Community IT Innovators Nonprofit Technology Topics

Community IT offers free webinars monthly to promote learning within our nonprofit technology community. Our podcast is appropriate for a varied level of technology expertise. Community IT is vendor-agnostic and our webinars cover a range of topics and discussions. Something on your mind you don’t see covered here? Contact us to suggest a topic! http://www.communityit.com

Community IT Innovators Nonprofit Technology Topics is a technology podcast hosted by Community IT Innovators, with 331 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Community IT Innovators hosts Community IT Innovators Nonprofit Technology Topics, a technology show with 331 episodes published.

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  Episode #70

  Doing IT Assessments at Nonprofits Pt 2

  Sep 11, 202628 minS7

  In part 2 of this two-part episode, Carolyn continues her conversation with CEO Johan Hammerstrom and Senior IT Consultant Nuradeen Aboki: what you actually get at the end of an IT assessment, and what to do with it. This episode covers: Assessment deliverables — the comprehensive report, prioritized recommendations, strategic plan, and IT roadmap, and how they connect findings to what leadership actually cares about Two key principles behind a successful assessment What a healthy nonprofit IT environment looks like, category by category Key takeaways and next steps if your assessment points toward a change in IT support Audience Q&A on timing an assessment around staff transitions, whether smaller nonprofits need an assessment too, and what type of assessment may be most helpful. Resources Mentioned: Cybersecurity Readiness for Nonprofits Playbook: https://communityit.com/download-cybersecurity-readiness-for-nonprofits-playbook/ How Do I Know If an IT Managed Services Provider Is Right for My Nonprofit Organization?: https://communityit.com/how-do-i-know-if-an-msp-is-right-for-my-organization/ Building a Foundation for IT Innovation: https://communityit.com/building-the-foundation-for-it-innovation-download-this-guide/ The Nonprofit Guide to Vetting a Managed IT Services Provider: https://communityit.com/the-nonprofit-guide-to-vetting-a-managed-it-service-provider/ _______________________________ Start a conversation :) Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/ email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com on LinkedIn on reddit/r/nonprofitITmanagement on the Community IT website Thanks for listening.

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  Episode #69

  Nonprofit AI: LLM 101 and Best Practices Roundup

  Sep 8, 202642 minS7

  Carolyn Woodard covers two things this week: a quick and basic explainer of how large language models actually work under the hood, and a roundup of the best practices for using AI at nonprofits that Community IT has built up over nine months of this podcast and 3 years of our monthly webinars. First, the basics. An LLM is not a database and it is not doing a Google search. It is predicting the next most likely word, or token, based on patterns learned from the huge amount of text it was trained on. Image and video tools work differently, using a diffusion model that refines random noise into a picture, which is why video generation costs roughly 2,000 times more energy at the data center than a text prompt. "Hallucination" or being confidently wrong is a feature, not an AI bug. OpenAI research from last year shows it is a predictable result of how models are trained to guess a fluent-sounding answer rather than say I do not know. Then Carolyn walks through the best practices Community IT recommends for any nonprofit using AI, from naming an AI owner to keeping a human editor in the loop on anything that goes out under your name. The full version, with links to Community IT's past episodes and resources, lives in our AI for Nonprofits guide on the website. This episode covers: What an LLM is actually doing when you type in a prompt, and why that mechanism is also why LLMs are bad at math. What the fact that image and video generation use so much more energy than text means for your organization's AI choices. Why hallucination happens, and how to prompt AI to tell you when it is uncertain instead of guessing. A dozen or so of Community IT's best practices for nonprofit AI adoption: talk about it openly and often, name an AI owner, build hands-on literacy, verify what you can verify, keep a human editor in the loop, and many more Why evaluating AI tools against your organization's values, not just their features, matters. Resources Mentioned: Running Your Own LLM, Nonprofit AI Podcast AI for Nonprofits Guide, Community IT Values-Aligned AI Decision-Making, Community IT AI Acceptable Use Policy Template, Community IT Why Language Models Hallucinate, OpenAI, 2025 Nonprofit IT Management Reddit Community New every Tuesday. _______________________________ Start a conversation :) Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/ email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com on LinkedIn on reddit/r/nonprofitITmanagement on the Community IT website Thanks for listening.

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  Episode #68

  Doing an IT Assessment at Nonprofits Pt 1

  Sep 4, 202632 minS7

  Is it time for an IT assessment at your nonprofit? Maybe you need an assessment for a grant requirement, a change in leadership, or a switch to a new IT provider. In part 1 of this two-part episode, Carolyn talks with CEO Johan Hammerstrom and Senior IT Consultant Nuradeen Aboki about what a comprehensive, nonprofit-focused IT assessment actually involves, and how to tell a genuine, agnostic assessment from one that's really just a sales pitch. This episode covers: What Community IT means by a "comprehensive" IT assessment, and how that differs from the free evaluations many MSPs offer as part of a sales process How to vet an assessment provider: what to ask about methodology, sample reports, and references Common objectives and scenarios that prompt nonprofits to get an assessment done, including leadership transitions and preparing for growth The four categories every assessment should cover: infrastructure and core systems, data and digital platforms, security and compliance, and governance and strategy An inside look at the discover, evaluate, align, and plan approach Community IT uses to turn findings into a strategic roadmap Part 2 continues next week with assessment deliverables, what a healthy nonprofit IT environment looks like, and next steps if it's time to change your IT support. _______________________________ Start a conversation :) Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/ email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com on LinkedIn on reddit/r/nonprofitITmanagement on the Community IT website Thanks for listening.

