Regional nonprofit · ~25 staff
Grant reports took a week, though the data was already available.
The nonprofit had no IT staff and an outside IT firm on a basic contract. Every quarter, the development director built grant reports by hand from the donor database and the accounting system, and volunteers were using free AI tools on donor lists.
Representative profile. Figures are illustrative.
The work
What we did, and why
This nonprofit's funding depends on grants, and each grant needs a report. Every quarter, the development director spent a week pulling exports from the donor CRM, the system that tracks donors and gifts, and from the accounting system into a spreadsheet. She then reworked the numbers for each funder's template. Meanwhile, volunteers were pasting donor lists into free AI tools to draft thank-you letters.
The board adopted the AI Use Policy, which treats donor data as protected information and includes a section for volunteers, something many policies leave out. The AI security and governance assessment found donor exports in two personal AI accounts, and both were closed the same week.
The nonprofit had no Microsoft cloud account of its own, so we set one up in the organization's name. The donor CRM and the accounting system were connected in the first month. The grant-tracking spreadsheet was retired once the dashboard could produce each funder's figures directly. The board also added the vCIO Advisory tier, a part-time CIO who owns the technology plan and writes a quarterly brief, without a hire the budget could not carry.
A plan that still has no owner, the gap this profile starts from, is discussed in The Technology Plan Still Has No Owner.
The result
Where the company stands now
Grant reports now come from the dashboard in an afternoon, and the board receives a quarterly technology brief from the vCIO. IT spend is visible for the first time, and one duplicate subscription was canceled.
For leadership
What changed for the people running it
The executive director now has someone responsible for technology decisions without making a hire. The board no longer asks whether donor data is safe in a public AI tool.
This is a representative profile, drawn from the kinds of companies we work with. Figures are illustrative. We publish named results only with a client's written permission.
More profiles
What does the AI Use Policy say about donor data?
It treats donor data as protected and covers volunteers in writing. The assessment found donor exports in two personal AI accounts, and both were closed.
How long do grant reports take now?
They come from the dashboard in an afternoon. Before that, the development director spent a week rebuilding them by hand each quarter. A longer note on a plan with no owner is The Technology Plan Still Has No Owner.
Next step
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