Podcast appearances and mentions of Rebecca Masisak

In this episode, Rebecca Masisak, CEO of TechSoup Global, walks us through some of the major shifts that her organization was able to make throughout its history. When TechSoup was founded under the name CompuMentor, its goal was to provide nonprofits with tech volunteer services. Eventually, the mission expanded to providing donated software and hardware at highly discounted prices for nonprofits. While this was a major driver for its success, TechSoup found itself having to incorporate a new business model once software started moving to the cloud, where donated software no longer meant shipping out CDs or DVDs. Finally, we covered TechSoup's expansion of its network from local to international, becoming TechSoup Global as it is known today. Key lessons: factors and motivations for shifts in strategy, funder and donor relations, fostering local networks globally.

TechSoup was the first nonprofit in the US to launch a national direct public offering (DPO). In the year since the launch of this growth capital campaign, they have raised over $8 million, with individual investments ranging from $50 to $1 million. In this episode, Alex Kravitz has a conversation with Rebecca Masisak and Ken Tsunoda about their unique approach to fundraising, lessons they have learned from the experience, and how the DPO has helped TechSoup grow and strengthen their community. Featured Voices: Rebecca Masisak, CEO, TechSoup Ken Tsunoda, VP of Development, TechSoup

In 2012, Congress passed and President Obama signed the JOBS Act, a law that authorized investment crowdfunding. A wide variety of for-profit businesses, many of them having a social mission, have taken advantage of the law to raise money from small investors under either Title III, implemented as Regulation Crowdfunding or Title VI, implemented as Regulation A+. TechSoup is an international nonprofit that helps deliver technology to other nonprofits around the world. This innovative organization is using Regulation A+ to offer securities in the form of low-interest loans to the public. CEO Rebecca Masisak joined me for this conversation to explain important details around the $11.5 million offering. Institutional investors are participating with investments in the millions of dollars. Small investors are participating in increments of just $50. This is an innovative application of the JOBS Act and a rare opportunity for ordinary investors to participate in an impact investment opportunity.

Nonprofit organizations face unique challenges when it comes to technology. Tight budgets and lack of expertise at the senior level result in what some organizations perceive as an inefficient use of tech. In fact, Stanford Social Innovation Review’s recent study of 80 advocacy-oriented nonprofits showed that only 11% of those organizations surveyed thought that they were highly efficient at managing technology. So how can nonprofits benefit from technology and focus on their missions at the same time? Rebecca Masisak, CEO of TechSoup, talks to Nicole Jones about bridging the tech divide for nonprofits, living your values as a leader, and how to balance a need for economic return with social missions. TechSoup is a nonprofit and social enterprise that equips changemakers with transformative technology solutions and skills they need to improve lives globally and locally. While most known for its NGO tech marketplace, which provides eligible organizations with donated and discounted software and training, TechSoup also hosts tech for good meet-ups all over the world, provides courses for nonprofits, streamlines international grantmaking, and works with the community to create social good solutions, among many other things. Since 2001 Rebecca Masisak has been a critical part of growing the portfolio of TechSoup's programs. She speaks about social enterprise, global networks, and data as a resource for civil society. She was awarded the Full Circle Funds prestigious Full Impact award in technology. And in 2017 was named one of the most influential women in business by the San Francisco Business Times. On top of that she was included in the annual list of the 50 most influential leaders in the U.S. nonprofit sector by the NonProfit Times. Share your wisdom and best practices with host Nicole Jones on social media: @kintone on Twitter or via email, at nicole@kintone.com. Read the full show notes for this episode at kintone.com/womendrivingimpact, and find out about how Kintone can change your business for the better at kintone.com.

