A lover of educating others, Steve Maykowski shares his passion and knowledge of Google Workspace with nonprofits through webinars and mentoring with Apparo.
Steve Maykowski, Senior Sales Engineer at Google Cloud, first heard of Apparo about three years ago from a coworker who knew of his interest in nonprofit volunteering. From there, Steve met Yenting Liu, Apparo’s Program Associate, who saw an opportunity for him to share his knowledge through our Nonprofits Bytes + Insights webinars on Google Workspace. After he became involved with leading webinars, Yenting saw an opportunity to have him volunteer through our cohort programs and share his deep knowledge of the software with nonprofits.
Volunteer Experience
Steve has delivered three webinars: one on Google Workspace, one on Workspace and Duet (the AI component to Workspace), and a roundtable on AI with other industry experts. After one of the seminars, a nonprofit reached out to Yenting and requested additional help from Steve. He agreed and provided a full hour training session for the National Coalition of 100 Black Women (NCBW), a nonprofit located in Atlanta, Georgia. While NCBW has access to Google Drive, the training proved to be invaluable in surfacing many features they were not using.
Previously, Steve volunteered as a mentor through the United Way of Greater Charlotte (UWGC) cohort program to help Center360 with Google Workspace. Center360 focuses on empowering youth at risk of disengaging from school by providing non-traditional enrichment opportunities. He shared about this experience: “Working with Apparo and Center 360 was very valuable to me. I hit it off well with Shonya Anderson and Akeliah Stewart from the nonprofit. It opened my eyes, because of the lack of understanding about what our platform can do and how little they were using some of the features. They caught on very quickly. It’s just a matter of them not having the time to learn these things. That’s what really stood out for me—there’s a huge gap in what people really understand about this platform and other IT tools and an opportunity to provide expertise so they are using it properly and getting the most out of the product.”
Through the cohort program with Center360, Steve was given an agenda, but he felt it important to step back and make sure the organization was able to truly understand the key features for Workspace. He shared about his experience of working with Anderson and Stewart, “Everything was just really easy, because they’re just good people.” He felt a strong bond working with them, and he agreed to set up a chat space if they had further questions.
Akeliah Stewart, Co-founder and Board Member from Center 360, also felt gratitude toward Steve for his volunteer work. “To me, the most meaningful part [of the cohort program] was the mentorship, because we were able to sit down one-on-one with Steve who was able to slowly walk us through technological improvements that we could make. We use Google Workspace and Steve is an expert in it. He showed us tools and tips to save time in our work. Things that were already at our fingertips, but that we had no idea existed. He helped us learn to use them in the best way possible for our organization. Most importantly, he helped us think through a better way to collect data with tools that we already have.”
Additional Volunteer Experience
When asked whether he had done skilled volunteering before, Steve said in addition to volunteering with Apparo, he also volunteers for a nonprofit out of New York, Companions in Courage. One of the organization’s yearly initiatives is an online experience called Santa Connection for the young patients in Children’s Hospitals to meet Santa Clause and an Elf in a virtual environment. Steve ensures the technology runs smoothly on the backend. He said, “It’s unbelievable to see the kids’ reactions, and how this transports them to a world of imagination where they can leave behind the hospital environment even if only for a few minutes.”
Steve finds volunteering and sharing his knowledge rewarding. He would absolutely recommend skilled volunteering to others. In fact, he has already shared Apparo’s story with another Googler who is currently working with a cohort. He says a big part of Google’s culture is giving back to the community, and he has taken that to heart.
Apparo Values Volunteering
Apparo’s Yenting Liu also shared about Steve’s dedication to volunteering. “Steve is more than a volunteer; he’s an absolute force of generosity and expertise. His knowledge of Google Workspace is coupled with a genuine desire to support nonprofits, making him an invaluable asset. Always quick to respond and eager to help, Steve isn’t just a go-to for questions – he’s the one I have continued to turn to when the need arises for workshops, webinars, tech therapy, and tech mentorship for nonprofits. Gratitude falls short in expressing the depth of appreciation for all that Steve brings to the table.”
