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Dawn: Again, if you are just joining us, I noticed that we did have quite a few people
just joining on, we are here for the Webinar
Tech for Good: Making the Most of Your Microsoft Software Donation.
Of course, we have two wonderful presenters for you here today, very knowledgeable folks.
I am your facilitator, Dawn Krause. Assisting with chat and questions in the background Shala Harris
and Stephanie Gerding from TechSoup and Gretchen Deo is with us from Microsoft.
Our two presenters are James Rooney and Cameron Jones.
I'm going to just do some brief bios on them just so you have a little background information.
James Rooney is the Program Manager for Microsoft Technology for Good program.
As part of that he owns the company's relationship with strategic NGO partners,
participates on the Microsoft Disaster Response Team and develops technology solutions
that benefit NGOs and their constituents. He is a 12 year veteran at Microsoft.
He worked in the Microsoft Developers Network and Office International Teams
prior to joining the Citizenship and Public Affairs Team. Welcome James.
Cameron Jones, our own Cameron Jones is Program Director for TechSoup Global
and manages the Microsoft Software Donation program worldwide.
Cameron works with Microsoft to ensure that their donations
advance their global corporate philanthropy goals while meeting the needs of the NGO community.
Here is what they are going to talk about today. James is going to start us off with
what is Tech for Good. Then Cameron is going to do an overview
of the Microsoft Software Donation Program. James is going to finish things up with resources,
tools, and support for you and then we're going to do a Q&A.
Of course, we have people in the background who are going to be answering your questions live
as they come in and also we will be recording questions for later on for Q&A.
So I might hold your questions until later. I hope that is okay. We hope to get to all of them.
Just to try and stimulate a little bit of conversation before we get going and to get your feedback
on some Microsoft technology, we would love it if you would answer these questions for us.
The first one is what Microsoft technology are you currently most interested in?
Tell us in the chat what Microsoft technology you're currently most interested in.
Okay, I'm seeing Windows 8, tablets. I knew Windows 8 was going to come up.
Server 2012, Office software, any collaboration tools which I know James
is going to be interested in hearing, SharePoint, SCOM, I'm not sure about that one.
Microsoft 365, Publisher, virtualization, Windows 8, Windows 8, Server 2012, Office 2013,
QuickBooks. Great that's a great bunch.
Let's move on to the next question, and it might be the same answer,
what Microsoft Technology do you find most useful right now?
So what Microsoft technology do you find most useful?
Outlook, yeah that's a great one. The Office Suite, all our mailing systems in Outlook, Office, Office,
Windows 7, Office 2010, PowerPoint, Office 2010, SharePoint, Office 365, Exchange Server.
Great. Thank you so much for sharing those with us. Visio, SharePoint, Publisher, PowerPoint again,
of course, we used that today for our Webinar.
Okay, thank you so much for your feedback. We're going to move on
so we can get to the great content we have.
We have one poll today and this is going to help us shape the future
of the Microsoft Software Donation Program, so we would appreciate your feedback here.
Which Microsoft cloud technology is your organization currently using?
If you're not using any of them of course you would hit none for us.
Go ahead and select your response on the screen.
James, I don't know if you're seeing this or not, but not many in our audience
are using any of these cloud technologies yet. It looks like responses are tapering off here.
We have three using Office 365, one using Dynamic CRM Online,
and it looks like the rest are coming in as none. I hope that's helpful to you.
I'm going to go ahead and close this poll. There are the results, so the majority are not using any.
I'm going to move on. James are you there?
James: Yes I am.
Dawn: I'm handing it over to you.
James: Great, thanks. Thanks for answering those questions earlier. That was great, very informative.
We'll be talking about some of these things in the next couple of slides.
I'm only going to take a few minutes here. My main goal is to provide some context
around our Tech for Good Program. A lot of today will be focused on the software donations piece,
but I kind of wanted to show how that piece fits in amongst a larger [indistinct].
Essentially our mission is to use technology to help solve complex social problems.
It's a pretty basic mission and it's fairly broad but that's really what we want to do,
see how Microsoft technology can be used by nonprofits, developers,
whomever to really help address some of the social problems going on.
There are four areas that we focus on here. One, is on Product Awareness & Adoption.
