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Microsoft Nonprofit Tech Conference Reflections with Ryan Ozimek

• Community IT Innovators • Season 6 • Episode 15

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What does the future hold for nonprofit technology from one of the giants in the industry?

Ryan Ozimek, founder of Soapbox Engage and long time nonprofit IT thought leader, reflects on the trends and topics from this recent conference for the sector from Microsoft – particularly the embrace of AI and the potential of AI tools to impact the nonprofit sector.

In its second year, the Microsoft Global Nonprofit Leaders Summit drew nonprofit sector and IT activists from around the world to discuss new tools, new partnerships, and new needs. 

Listen to Ryan Ozimek in conversation with Carolyn Woodard on his reflections on trends that were discussed and explored at this conference


Some Key Takeaways:

  • Big changes are happening fast – Ryan sees this era as strikingly similar to 1999 when we all got online on this new thing “the internet.”
    • To prepare as a nonprofit: don’t feel you have to dive in the deep end but be aware that in a short time we will all be swimming in this pool. 
  • Generational change is painfully evident in AI adoption.
    • How does the nonprofit sector take full advantage of young people understanding new technologies especially AI, intuitively? 
  • AI is everywhere and will be everywhere. 
    • How can we use it best in our sector?
    • How can our sector push AI tools to be better?
  • Two and a half things for nonprofits to prepare to be able to find opportunities in this new world:
    • Start with what problems we are trying to solve and fit the tech to that. 
    • Be prepared to be more agile and more nimble than ever before.
    • AI agents can help you build the framework to describe your needs. Practice asking AI “what are the types of questions I should be asking you to help me solve my organization’s problems?”
  • It’s important to deeply understand the tech savviness of your nonprofit. How ready are you for change? Opportunities are also coming at us really fast and not every opportunity will be a good fit.
  • Last year at this summit the message was “Copilot is your copilot and it will help you with everything.”
    • This year Ryan heard that multiple agents that specialize in certain tasks/things will be more helpful than a “generalist” AI. You will need to find the AI agent that can help do the exact thing that you need done. We will all need to learn to ask the right AI agent the right questions.
  • What is the expected impact on nonprofit jobs? 
    • People will be able to be more productive, more able to help the organization meet the mission. Nonprofits will be augmenting their people with AI agents doing the grunt work. 
    • Think now about what you can automate. What is there that you have to have done that a person doesn’t have to do? This will free your staff to better meet your community needs.
  • Let’s meet our missions better and bigger than we ever have, because the world has lots of needs right now. The nonprofit sector/social sector will have more and more challenges in the current environment – so making the sector more productive with AI will help it meet needs that are only growing.

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