Rebecca Masisak, CEO of TechSoup, joins hosts Nick Ashburn and Sherryl Kuhlman to discuss how TechSoup organized a nonprofit international network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that provides technical support and technological tools to other nonprofits, and where they see their business growing in the next few years on Dollars and Change. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Rebecca Masisak, CEO of TechSoup, joins hosts Nick Ashburn and Sherryl Kuhlman to discuss how the organization offers nonprofits the connections, expertise, and resources needed to leverage technology for social good. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Rebecca Masisak is CEO of TechSoup–she sets the strategic direction and provides executive oversight of all aspects of the organization and its global operations. Ms. Masisak joined TechSoup in 2001 to launch its e-commerce donation platform, moving the organization from a local San Francisco Bay Area focus to a national reach. In 2006, she founded...

Rebecca Masisak is the CEO of TechSoup, whose mission is to " build a dynamic bridge that enables civil society organizations and changemakers around the world to gain effective access to the resources they need to design and implement technology solutions for a more equitable planet." TechSoup has long facilitated donations and discounts on software for nonprofits and libraries, but in recent years has added hardware and services to its offerings. Rebecca joins host Steve Boland to talk about a growth plan for TechSoup to meet more of the needs in a broader range of areas by growing their access to capital. A recently partnership with the Nonprofit Finance Fund was one part of the path, and TechSoup is also asking for investment using a Direct Public Offering, which provides both individuals and organizations an opportunity to be part of the growth in their mission work. Rebecca talks about the growth and changes in their software donations and discount program, adding new programs over time, and engaging a larger conversation about using capital for mission growth.

Method to the Madness host Lisa Kiefer interviews Rebecca Masisak, CEO of the non-profit, TechSoup Global, whose mission is to connect fellow non-profits with tech products and services to help enable social change.TRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:Method to the madness is next. And your listening to method to the madness and biweekly public affairs show Speaker 2:k a l ex Berkeley celebrating bay area innovators. I'm your host, Lisa Kiefer. And today I'm interviewing Rebecca Massa sac, the CEO of tech soup global connecting NGOs and nonprofits around the world with the right technology [00:00:30] to enable social change. Tell us what is tech super tech Speaker 3:soup global. A tech soup is a nonprofit social enterprise that's dedicated to increasing the capacity of those working for good in the world and civil society and the social sector, often nonprofits in libraries. And how do you do that? I think of you as a platform. You're reenacting two groups. That's right. We do a lot of different activities, but we, they're all driven by an engine that's really a platform for matching resources for nonprofits, [00:01:00] a lot of it technology at present, uh, provided by technology corporations and then matching that to 700,000 organizations around the world doing great work. Besides nonprofits, are there other organizations? It's generally in nonprofits, NGOs, charities, there are of course a lot of different names for people doing public benefit work. Um, and then also libraries, public libraries. Well, let's back up a little bit because I understand that it was started from a $2,500 grant in 1987 by Daniel Ben Horan. Speaker 3:Correct. Who was the original [00:01:30] founder. He's still on board. He's very active in the organization. He's his, he's now his role as the chief instigator. So he's still kind of watching out for the culture and also guiding the vision in many ways. Great. Because his vision was to bring these two groups, these computer savvy people together with groups that need computers and didn't have the savvy. That's right. Back in 1987 he was a part of the, well, the online community and he noticed that there were these, a technical people who kind of really wanted to contribute back to society [00:02:00] and were excited by technology. And he also noticed that his activist friends, he had a, he was a journalist by background. He noticed that they really needed help with technology. And in some cases he was also being contacted by journalists, friends who were doing reviews of software and saying, well, we've got three or four copies. Speaker 3:These could go to some good use for somebody working at a nonprofit, but we don't know how to find those nonprofits. And so that was how we got the idea to really match mentors for technology with nonprofits in the bay area who needed that help. Okay. And you came in in 2001 [00:02:30] and really broadened this vision. Can you talk about what you did once you came in as an innovator? Wow. That kernel, the idea led to the, that sort of happening at the same time as the expansion of the worldwide web and this thing called e-commerce. And so at the time in the year 2000, the leadership, including