Showcases & Solutions is another. Third is Community Practice,
and as well is Disaster Response. I'm part of the Disaster Response Team here at Microsoft as well.
That was mentioned in my bio, so I'll give you a little update on that.
I'm just going to kind of run through each one of these very briefly
and if you have any questions obviously we can get to those.
Around Product Awareness & Adoption, we do this really in a number of ways.
One, is the software donation side of things which I won't get into too much detail right now
since we'll talk about it a little later. But in addition to that, we really use our website
and other avenues to raise awareness of our other technologies.
So the Cloud, we don't have a nonprofit donation program but we want to make sure that nonprofits
understand what our Cloud technologies are, and how they can be useful.
We have free services like SkyDrive as well as some nonprofit [indistinct]
like Dynamic CRM Online. So there is a variety of Cloud technologies at Microsoft.
And we're really partnered with nonprofits in promoting the use of the Cloud technology.
In addition, we have a lot of New Products coming out. Windows Server and Digital Studio
just launched. A new version of Windows, a new version of Office and a lot more coming out.
So one of the things we're really trying to do is help nonprofits
understand what those technologies are all about, what the new features are, how it benefits them,
and how they can gain access to them once they're readily available in the marketplace.
In addition to kind of the product and technology side of things,
we also work a lot on showcases and solutions. So when I talk about solutions
I mean actually developing technology solutions to address a specific issue or problem.
Some of these we develop ourselves like in the lower right hand corner of the slide there
are some screenshots of our local impact map and TechSoup and [AMatrix] are two users of that.
That's something I'll talk about a little bit later into the tools and resources.
We also like to partner to support the creation of other peoples' technology solutions.
So if nonprofits are doing it, if developers are doing it, any creative ways
they can use Microsoft technology whether it be Cloud, or on premise software, developing apps,
or things like CRM templates for nonprofits. We try to encourage those and make sure
that when they are created that they're widely available.
In addition, we also have Org Showcases where we partner with organizations
to really showcase what our technology can do. These are meant to be creative
and innovative uses of our technology as well as examples to other nonprofits
who are struggling with similar issues. An example here is some of the work we have done historically
with KEXP, a radio station here in Seattle. And a lot of what they do is based on Azure
and we worked with them closely to get them onto Azure and to really work with them
in their transition to their online streaming and all that.
In addition, we want to encourage a community practice around nonprofit technology,
or technology for social good. We do this in a number of different ways.
Everything from — we really just want to contribute and be a part of the community out there
and so we try to attend and sponsor events such as NTC and we're hosting a Net Hope Summit
next month for Net Hope and its members. Through educational and advocacy events
and activities such as this webinar and other demos we put on and events elsewhere
as well as NGO connection days that we help with around the world to help nonprofits
understand what Microsoft technology is out there, what it can do, and how it can help them.
Lastly, the disaster and humanitarian relief space. There is really a few ways
in which we do this. One, is by helping disaster relief organizations with the response capacity.
So do they have the technology necessary to help them scale up when a disaster happens
so they can effectively serve the communities that are most impacted by the disaster.
We do this really a lot through global partnerships. You can see some logos of some organizations
there on the left that we work with very closely.
In addition, outside of nonprofits we work with communities at large, not only our own employees
here at Microsoft, to raise awareness of emergency relief efforts going on,
but also via our blogs and our web properties to really kind of highlight when a disaster happens
how members of the community can get involved and help.
That really sums up the Microsoft Technology for Good Program
and hopefully gives you a better sense of all of the work related to these programs
and how this software donation piece fits within that large [indistinct].
Now, I can pass it on to you Cameron.
Cameron: Thank you James.
Hi, this is Cameron Jones from TechSoup Global and I'm going to talk a little bit
about the Microsoft Software Donation Program, and how it works,
and some of the mechanisms that are kind of unique to that program.
The software delivery through TechSoup is somewhat different than what you might be used to
on the commercial side. Donations through TechSoup are what are called volume licenses
meaning that you will receive a key and some information about how to access the products
through the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center. The short for that is VLSC.
When you receive a Microsoft donation through TechSoup you don't receive a boxed product
with Media and install keys you would be used to. It's an email process
and then you can also request installation media if you choose.