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  Episode #66

  AI in Practice for Nonprofits with Carolyn Woodard and Erik Solce pt 2

  Aug 28, 202626 minS7

  In Part 2 of the AI in Practice for Nonprofits webinar, Carolyn Woodard and Erik Solce, IT Business Manager at Community IT, dig into the part of the project that matters most once an AI workflow is up and running: how do you know it is actually working, and how do you keep yourself in the loop instead of just trusting the output? Carolyn walks through her verify but trust framework using a real example from her own marketing data lake. An AI-generated report flagged that YouTube Shorts were quietly pulling down watch time on the long-form webinar videos her organization actually wants people to find, a counterintuitive finding. She confirmed independently before acting on it, then tracked month over month to see engagement recover. She and Erik also share what a few months of working with AI day to day has taught them: it does not remember context the way a human assistant would, a trusted coach makes the learning curve much shorter, and a simple Friday check-in on what is still outstanding keeps a project from sprawling. The second half turns to audience questions, from how to pick the right process to automate to how to keep sensitive documents out of an AI tool's reach. Haven't listened to Part 1 yet? Find it in your podcast feed. This episode covers: The verify but trust framework: spot-checking numbers against your dashboards, following a metric after you make a change, and cross-checking independent sources against each other. The YouTube Shorts case study: how an AI-flagged, counterintuitive finding about engagement led to a policy change and measurable results. Working with AI as a collaborator rather than a tool: session memory limits, the value of a human coach, and a weekly outstanding items check-in. How to choose what to automate: talk to the people doing the work, map the real process rather than the documented one, and look for high volume, rule-based, repetitive tasks, using a SIPOC diagram as one way to do it. Security Q&A: reviewing SharePoint and Drive permissions before granting AI tools access, applying sensitivity labels to off-limits folders, and why using free AI tools is not recommended and is not secure. Resources Mentioned: Verify Then Trust: How to Check AI Outputs, Community IT Growing IT Management Capacity at Nonprofits webinar, Community IT AI Use Case Library, Patrick J. McGovern Foundation SIPOC Diagram, ASQ Nonprofit IT Management Reddit Community _______________________________ Start a conversation :) Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/ email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com on LinkedIn on reddit/r/nonprofitITmanagement on the Community IT website Thanks for listening.

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  Episode #65

  Nonprofit AI: Impala MCP and Bridgespan NTEN Report

  Aug 25, 202630 minS7

  Carolyn Woodard covers two pieces of nonprofit AI news worth your time this week: a new AI connector from Impala, and a report from Bridgespan and NTEN that gives nonprofits a practical way to decide where AI actually fits their work. Impala just launched an MCP connector that links its philanthropic database to the AI assistant you already use, including Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot, so you are not locked into a single vendor. The database covers more than 2 million nonprofits, 250,000 foundations, 25 million grant transactions, board and leadership profiles, and full 990 data, and setup takes about two minutes if you already have a plan. Candid and Charity Navigator have made similar moves. Carolyn digs into Choosing Your AI Path, the framework Bridgespan and NTEN built from a survey of nonprofits worldwide. It sorts nonprofit AI work into three dimensions, Augment, Advance, and Advocate. Carolyn walks through each with examples, from a nonprofit using AI on satellite imagery to spot newly cleared airstrips before illegal logging begins, to the ACLU of Massachusetts building staff AI literacy with the AI Now Institute and then pushing for federal rules limiting consequential AI decisions in realms like hiring, credit, housing, and criminal justice. This episode covers: The three dimensions of the framework: Augment for internal capacity, Advance for mission and program expansion, and Advocate for shaping our national and international AI governance and policy. Most organizations will lead with one, but all three are worth understanding. What the survey found: 70% of nonprofit leaders say they are not taking advantage of meaningful AI opportunities, only 8% have a formal AI roadmap, 4% report AI meaningfully embedded across the organization, and 57% have not named anyone responsible for AI oversight. Why naming an AI owner, whether that is a formal title on your executive team, a coordinator, a small committee, or a board member, is becoming a practical necessity rather than a nice to have. No regrets steps for limited resource organizations: set a responsible use policy and train staff on it, inventory your workflow bottlenecks, pick one or two low risk use cases to experiment with, learn from peer organizations, and stay informed on the AI risks that touch your community. What funders can do differently: fund capacity rather than licenses, carry pilots through to sustained operations and past go live, and play a convening role so nonprofits can make their own informed choices. 69% of survey respondents reported zero AI funding of any kind. Resources Mentioned: Choosing Your AI Path, Bridgespan and NTEN Impala MCP Candid MCP connector for Claude Charity Navigator on Perplexity AI Now Institute Template, Acceptable Use of AI Tools in the Nonprofit Workplace, Community IT New every Tuesday. _______________________________ Start a conversation :) Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/ email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com on LinkedIn on reddit/r/nonprofitITmanagement on the Community IT website Thanks for listening.

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