Daniel, had the notion of really scaling a platform and ecommerce platform that would help in Khan technology, philanthropy, reach many, many more organizations. There was really no vision at that time to go global. It was, it was [00:03:00] meant to be a national service. Speaker 3:Uh, and so, uh, they had the foresight to realize that they needed to hire a professional and experienced business management as well to work with the nonprofit teams. And so, uh, that I was brought in then with a number of critical hires, um, one of whom was our business development director who went out and did a lot of good deals to bring more technology corporations into the platform and agreed to do it this way. They're, they're in kind philanthropy. And then I was the person who had that kind of general management experience at running a scaled [00:03:30] ecommerce business. And uh, and so that's, that's how I happened to join the organization. Quite an honor. You want a big bid to expand this from? I believe you created NGO source out of this? We did, although that was much later. That was in 2008. We first, as I say, launched as a, uh, US-based service. Speaker 3:And we got a lot of demand from, I had nonprofits in Canada calling me or, or the person we were working with at Cisco to help them administer their donation program saying, [00:04:00] oh, can you help this hospital in Serbia? And so we were, we were interested in helping, but we also realized what we were good at and what we weren't good at. And so we knew that we needed people with local knowledge, both of the structures of the sector and also how to help reach organizations, how to market to them and help them get educational resources and support together with the technology itself, whether it was software or hardware or services. And so that, that first kind of colonel, there was two to go global. So, so we started a model to [00:04:30] expand that through NGO partnerships. Now we have 65 of those around the world and we serve 236 countries and territories, uh, with those product donation programs, many of whom we have more than a hundred corporations who donate in this manner. Speaker 3:And many of those partners that we work with on the NGO side also find donors locally. Walk me through a typical us and global client who needs your product. Okay. So on the corporate donor side, we typically work with technology corporations who want to [00:05:00] um, or will more than willing to help nonprofits either have a full donation of their, uh, software or or hardware or who have special charity offers for them, but need to reach them, need to find them and also need some times to help them understand and optimize the use of the technology. I mentioned there were about a hundred of those kinds of corporate relationships that we have, many of whom we've been working with for years in a real partnership model. And they include names like Microsoft and Google and semantic and Adobe and Cisco and bit defender [00:05:30] and lots of very big names. Speaker 3:So, so the way that it works for the nonprofit side is that they can come to one place, whether they're in the u s or in another country, they're going to come to a website that's localized for them. So it'll be in their language. And, and their, their description of whatever the structures are legally and so forth. And um, they will read information about what is available to, to them in the catalog of offers that, that uh, I was just mentioning from the corporate side. So they'll register in one place, we will validate their public [00:06:00] benefits status, gather a little bit of information necessary for eligibility, and then they can effectively kind of shop for, uh, anything that's available to them in one place as opposed to the old world before techsoup existed where they might've thought that they, they weren't even sure what they needed say to put a website together or they might've thought to themselves, why we need this product from Adobe, but we don't know who to talk to at Adobe. Speaker 3:And they might've had to make several phone calls and it might've been someone at Adobe as an individual who wanted to help them but also didn't have [00:06:30] really the process or resources to actually make it happen. They wouldn't know is this a legitimate organization? Then they'd have to go to shipping and Bega favor to, to send a product and so forth. And what techsoup offers as a solution kind of closes that gap because we make it easy for the corporate organization to really reach more and more nonprofits. They're very happy to do that. As long as those supports, support and administration structures are in place for them. And we give them reports and lots of good stories from the nonprofits that help them understand [00:07:00] the impact of their work. And then on the nonprofit side, it just makes it a lot easier for them to get a, you know, first rate of quality products. Speaker 3:So validation is a big thing that you do. So we have a, um, a legal team and some of this work has been done with the leading foundations in the country as well as with the corporate donors that I just talked about on the [inaudible] side to really define who is a public benefit organization, a nonprofit organization in each country. And we've done that