Microsoft donates over 200 products. There are over 200 products in our catalog
ranging from servers to desktop products, security software,
design graphic software such as the Expression Suite.
We do not have any of the Cloud products through this donation program at this time.
Microsoft does not donate the Cloud offerings today through TechSoup.
However, we do have Windows 7 and soon Windows 8, Office 2010 and then Office 2013
which will be coming sometime early next year.
Server software, some of the most popular server products
that Microsoft produces is offered through this program.
I did see in the chat that somebody had asked about QuickBooks.
QuickBooks is not a Microsoft product. It's an Intuit product and we also do have that software
but it's not part of the Microsoft program.
The Microsoft Program Rules, as you may be aware, each donation program through TechSoup
has different rules and allotments, and eligibility associated with it.
The Microsoft program works on a two year cycle, so you have a specific allotment
of Microsoft products that you can request every two years.
And every two years your allotment resets again. Your two year cycle begins
with your organization's first donation request and goes for two years from that date
and then resets again.
Over the two year period organizations can make unlimited requests.
It used to be you could only request once a year and that no longer is the case'
you can request whenever you need software for your organization.
There is no minimum quantity requirement. You can request products from up to 10 title groups.
A title group would be sort of like a product family.
For example, Office Professional and Office Standard,
those are all part of the same title group. You can access products from up to 10 title groups
and then up to 50 licenses per title. You can get 50 licenses of Office Standard,
or you could get 25 of Office Standard and 25 of Office Professional, up to 50 is your maximum.
Servers are the exception to this, for servers you can request up to five server products
regardless of title group. So you can get five Exchange Servers, or two Exchange Servers
and a SQL Server, and a Window Server, so any combination of server products
up to a maximum of five for the two year period.
If you are unsure about what your organization has already requested and what you can still receive,
there is the Microsoft Donation Center which is accessible through your organization profile page.
And it will show you exactly what products you have requested from which title group,
how many licenses you've already requested, and how many more you're still eligible for.
In addition, you can see over on the right side there is a fair market value donation quantity.
In the example of this test organization, they've received $5,000 worth
of Microsoft software donations and that's across the life of their donation history with TechSoup.
That's not limited to the two year period. That's just something for you to understand and realize,
the value of the donations that Microsoft has granted to your organization.
Microsoft Donation Program Eligibility' we always gets lots of questions about this.
Like many of our programs, many more nonprofits are eligible than are not.
You have to be a 501(c)(3). (c)(6)s or (c)(4)s are not eligible
and public libraries are eligible to receive software donations as well from Microsoft
but for public access computing only. That's a unique twist to the Microsoft program
is that they only donate for public access computers.
Again, because it's easier to say who is not eligible than who is, in general I would say schools,
government agencies, healthcare organizations, and religious organizations,
and political organizations are not eligible. There are of course, exceptions
to each of these broad categories where eligibility is granted,
so we would encourage you to take our eligibility quiz that is on our website.
And you can go through and identify your organization type, and your activities,
and it will give you a sense of what you are eligible for, and if you're eligible for the Microsoft program.
One thing I wanted to note about religious organizations,
if religious organizations are running a secular program that's open to all,
and not restricted by religious type or any other kind of discriminatory filter,
they can also be eligible for Microsoft donations. That would be like a soup kitchen,
or a daycare center, or food bank. Many religious and faith based orgs
operate those types of programs which are indeed secular, and those would be eligible for donations.
As I said before, the Microsoft donations are delivered as volume licenses.
And the way that you access your software donations
are through the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center.
So you get your licenses, you can also download products, you access your keys,
and you can get version upgrades. Almost all donations come
with something called Software Assurance Benefits.
And one of the most popular benefits of Software Assurance is that if you request a product today
and if a new version of that product is released in the next two years,
you automatically can upgrade to that new version for free.
You don't have to come back through the donation program.
For example, if you request Windows 7 today, when Windows 8 is released later in October
you'll be able to upgrade to Windows 8 for free at that time
through the Volume Licensing Service Center. You can download the installation media
and do your upgrade.
To access the Volume License Service Center, as part of the fulfillment process
for your donation request through TechSoup you'll receive two emails.
