thank you for having me and thank you for representing Techsuit. Thank you. Thank you so much that was the next meeting it depends on you. I'll try to have one next month if you're interested and let me know in the survey. Thank you guys continue to do what you do and make sure you take care of yourself. Bye bye. Thanks everybody.