for, for all of these countries and [00:07:30] territories. Somebody actually go out to these places. The research and so forth is done ahead of time when that documentation is created. Then when we have to use that, it's happening in an online process but with local support. And then there are also centralized experts reviewing things. And so the, the way that that works say a for you talked about NGO source. So NGO sources is a type of validation service. It was um, generated in partnership with the council on foundations and as you mentioned, there was a, a bid [00:08:00] for that service in 2008 an RFP that was put out in tech soup one that and has since launched and created that service. Speaker 3:And the way that works is some maybe will make sense to a US audience is kind of like a turbo tax method, but for the NGOs. So this is for us cash grant makers who want to make sure that they have this process of equivalency determination, which is a type of very high powered validation if you will, to determine that that organization that they're going to give a cash grant to really meets all of the requirements [00:08:30] of the five Oh one C3 internal revenue service documentation. And so what will have to happen there is that the organization will have to have some documentation translated and know that they have a disillusion clause. You know, their bylaws will have to be shared their financials for several years. We'll have to be shared. It's quite involved and it's a bit overwhelming. If you're an NGO working in Kenya, you may not really have any idea what all of those things are that you're being asked for. Speaker 3:So this little TurboTax kind of application allows them to see what they need to collect [00:09:00] and know where they are in the process, uh, ask questions locally if somebody's in their time zone or close to their time zone in their language in order to complete that process. And so we then provide that information back to the grant maker. And furthermore, that certificate goes into a repository so that if the Ford Foundation or the Rockefeller Foundation or the gates foundation wants to also make a grant to that same organization, they can rely on that same documentation. And the NGO doesn't have to do it more than once, which is the way it's used to us. So you're saving time and saving money. [00:09:30] What does techsoup get from these two sides of the equation? So, so tech soup gets the, the mission benefit of course, of building this capacity. The model is also a social enterprise, which makes it very sustainable. Speaker 3:And that was quite an innovation that the organization came up with even prior to my joining the organization, but just been quite successful, which is this administrative fee model. So what happens is when a nonprofit or NGO comes to one of these sites to register and look for what's available for [00:10:00] them, they pay a small fee to do that. And that covers the administrative costs and uh, allows us to provide lots of benefit back to them. We keep reinvesting those fees and webinars and articles and local events and kind of resources, GE software and exactly. And on average an organization gets about $17,000 retail value of technology from us. And in a given year, the average Ben that an organization has to make with techsoup is about $150. That's great. So, [00:10:30] so it's, it's really worth it to them. Even the smallest organizations have an information technology budget around $10,000 a year. Speaker 3:So have you been monitoring the efficiencies? I mean, this is a lot of data. That's right. So strategically we realize that that data and information is more and more valuable. Um, you know, we've recently added Amazon web services to the, the catalog of offers and they have a big vision along with many others around finding nonprofits in, in other parts of the world. You know, we've done that with Google [00:11:00] as well. So that data and information on where nonprofits are, what they're doing is very, very hard to come by. When you think about gps data, there's nothing like a satellite infrastructure and a gps coordinate that is the same everywhere in the world. How people describe those kinds of organizations has a lot of historical roots and maybe a totally different kind of legal structure in each country. Um, not to mention the fact that you've got a lot of closing spaces and civil society around the world. Speaker 3:So you've got to really behave a little bit differently in this space. So that data [00:11:30] has tremendous value and we want to unleash that for lots of people who want to do good in terms of providing resources and programs to support good work and important work in the world. Do you let your partners talk to one another? Say there's an NGO in Africa that wants to talk to a nonprofit in the u s that has a similar problem or they have a solution to their problem and, and we, and we do, we do do some of that sharing and we have some forums for them to connect as well, which they do find very valuable. Um, I think there's a lot more potential for us [00:12:00] to do more of that video opportunities to communicate not only with you and your staff but amongst themselves. Yeah, we have some um, interesting projects going on around the world often which are grant supported. Speaker 