The second email will provide instructions on how to log-in to the VLSC
and then the process to access your keys and download media if you need it.
It's a pretty straightforward process. This is what the homepage of VLSC looks like.
You go ahead and log-in and then you have access to a whole range of benefits
of Software Assurance. And the menu provides a pretty straightforward way of navigating
to access keys, and licenses, and downloads, and anything else you might need.
Here's a screenshot that gives you an example of the product keys so you can go in.
This becomes your central repository for all of your product keys. You can go in and see the products
that you've requested, and the product keys that you will need for installation.
It's much easier to have them all here online in one central place,
that way you don't have to keep track of a piece of paper with a product key printed on it
in your office. They're all centralized and available to anyone in the organization
who has access to the VLSC.
Going back to Software Assurance, the benefits that I had mentioned previously,
all the donations except for the Get Genuine products come with Software Assurance.
These are some of the kind of three most popular benefits of Software Assurance.
The first one I already described is the new version rights so again, if you request Windows 7 today
and when Windows 8 is released next month, you can go in and download and install it for free.
You don't have to come back in and re-request it.
eLearnings are also some interactive training for you and staff to be able to go in and learn more
about some of the products that you've requested. Office and operating system eLearnings
are particularly popular amongst nonprofits that have received donations.
Then the third most popular benefit is the home use program.
VLSC products that are requested for your nonprofit office —
if you request Office for your staff in your nonprofit,
the staff can also take those products and install them on their computers at home,
because with so many people working from home these days, flexible working schedules,
Microsoft has recognized the need for compatible software both at home and at work.
So that's a great benefit that I myself have taken advantage of.
I have Microsoft Office on my work computer and I've also been able to install it at home.
That kind of covers the Microsoft Donation Program.
I haven't really been looking at the chat as I've been busy focusing on the presentation.
So I will turn it over to James now to talk a little bit about resources, tools, and support.
And I will try and go through the chat and see if there are any messages
that need answering from me.
James: Thank you.
I just wanted to kind of touch on resources that Microsoft has for people
that have questions about content, what we offer, products, all that stuff.
A great resource to start with is our citizenship site for nonprofits. You can see the URL right there.
There is alot of information there including a section on who is eligible and what's available.
There's also a link to training and other resources as well. So it's kind of a good first place to start
for any question you might have.
In addition to that, each of the products that we have has a Help, Tips, and Tricks section
on their website. So Office.com, Windows.com, Dynamics, Azure, Visual Studio,
whatever the product is, really you can go to that product's website
and there's generally an entire help and how-to, tips, and tricks section
with a lot of really basic documentation as well as training, videos, all that kind of stuff.
There's actually a lot of free resources online depending on the product.
I'm also going to take a moment to talk about our Local Impact Map.
This is not necessarily a tool or an information resource, but it's an application.
It's one of those solutions I mentioned earlier that we created here at Microsoft.
We use it internally at Microsoft to tell our own CSR story at Microsoft,
all the stories about how we're supporting nonprofits and efforts around the world.
Then what we did was we packaged it up and made it available in the Azure Marketplace
for nonprofits and corporations to use for a $15 monthly fee.
Essentially that just covers the Azure cost. And it's a Bing map built on an Azure back end with a CRM.
If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer questions about this offline.
You can email me, I'll include some contact information later
to learn more information about it. But, that URL is a good place to start.
Then of course, if you have just real support needs, that is the Microsoft Help Line.
The number is right there. That's kind of your default for any kind of technical help you need
for your given product.
Lastly, we really want to stay in touch and to really help form this community
and help contribute to this community. And the way we do that is sometimes through our social media
and blog. You can see we have a Facebook page, we have a Twitter presence.
That's the Microsoft Citizenship one. I've included my own page there as well.
Then the Citizenship blog of course, with tons of blog posts, so those are also great ways
to kind of stay in touch and keep on top of what we do and what we offer.
That's it for me.
Dawn: Thank you so much James. Was there anything we wanted to address
from the chat before we get to my list of questions?
James: I'm still trying to catch up in the chat to see if there's any questions directed to me.
I didn't see anything directly, but there might be.
Dawn: Okay, I'll go ahead with the formal questions and if you see anything there
you can just break in. The first question from Deanne, are any of the adaptive programs
such as ZoomText or JAWS in this program? I am aware these are not Microsoft.
