In November of 2025, I faced a crossroads. I had closed my data consulting business and hiked the Pacific Crest Trail with my daughter following a personal loss. I needed to figure out what comes next.
I realized that I wanted to focus on communities, and specifically nonprofits, as they were the ones tackling the hard issues that matter most. I also wanted a way to help that had more leverage than directly donating time & money, which I’d been doing for many years.
The answer became clear: I could combine my passions for teaching and technology with my decades of nonprofit involvement to give organizations the skills to use AI – amplifying their work without compromising their mission or reputation. If I could help someone at a nonprofit use AI to do 5% more over the course of a year, that would be equivalent to donating more than $3,000.
I spent months building a curriculum to teach nonprofits how to use AI effectively and responsibly. After many iterations, the result was a four-hour course that covers essential AI topics. I tested it with multiple groups, both in-person and online. In March of 2025 I started AI for Community as a nonprofit, and have been using AI for the very same activities that I highlight in the course.
The results are incredibly rewarding. Nonprofit employees and volunteers experience genuine “aha” moments – those magical points where AI shifts from being scary and abstract to being practical and empowering. We’ve trained hundreds of students how to effectively use AI for everything from donor outreach to writing grant proposals.
It’s been an amazing and worthwhile journey. We’re now scaling up, with the goal of teaching more than 1000 people in 2026, and here’s where I could use your help…
- If you know a community foundation leader, introduce me via email or LinkedIn. Partnering with CoFos has proven to be the single most effective strategy for setting up training.
- If you’re at a community foundation or nonprofit, use this link to set up a call. I’d love to spend 15 minutes figuring out how we can work together.
- If you’d like to help spread the good news, share this newsletter signup link. It comes out monthly, and provides useful tips on how nonprofits can leverage AI, as well as details on upcoming events.
- If you want to support our efforts to scale, a donation would be amazing. We need to fund staff, trainers and infrastructure to further expand our reach to the 800,000 active nonprofits in the US.
I appreciate any and all support – thank you!