3:So in Mozambique for example, we have some e-learning projects going on where we're, we're just really trying to help people do exactly what you just said, create small videos for things that they're doing, the work they're working on and sharing that with others and really leveraging what each has. It's a visual world now and in order to know what's [00:12:30] going on remotely, I mean I liked the story you want to, you want to save them their story. Absolutely. We have a digital storytelling contest as story makers going on right now on techsoup.org based in the u s although we will have international coverage as well. And it is exactly this type of thing. We've got training about how to tell your story and how to create true video and we will have awards at the end of that. And so we do campaigns and things like that as well. Speaker 3:You provide grant writing services. We don't really provide grant writing services, but we do have a lot of content [00:13:00] and technology that helps you manage your fundraising and grants. Um, so that's definitely the number one topic. When you uh, survey, uh, nonprofits, non profit use you guys over just using a cloud based about 40% of our catalog is cloud-based offers as well. So we have a lot of cloud services. Obviously the, the, what's happening with technology in the world is changing quite a lot and so we have to remain relevant to the nonprofits who, who come to tech soup. And so we won't be asking [00:13:30] them to take up offers that we don't think are good offers for them. But we also want them to make their decisions about what makes sense for them. If they are an existing organization who has databases and perhaps applications that they need to use on servers, they may decide this is really how they need to support it. Speaker 3:For now. They may have reasons for doing that might not be optimal from a pure technologist point of view, but it might be right for them. Other organizations who are smaller or starting new projects or efforts surely should be thinking very seriously about [00:14:00] the cloud and how this might change their approach to things. And so we are covering all of those bases with, in other words, you know, for a small fee you're keeping up to date on everything. Whereas in a nonprofit or NGO, they don't have time or staff to do that. Right. The barriers and challenges are different. You know, in the, in when we first started, the barrier was the price of the license of the software. In a way we would go out and and have, you know, technologists do a plan for the nonprofit for technology, but then they couldn't get any of the products. Speaker 3:They couldn't get any grant funding for the technology. [00:14:30] Right. Today the barriers are different. It's relatively easy to go get an application sign up to a subscription. Perhaps that's fairly affordable, but that's not really what it takes to use technology well. And effectively. So you still have to change people's behavior. You might have to migrate data into that. It might change the way you do things, plus you have to make a selection. A couple of years ago I was just struck, I went to the nonprofit a technology conference and there were probably 200 so-called CRM customer relationship management offers there. And [00:15:00] so the question is how would you decide which one to take? And I think there's a lot of that going on in the cloud space and it's just changing. There's a lot of complexities to consider. Most a nonprofit organizations do not have a professional technology team. Speaker 3:They may in fact have a really bright technologist, um, but they also may have a very limited understanding of the board and senior management level of some of these choices. They're all hearing those buzzwords. We should think about our data, big data, we should think about cloud, but they don't necessarily [00:15:30] know how to, how to apply that to their organizations. With success, you've uncovered a lot of efficiencies in that arena. And with that data, is there anything that you've discovered that was a surprise to you from your users? If I'm surprised by anything. Um, it's, you know, kind of my original surprise and joining the sector was how amazing the organizations are and the people and the work that goes on in the world and how important it is and how under visible it is, if I can say it that way and also how unconnected they are. Speaker 3:You know, and I think back to [00:16:00] your point, I think this opportunity for us to have a lot more network effect and the work we've done to date, um, I think there are so many more resource needs we can help meet with this matching platform in the realm of technology for sure. But certainly well beyond that to connect them with skilled volunteers is because there has to be some overlap in some of these NGOs that are doing the same thing and the different countries and most definitely even in one county to another in the state. Some, they probably don't even know that they exist because they're busy doing important work every day. We've done, um, through our caravan studios [00:16:30] subsidiary, we've done a lot of work with domestic violence shelters in the state of California where instead of sort of endless, if you're familiar with the term hackathons and lists, kind