Cameron, do you know that off hand?
Cameron: I'm sorry can you repeat that question?
Dawn: Are there any adaptive programs such as ZoomText or JAWS in the donation program at all?
Cameron: Not today, unfortunately. I know that our development team has been working
to try to get some adaptive technologies into our catalog, but today we don't have any.
That being said, I do know that many of the Microsoft products have adaptive features
that you can go in and customize the settings on different products to make them more adaptive
for different types of disabilities. I hope that answers that question.
Dawn: We had a question from Jason and I think several other people,
will there be an offering for nonprofits for MS 365?
James: I can jump in on this one. Right now we do not have a nonprofit offering for Office 365
or Azure. The only kind of nonprofit price discount we have is for Dynamic CRM Online.
Dawn: We had a question that came in from John, and this might be for either of you.
What hardware/software solutions would you recommend for a new nonprofit
that the org can learn to use, and be supported for the next three to five years?
What hardware/software solutions would you recommend for a new nonprofit
that the org can learn to use and be supported for the next three to five years?
James: I'll take a stab at this. In terms of hardware I hesitate to make any kind of recommendations
around hardware, or anything like that, but I'm going to take the opportunity
to kind of promote the new products we have coming out.
So Windows 8, and the new version of Office coming out and all those.
I think if a new nonprofit kind of wants to get started on a good footing
in kind of using software that will be brand new and be around for the next three to five years,
I think that's a good place to start.
Dawn: Great. Thank you.
It looks like Esperanza asked, related to TechSoup's donation,
the market value amount that Cameron mentioned, is it reported in our yearly returns?
If so, do we get documentation of it?
Cameron: This is the fair market value quantity amount that's on the donation center?
Dawn: Yes.
Cameron: That's just a cumulative number of all the donations that you've received.
In your fulfillment emails from TechSoup you will receive information about each donation
that you request. You'll receive information about the product, the number of licenses,
and the fair market value for each of those donations. That's information for your records.
And that's where you can access information. If you need to do some specific reporting
about donations received during a specific time period,
you should reference those fulfillment emails from TechSoup.
Dawn: In relation to some of the cloud conversation we had earlier, Justin asked,
what are the advantages of being on the cloud and how difficult is it to transition to the cloud?
James, maybe you can help with this one?
James: That's a really big question. And it somewhat varies in terms of the benefits
and how complicated it is. It really varies from organization to organization
depending on what your current set up is, what your hoping to go to,
how big that gap is. It really depends on what you're trying to do,
and kind of where you are at the moment. I know that's not the answer you were hoping for,
but it really is kind of difficult to give a basic answer to that,
because it really does kind of depend on what you're trying to do.
I know that some just really high level benefits in terms of the cloud,
there is the ability to scale when needed depending on what your organization does.
With the cloud, it's very easy to scale in terms of emergency response.
When a disaster strikes, people can scale up really quickly. So that's one consideration
as well as collaboration, depending on again, your organization if you're worldwide, if you're in the US,
if you're around a particular region, what type of work force you have,
the collaborative kind of benefits of being in the cloud can be really good to a nonprofit
in terms of reasons to shift. Hopefully those help. They're somewhat vague, but again,
it kind of depends on each organizations situation.
Dawn: Thanks, James. The next question is from Ray, and actually we did answer Ray in the chat,
but this chat message might apply to the group so I just wanted to put it out there.
"I just want to be clear," says Ray, "Is TechSoup the sole/main source
for distributing Microsoft products, or can they be obtained directly from Microsoft?
If the later, please elaborate on the value add that TechSoup provides?"
Does anybody want to address that one?
James: I can jump in. In terms of distributing software to nonprofits,
TechSoup is completely valuable for Microsoft. It allows us
to more easily distribute nonprofit software to the thousands of nonprofits that we do.
Trying to manage that ourselves would be a monumental task,
and so TechSoup offers a huge benefit to Microsoft.
That partnership we really value because TechSoup has the connections,
has the process for getting everything out the door, and everything like that.
So TechSoup we really rely on for the software donations. Hopefully that answers the question.
Dawn: Thanks James, that did.
