Community IT Innovators Nonprofit Technology Topics

Carolyn Woodard talks with Steve Longenecker, Director of IT Consulting at Community IT, about a client's decision to migrate from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365, and what a real nonprofit migration project looks like once years of technical debt have piled up.

The client's story is a familiar one: a lean two-person IT team supporting 300 information workers, years of default settings, and undocumented shared folders that quietly...

Carolyn Woodard covers four AI stories with real implications for nonprofits this week, starting with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's sprawling new manifesto on open source AI and the release of Muse Glimmer, a lightweight model anyone can run locally. Carolyn touches on why this matters for budget conscious nonprofits weighing vendor values, and why open source still requires more technical capacity than most organizations currently ha...

Carolyn Woodard explores why statistical analysis and evaluations are never neutral with Heather Krause, mathematical statistician and founder of We All Count.

Heather built her career doing statistical consulting, evaluation, and causal analysis in the global south, work that eventually convinced her that the widespread belief in value neutral quantitative analysis is a myth. In this conversation, she and Carolyn dig into why every...

Carolyn Woodard covers why deliberate, thoughtful implementation is actually your nonprofit's competitive advantage, not a liability.

The commercial AI sector is in a "move fast and break things" sprint. Tech companies are pouring billions into AI, racing to scale, pushing toward the edge of the market. Today's AI race feels similar. Nonprofits tend to think differently. You ask hard questions. You think about theory of change, root...

Carolyn Woodard talks with Joe Robbins, Chief Product Officer at Food Rescue US, about a real-world AI project built from the ground up: a predictive model that flags volunteer pickups at high risk of a last-minute cancellation.

Food Rescue US connects volunteers with food donors and receiving agencies through an app similar to a delivery service, coordinating about 150,000 pickups a year across 27 states. When a volunteer cancels w...

This week Carolyn Woodard covers how to get AI literate, moving from the big-picture policy questions she's been focused on lately back to a practical roundup: how do you and your staff build AI literacy, and do you need a certificate to prove it?

She starts with free and low-cost nonprofit-specific options: PoliSync's four-module Certificate in Applied AI for Social Good, and Tim Lockie's hands-on AI for Anyone course through The H...

In Part 2 of the AI Maturity Model for Nonprofits webinar, Carolyn Woodard and Mimi Yeh, Engagement Director at PTKO, and George Danilovics, VP of Technology at AHIP, pick up where Part 1 left off, moving from the framework itself to the harder question of what it takes to make AI adoption become quiet, boring, and everywhere.

Mimi and George walk through what it looks like when AI stops being an initiative and becomes infrastructur...

Carolyn Woodard covers a growing counter-movement to concentrated AI power  and what it means for nonprofits thinking about data sovereignty, open-source models, and their own agency in a moment that can feel overwhelming.

Mozilla's recent State of Open Source AI Report frames this shift as a "Rebel Alliance" against winner-take-all AI development. Mozilla is deploying $1.4 billion to seed an open, trustworthy AI ecosystem, joi...

In the first part of this two-part conversation, Carolyn Woodard and Mimi Yeh, Engagement Director at PTKO, and George Danilovics, Vice President of Information Technology at AHIP, walk through an AI maturity model designed to help nonprofits move from pilots and experiments to AI that is genuinely embedded in how the organization works: quiet, boring, and everywhere.

The conversation opens with a striking data point: 80% of nonprof...

Carolyn Woodard covers a cultural moment that's been building quietly, resistance to AI among workers, young people, and nonprofits, and connects it to a research framework for thinking honestly about AI's real environmental costs and benefits. Both threads come back to the same core question: who benefits from AI, and on what terms?

This episode also introduces a three-lens approach to help nonprofits think through the environmenta...

Carolyn Woodard explores voice AI in the social services sector with Chip Kennedy, founder and CEO of CivicReach, a technology company building AI-powered communication tools for nonprofits and government agencies delivering human services. Chip brings a rare dual perspective: years as a technologist and startup founder alongside his role and experience running a nonprofit serving families experiencing homelessness.

When peo...

Carolyn Woodard covers the UN's first-ever independent scientific assessment of AI — and what its findings mean for nonprofits navigating questions of data rights, economic disruption, and who actually benefits from AI's rapid rise. This episode connects the global governance conversation to practical tools and timely opportunities your organization can act on right now.

From the Indigenous Data Sovereignty movement to a free ...

Carolyn Woodard explores responsible data governance and AI realism with Jim Fruchterman, MacArthur Fellow and founder of Tech Matters, a tech-for-good nonprofit building open source software for the social sector. Jim's work sits at the intersection of two urgent questions every nonprofit is wrestling with right now: what do you owe the people whose data you collect, and how do you make smart decisions about AI without getting swe...

If last week's episode left you wondering what you can actually do about data center development in your community, this week's episode is the flip side. Carolyn Woodard shares a new national workforce initiative just launched last week, then digs into the tools and resources available for nonprofits and community members who want to shape how AI infrastructure gets built - before it arrives, not after.

She also closes with a look a...

In Part 2 of the Securing Google Workspace for Nonprofits webinar podcast, Carolyn Woodard and Steve Longenecker, Director of IT Consulting at Community IT, move from foundational configurations into the question every nonprofit eventually asks: do we need to pay for a higher tier of Google Workspace to get real security?

The short answer is: probably not right away. Steve walks through the third-party tools that should come before ...

Carolyn Woodard covers two developing stories this week that together raise a bigger question for nonprofits: as AI infrastructure money floods into communities and philanthropic channels, is your organization ready to navigate it?

First, Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, which would require large AI companies to transfer half their stock to a federally managed public fund, with annual ...

In the first part of this two-part conversation taken from a webinar, Carolyn Woodard and Steve Longenecker, Director of IT Consulting at Community IT Innovators, walk through the security settings, risks, and first steps nonprofits need to know to get the most out of Google Workspace's free nonprofit tier.

Google provides a genuinely secure platform, but security is a partnership. Steve explains that the risks nonprofits face in Go...

Carolyn Woodard covers Anthropic's announcement of Claude Corps, a $150 million national fellowship program placing trained AI fellows inside nonprofit organizations, and gives a quick regulatory update on AI liability and state-level regulation.

Claude Corps will train 1,000 early-career fellows on Claude and embed them full-time, in-person at host nonprofits for 12 months. Fellows are employed by CodePath, paid $85,000 plus benefi...

Carolyn Woodard explores how cybersecurity insurance has evolved for nonprofits with Jenna Kirkpatrick Howard, Senior Vice President at Lockton Companies, who advises nonprofit clients on risk, insurance, and mitigation strategies to protect their boards, missions, and people.

When Carolyn and Jenna first presented a webinar together on cyber liability insurance, it was a new product that many nonprofits had never considered. Today ...