of just bring the technologists in a room per day and they'll, they'll develop something quick as an application. Speaker 3:We found that that's good but it doesn't get lasting support. It isn't really owned, it doesn't really solve the problem. So we brought together the practitioners in a innovation kind of workshop environment to get them to talk about not technology cause they don't know technology, but really what they're [00:17:00] trying to do and what issues they face. And then for us to go with them and others to think more about the, the applications and we've put together several applications. I'm safe night being one of them. That is a kind of application that for example helps them find beds for people when they run out of beds in their supply of shelter by allowing individuals like us to sign up with our credit card and be pinged at the point when someone needs a bed to say, yes, I'll go ahead and cover that application space technology. Speaker 3:It is and [00:17:30] and so that sort of community of bringing people together and helping them understand that they're all solving the same problem instead of them developing, you know, 20 different apps and getting grants do that separately. This is the way to do it and leverage each other's talent. How were you drawn to this sector? I mostly had a, a corporate career, small business and large corporation and I was on the board of Performing Arts workshop in San Francisco for six years, but I really did not have experience in the sector. My husband saw an ad on craigslist for this ecommerce manager position at [00:18:00] an organization called complimenter, which became now techsoup global and thought, wow, you're skills would be great here because I had just been working in a internet company and so I interviewed and got the job offer, thought the plan and vision was interesting and um, thought I would maybe work here for six months and here it is 14 years later. Speaker 3:It's amazing. Yeah. To date we've distributed five point $6 billion worth of technology through this process. Billion. Billion. Yeah. And we have reached 730,000 [00:18:30] nonprofit organizations in the world. No one knows how many there are actually there, there really is no, you know, comprehensive data. But the estimates from Johns Hopkins are about 10 million across the world. So include NGOs. Yes. So when I, when, when the terminology is another thing that's so difficult about our space, cause there isn't really, you know, you can say the word corporation and you kind of understand what it means. It's, it's much more difficult in this space. So when I say NGOs, I'm using that term really broadly. So nonprofits, NGOs, social benefit [00:19:00] organizations for the most part, uh, charities, those are all the same from how we think about it. And sometimes we use the term social benefit organization, but it's not really a legal term. Speaker 3:And some people call them civil society organizations or community organizations. So there's still a lot of growth in this area, I assume. Absolutely. As the need grows bigger. Uh, how NGOs and nonprofits are using this technology now. It's not just their back office enterprise kind of functions, which of course they still need email and so forth, but they also are using it very much in their programming. [00:19:30] They're using it to help parents of autistic children be able to visually see the progress that they don't always get to witness themselves. You know, when you see those things, you're so moved by it. I, I, every time I'm out in the community and have an opportunity to see how technology makes a difference in the work, I'm, I just want to go back and work harder at this kind of infrastructure stuff we do in the center. Speaker 3:But that really enables to make things nonprofit sector to me a little more vibrant. I think I have this idea of stodginess I, and [00:20:00] you use that word stodgy. So I need to just say, I guess I disagree a little bit with you maybe and maybe because I have more visibility. I think that there are a lot of reasons for things being more complex and difficult in the sector. I think sometimes, um, you're, when you're on the business side or the corporate side, you can, that can look to you like stodginess. Um, I'm not saying that there are high performing nonprofits and you know, everywhere, of course just like businesses, they're not all high performing in every way, but sometimes there really are [00:20:30] reasons for the complexity that they face. And so I, I find myself every once in a while kind of longing for the simplicity of business decisions that are just not that simple when you're mission-based and when you have to be driven by those things. Speaker 3:And it's not as simple as saying is, is this a market when we're going to a country, you know, we can't just say, is there, are there enough NGOs here to really sustainably support this service? From an economic point of view, we also have to look at the need there. You know, if you're working in the Ukraine, it's very hard to work there and be effective, but [00:21:00] doesn't mean that they don't have a great need and even a greater need than many other places for strong civil society. So we don't want to make all of our decisions just based on economics either. But of