Is TechSoup/Microsoft ever going to offer access to Microsoft Support for free over the phone,
rather than paying hundred of dollars for say a server support issue?
James: I can say that I'm aware of no plans for that, but I'm not really on the support side of things
necessarily so much, so I have very little visibility into kind of their plans for supporting the products
and services we offer. So I can't offer much detail there I'm afraid.
Cameron: There's also the TechNet Service which is some level of service,
but I don't think it exactly addresses the question that is being asked, but I'm not entirely sure.
Dawn: Can you tell us what TechNet is?
Cameron: I'm not hugely familiar with the TechNet product. I know it is a service product,
and there is a product subscription on the TechSoup about it.
In addition, through Software Assurance, like we had said there's some trainings
and some other information about some of the products you request,
and that can be accessed for free through the Volume License Service Center.
Dawn: Okay, great. Thank you.
Esperanza asked another question, what are our fiscal responsibilities with the donations
from TechSoup? Is there a place on the website that we can look for this?
Cameron: I can answer this one. To be clear, the Microsoft donations, or the Adobe donations,
or the Cisco donations that you receive through TechSoup, TechSoup is kind of an intermediary.
We facilitate the donations, but you receive the donation directly from Microsoft
not from TechSoup. So that was the first thing I wanted to make clear.
In terms of your fiscal reporting responsibilities around software donations,
we don't provide advice or information about that. That's kind of a legal question
which the rules around that can vary from state to state, and so that's not an area of expertise for us.
We would suggest you talk with your financial advisor for your organization
to find out what your obligations are in terms of reporting software donations.
Dawn: Thank you very much.
I'm looking through the rest of the comments here to make sure we have covered everything.
Cameron: I see an interesting question about a computer lab in Haiti.
The question is, would a computer lab in Haiti,
part of an open enrollment 1,100 student church supported school be considered for TechSoup?
If the fact that it's part of a school despite being open enrollment be disqualifying?
It depends on if the organization requesting the products is a Haitian nonprofit or a US nonprofit.
There are some limitations on — we do not serve Haitian nonprofits at this time.
That's not a country we've been able to make the donation program available.
However, US nonprofits with operations overseas are able to request products
through the US organization, and install them and use them in overseas offices and centers
with the requirement that the ownership of the hardware that the software is being installed on
remain with the US organization. So it's a question of wanting to make sure
that those software licenses continue to be tied to the organization that has requested them,
the US based 501(c)(3), rather than having them owned by a Haitian nonprofit or via a nonprofit.
That's one other thing I wanted to point out, is that donated licenses are not transferrable
from one organization to another. The only exception to that would be if two organizations
merge operations and legally become one organization. So in the case of Haiti,
you might be able to request products through a US organization,
but they would have to continued to be owned and licensed by that US organization.
They could not be transferred.
Dawn: Thank you for elaborating on that for us verbally.
Was there anything else that came into chat that you and James saw
that we might want to address?
James: Nothing else is jumping out at me. It seems like most things have been covered. I think.
Dawn: Well, it looks like we might end 15 minutes early today
unless you had anything Cameron. I just want to check with you?
Cameron: No, I see a couple of questions coming in about products from other donation programs
such as Adobe. Those are separate donation programs from the Microsoft program
and have separate eligibility requirements and quantity allocations.
If you have questions about those programs specifically, I would encourage you to look up
the TechSoup website under the donation information for that particular program
to get eligibility information.
Dawn: Great, thank you. I think with that I will thank our presenters today,
as well as the TechSoup behind the scenes folks who did a great job with us on chat today.
I thank all of the participants for coming today and participating with us.
I am closing out the actual web portion of the meeting but you should still hear the audio here.
And a survey should have popped up for most of you.
We would really appreciate your feedback. We do shape our webinars via your feedback
and would appreciate any feedback you can give us there.
An email from today's presentation will be sent to you within one to two days.
It will have the PowerPoint slides and any links we referred to, and any other resources.
Please do let us know your feedback in the survey. If it doesn't pop up for you,
it will be a link in the email follow up as well. So even if it is one to two days later
we would still appreciate your feedback.
Thank you again James and Cameron and everyone. Have a great day.
Cameron: Thanks everyone for attending.
James: Thank you.