How nonprofits are using AI and automation to achieve operational excellence

501(c)3 and 501(c)4 organizations can benefit substantially from tech-enabled operations and focused AI implementation projects

As nonprofits grow, there is expanding demand for time, resources and attention to complete operating tasks, fundraise and maintain accuracy of data. Management of volunteers, staff, members and administrative work can become time-consuming and rely on repetitive, manual tasks. As automation and AI are adopted further, there is a significant opportunity for nonprofits to achieve operational excellence through implementation tech-enabled systems.

The purpose of this article is to give real-world, practical examples of high-priority use cases Easie has seen with real nonprofit clients in the past.

Conduct an audit for high-impact use cases for automation and AI BEFORE starting software development or investing in any new technology/software

Prior to investing in any new software, technology or development initiatives, Easie strongly suggests doing a thorough technical and operational audit of your organization’s operations and procedures to identify pain points and high-impact pilot projects.

To evaluate your organization’s unique pain points, we suggest using the “Easie pain point prioritization matrix” and focus on high-frequency, high-impact pain points as the first automation or AI initiative.

*Figure 1.1 - Easie pain point prioritization matrix*

The goal of the audit is to evaluate the current operational framework, pinpoint inefficiencies, and determine their root causes/suggested corrective actions. As a project output, this process should include the development of a strategic implementation plan with a detailed report outlining key findings and suggested corrective actions.

Easie is deeply experienced in conducting organizational audits for automation and AI to identify high-priority use cases and operates under the following work plan:

AI orientation training & workshops for internal staff

A major factor to consider when implementing AI and automation is the degree of awareness among staff about what is possible and useful for their specific organization. When staff understand what is possible, it is more clear what focused, pre-defined implementation projects should be considered for further evaluation.

Easie has created the following draft action plan for AI and automation training programs for nonprofit organizations:

*Figure 1.3 - Easie action plan for AI training program for nonprofits*

Easie specializes in creating training systems and e-learning materials, particularly in AI, automation and operational excellence, including areas like computer vision, natural language processing and generative models. Easie also actively engages in AI and automation panels throughout the United States.

Easie also regularly conducts AI workshops and training events for audiences across experience levels. These events are conducted virtually or in person for your organization’s management, employees or other stakeholders. This process is beneficial to orient your team around what AI is and how it is being used for nonprofits.

Here is a link to an AI webinar Easie did in 2023 on a similar topic.

Chatbots for tier 1 support on internal/external websites

A major high-impact application Easie is seeing for AI is chatbots for tier 1 support to answer FAQs, provide further information and schedule tier 2 (human-based) next steps on a 24/7 basis. Chatbots trained on organization-specific business data increase conversions, streamline operations and strengthen user engagement.

Easie recently launched a chatbot hosting service where chatbots can be trained on custom organizational knowledge: here is a link to this announcement and the following is a demo of an Easie chatbot:

Automated document processing & document digitization

Another program area that can require significant manual input is document processing and data entry. Many organizations handle thousands or tens of thousands of paper or digital files on a monthly basis. Extreme amounts of time are spent inputting data into databases after manually reading files and other unstructured data.

Easie helps clients implement automated document processing systems that can process thousands of documents automatically without relying on manual data entry.

By using AI and computer vision, this software analyzes documents and returns key fields, values and even translates handwritten notes that may be scribbled on margins or throughout the document. Our work in this subject actually made headlines in the ‌local San Diego news and is available for demo here.

Figure 1.5 - Easie AI-enabled document management system

AI-enabled document systems can return data objects from PDFs, images and other file types that can then be pushed automatically to other software systems via integrations. OpenAI recently launched a new feature in their API called Structured Outputs that increases performance of AI systems dealing with unstructured inputs to structured outputs.

An AI-enabled document management system is also extremely useful for classifying documents, images, files and other data into different categories for further processing. You can use AI systems to classify sentiment, check for moderated/restricted content and pull other context-based conclusions out of text, image and file data.

Data centralization & statistical analysis for end user impact:

Besides nonprofit clients reporting having rigid, manual systems in place, the second most common concern we hear is that data is decentralized and difficult to input/process. This can create major challenges for conducting studies and statistical analysis on your operations and impact.

Easie can help you centralize data into a single database and digitize backlogs of physical files in a way that can be searched with natural language. We can also help with statistical studies on large internal/external datasets using linear regression that can ultimately be turned into dashboards/KPIs. The findings/efficiencies for centralization/analysis can also help drive fundraising initiatives and communications campaigns.

Structured, centralized datasets and regular statistical analysis can significantly raise recruitment, retention and impact scores for nonprofit organizations.

Creation of interfaces & custom applications

Another issue that we often see nonprofits facing is having many different software subscriptions as part of their technology profile, often with excessive features and costs for their unique use case. In some cases, a more centralized technology solution exists already that can be used to consolidate data/features and in other cases, a solution does not exist and it makes sense to explore and potentially build a software system.

If a use case meets specific eligibility criteria, Easie operates as an implementation partner for building beta software for organizations. Easie works collaboratively with nonprofit clients to identify use cases for new web or mobile applications that Easie then builds as a software product - the resulting product can then either be licensed by the client or used under a subscription by the client on behalf for their unique use case.

This methodology allows Easie to offer significantly lower costs and dramatically easier ability to make changes to nonprofit clients than if they had chosen the historical high-risk, high-cost route of building a custom, proprietary application to maintain/operate for the indefinite future.

Easie has been recognized for its rapid engineering of high-impact, custom web applications in the past and can help your nonprofit evaluate whether a custom software application makes sense.

Support with AI-enabled government affairs, legislative campaigns and communications initiatives

Running a grant management program and government affairs initiatives can be extremely time consuming for nonprofit organizations. Advocacy campaigns can require analyzing large documents, searching in keyword-based systems and creating stylized, branded materials for external communications/reporting. Much of this process is still almost entirely manual across an organization.

Easie can help with AI-enabled bill tracking, automatically analyzing policy against your organization’s position on specific issues and end-to-end support of tech-enabled external communications/advocacy initiatives (creating issue briefs, action alerts, etc.). This can help you move faster and advocate for your organization’s objectives with higher impact.

Easie can help your nonprofit implement AI & automation

Get in touch with our team to learn more about how we can help.

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