course we need to make it work and, and survive as an organization and a community resource. So, so it's quite complicated. But I do think that there's a lot of kind of excitement and creativity around what technology can do. Speaker 3:And I think that where there isn't excitement about that there might be excitement about the cause and the work that they do. And I think that organizations [00:21:30] and people who are doing, who are on that side of the equation, um, are really open when, when people do come to them with ideas or ways that they can use technology to do something in a better way, in a more efficient way or more creative way, they're not resistant to it in general. It's just that the doing of it is, is complex. Speaking of complexity, how do you manage this technology across the globe? So we have NGOs or nonprofits who are partners of tech soup and who run the tech soup program in their country or [00:22:00] their region. When we started, we allowed the partner to choose between calling it tech soup if they wanted to or calling it something that was in partnership with tech soup. Speaker 3:And so that people were familiar with it, people were familiar with their, and so we have a mix of things across the network. Um, but we have a lot, quite a lot of countries, tech soup, New Zealand, you know, their techsoup, Japan, there are quite a lot of them that are using uh, the tech suit name. For some they're, they're still using something that's in partnership with tech soup. There's a lot of diversity in this, this partner network. And you know, our French partner [00:22:30] does a lot with refurbishing mobile technologies. For example, our Swedish partners, very big in volunteering for example. So we've got different kinds of knowledge across the network. You're in San Francisco. We started in San Francisco and we do have a team, a large team in San Francisco, but we are in many other places as how many employees? Approximately about 200. And when you count the, the, the employees that are part of the nonprofit network that I've, or our partner network that I've mentioned, that's probably another 75 employees or so who really focused on texted programs [00:23:00] around the world. Speaker 3:I can see why people would become interested in, in this data that you're collecting. This network is a very powerful construct. They run the program locally. It's a social enterprise. The monies are collected locally for the part that is, is a service paid for and shared. And that's how that works. But we also think together, we also pursue opportunities together and we make decisions together about priorities and strategies and so forth. And it's a big collaboration that is, I call it a marriage. Sometimes, you know, it's, it's um, a things are defined because there are times when we're [00:23:30] rolling out something for Microsoft or Google Type Corporation where we have to do the same thing exactly the same way in 68 countries on day one or when we're running something like NGO source through the network there, there's not a lot of leeway for people to do things in different ways. Speaker 3:You have to exactly the process as it is. But when we're running things like local community events or projects like we have in the Balkans, in central new eastern Europe, uh, transparency, he is a project there, which is everyone putting their applications in one place that they've developed around transparency [00:24:00] so that other people can learn about this projects and use them and so forth. So it's simply a website exchange for that. Well, we can do that in lots of different ways. Or Our NetSquared program, which is organized by people around the world who just raised their hand and say, I'm really interested in helping people connect with social issues and technology. And at the intersection there we give them lightweight support in terms of here are some ideas we, we help them get together and talk to each other. And in some cases we might give them ideas for programming, but often it's just what is driven by what they are [00:24:30] interested in locally and with their audiences interested in. Speaker 3:And so we can allow for this both, you know, hyper localization and lots of diversity and, and capture that so others can learn and we can see network effect from that. And we can also do things in this very controlled one way everywhere type of west. The government approached you with any requests for information. This is good data. We haven't been approached for one of these sort of mandatory data sharing type things. You know, we're very mindful of um, you know, being in compliance and, and following privacy laws and [00:25:00] Patriot Act checking where required and things like this. So we do have those things built into the service as well. Um, but we have been approached by government agencies about helping them work better and more effectively with civil society and giving more of a voice to the civil society actors and in some cases using technology to do that. Speaker 3:And I think that's really exciting. We have yet to really have any of those become something at scale. Uh, but we've got a number of promising and interesting conversations going on that we hope to be a part of in a useful role as a partner. Where [00:25:30] is techsoup global going to be in five years? A few years back, you know, we'd set a goal. I had said we will be in a hundred countries by 2015 and, and I think that a lot of times the staff at techsoup will kind of say, wow, we, you know, we blew right by that. But are you at now 236 countries and territories. But where we're going is to try to deepen what we can offer in each of those geographies and broaden, I should say. So that will be technology resources cause we don't have the same resources available everywhere today. Speaker 3:I'm an example of what you mean by deepening [00:26:00] the technology. So the broadening would be having more things in our own catalog, but also other kinds of offers that I'll talk about in a minute. And the deepening would be having the, the education and the kind of local events or connection to volunteers or training or services consultants that will actually help them be able to use some of the technology that might be relatively easy to get in some ways. But I'm not so easy to implement and optimize. The other part of what we'll do is we'll try to take the same engine, the same matching engine [00:26:30] and platform and help those, uh, nonprofits who are signed up for it really shine and be presented to many other players who might want to connect with them. And that might be a people who have corporate programs. For example, we recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Benevity who is one of the leading solutions for corporate giving, working with, I think about 190 corporations. Speaker 3:So working with lots of very big employee giving programs. I think about 12 million kind of vet these [00:27:00] places. That's right. The part of the issue is the, are they a valid organization, do they meet our requirements? And the other part of it's just reaching them, being able to reach them and being able to dialogue with them about offers that are available and getting them to, to be interested in it. So, you know, sometimes we think we've scaled and sometimes I say we've just scratched the surface of scale. There's so much more we can do and it's exciting and we really have the energy to do it and so and so. That's really, we won't stop doing the things we're doing, but we will, we'll really try to, as I say, deepen them and fill them out [00:27:30] in, in the countries where they're, they're a lot lighter right now I understand that you got a very prestigious award. Speaker 3:Full Circle Fund gave us some recognition and yes, I did get an award. The impact that that texts who has had is to really have made this a pie of resources around technology bigger for everybody. You know, I think that that the, the technology corporations we work with are doing more with their products and more interesting things with their product philanthropy because techsoup is a partner they can work with. We leverage their [00:28:00] resources and they're able to leverage what we've put together to effectively reach NGOs. And a lot of them will say that and recognize that benefit. Um, a lot of it is the validation, but some of it is also just our ability to be trusted by the community and work well with the community. Also from the point of view of the, the nonprofits who was really our primary audience, right. I feel like they would and do say when we survey them that we have really been a game changer for them. Speaker 3:They are so emotional when they talk about the resources we've brought the, [00:28:30] the, the people at the organizations who really engage around this. Um, I remember CIO for a New Jersey State police association saying that every dollar he saves by getting technology through Techsoup, he's able to, his, his management has agreed he can put into at risk youth, um, programs. And so, so there's a lot of creative things happening out there for people who are, you know, looking at this as a way to save but also a way to do better things. And um, you know, that kind of passion and emotion that comes from the community [00:29:00] I think unleashes all kinds of excellent benefit for the world. And so, uh, I think our impact is felt kind of in what we enable there and that passion and the impact of the work they do. So, uh, on the side of helping the corporations do good and find more creative ways and more scaled ways of doing more and more. Speaker 3:So if somebody wanted to get ahold of you and learn more about techsoup global, how would they do that? You can visit the website, the techsoup global website for a good overview of everything that we do. And you can go from there to, there's [00:29:30] a, there's a page where you can pick your country. If you're, you're, I'm not US-based in the u s you could go to techsoup.org and then you would see kind of the resources specifically available here. And, uh, we, we also, I'm happy to be contacted directly to, um, I'm just rebecca@techsoup.org and I'm happy to, you know, guide the question to the right point of, uh, or person within the organization if somebody wants to understand something more. That's great. Rebecca, thank you so much for being on the program. Well, thank you very much for having me. Speaker 1:You've been listening [00:30:00] to method to the madness. We'll be back again in two weeks at the same time. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.