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 336 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Community IT Innovators hosts Community IT Innovators Nonprofit Technology Topics, a technology show with 336 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

• 

  Episode #75

  Growing IT Management Capacity at Nonprofits with Johan Hammerstrom pt 2

  Oct 2, 202633 minS7

  In Part 2 of the Growing IT Management Capacity at Nonprofits webinar, Carolyn Woodard and Johan Hammerstrom, CEO of Community IT, get practical about what well-managed IT looks like, and why the capacity to manage IT matters more than any tool, device, or license you can buy. Johan walks through a simple framework: five capacities every nonprofit's IT should have, and ten security essentials that non-technical leaders can use as a checklist. Carolyn then shares why she wrote the upcoming white paper with the Technology Association of Grantmakers (TAG), reframing nonprofit IT around assets instead of deficits. Nonprofit staff bring deep knowledge of their mission, IT vendors bring technical expertise, and funders bring capacity-building dollars and a view across their grantees. The missing piece is IT management, and closing that gap takes everyone working together. The Q&A takes on a question many listeners will recognize: what can a one-person team wearing too many hats do to be more proactive when there's no time to think strategically? Johan's answer is to make your vendor carry the proactive work, and to build in simple checkpoints that keep the relationship accountable. Haven't listened to Part 1 yet? Find it in your podcast feed. This episode covers: The five IT capacities your nonprofit should be able to do either internally or with vendor support: resolving simple issues on demand, resolving advanced technical issues, proactively managing IT systems, proactively managing IT operations, and planning strategic investments Ten security essentials across devices, accounts, data, and governance, and why your acceptable use policy should address AI and be a living document Why funding technology without funding IT management capacity leads to technical debt, and why expecting mission-driven staff to also be IT experts is an equity issue How a monthly vendor check-in and an annual assessment timed before budgeting can shift a vendor relationship from reactive to proactive, and why an assessment is an easier ask of funders Why AI adoption is exposing underlying IT management gaps that AI can't fix on its own Resources Mentioned: Webinar: Growing IT Management Capacity at Nonprofits – Community IT Template: Acceptable Use of AI Tools in the Nonprofit Workplace – Community IT Webinar: Nonprofit Cybersecurity Playbook, Updated for AI (October 21) – Community IT Kauffman Foundation – kauffman.org TAG 2026 Conference – Technology Association of Grantmakers – tagtech.org Start Here: Nonprofit Cybersecurity Basics - Community IT 2026 Cybersecurity Readiness for Nonprofits Playbook - Community IT _______________________________ 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.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #74

  Nonprofit AI: Policy Creation Tips

  Sep 29, 202632 minS7

  Carolyn Woodard covers a question many nonprofits keep putting off: how do you create an AI policy when you are short on time? Whether your organization is embracing AI or has decided not to use it at all, you need a written policy, because AI is already arriving inside the tools you pay for. First, two news items with nonprofit connections. The Gates Foundation has committed $1 billion to AI for health workers, farmers, and teachers, including work to make AI tools function in languages that are poorly represented today. Carolyn looks at why some tribal and small language communities see AI as a way to preserve their languages, while others are rightly skeptical about who owns their data and culture. Common Sense Media also named former Google trust and safety leader Tom Siegel as executive director of its Youth AI Safety Institute, funded in part by Anthropic and the OpenAI Foundation. Then Carolyn walks through practical steps for building a policy, and explains where Community IT stands: we support nonprofits that choose AI and nonprofits that choose not to, and we want any use to be secure. This episode covers: Why every nonprofit needs an AI policy, even if that policy is that you do not use AI. Microsoft, Google, Zoom, your CRM, and nearly every other tool keeps adding AI, and staff need to know what to do when an update arrives. Tips to build a policy: designate an AI owner, a person or small team with an executive champion and a board connection, and hold listening sessions with staff, leadership, and the board to surface opinions, skill levels, ideas, and mission-specific concerns before you write anything. What a policy outline should cover: principles, examples of what you will and will not use AI for, approved uses and tools, a process for resolving questions and revising the policy, and standards for disclosing AI use. How AI connects to cybersecurity through two risks and one benefit: better scams and deeper fakes coming in, oversharing through free AI tools going out, and AI that can help a small team find security gaps when used carefully. Why training and review matter as much as the document: common scenarios, a light quiz that confirms staff know who to ask, a culture with no dumb questions, and a revisit at least twice a year. Resources Mentioned: SNL Weekend Update, Dario Amodei sketch Gates Foundation $1 Billion Equitable AI Commitment Tom Siegel Joins the Youth AI Safety Institute, Common Sense Media Template, Acceptable Use of AI Tools in the Nonprofit Workplace, Community IT Mission Aligned AI Adoption Model for Nonprofits, Community IT Blog: Three Filters for Mission-Aligned AI Decision Making, 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.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #73

  Growing IT Management Capacity at Nonprofits with Johan Hammerstrom pt 1

  Sep 25, 202626 minS7

  In the first part of this two-part conversation, Carolyn Woodard and Johan Hammerstrom, CEO of Community IT, take on a question behind a lot of nonprofit IT frustration: who at your organization actually owns IT? Not who fixes it, but who plans, budgets, and makes the case for it. Drawn from a Community IT webinar, this episode looks at what well-managed IT requires and why building management capacity does more for nonprofit resilience than buying more tools, devices, and licenses. Johan walks through the hallmarks of well-managed IT, tied together by one theme: proactive rather than reactive. Carolyn then draws on her own experience as IT Director at an international NGO with close to 100 staff, where she managed an MSP that handled the technology but could not play a strategic role, and translated between an executive team that wanted new systems but needed to understand the budget and staffing needed to support them. Her takeaway: owning IT is a management function, and it does not require a technology background. This episode covers: The characteristics of well-managed IT: defined service levels, predictive management and monitoring, IT driven by organizational strategy and policy, automation where appropriate, and meeting business needs. Why defined service levels are about clarity, not complexity. What matters is that expectations are written down and shared, whether your organization is small or large. Why AI is not a shortcut around IT management. Systems that are easy to build still need a long-term plan for managing and maintaining them. If you are not managing IT well now, you will struggle to manage AI. What owning IT looks like in practice: strategic oversight and governance, setting and enforcing policies, managing vendors, and the decision-making authority that middle managers often lack. Why a vendor handling day-to-day support cannot replace an internal owner who understands your budget, strategy, and mission. Resources Mentioned: Technology Association of Grantmakers (TAG) - https://www.tagtech.org/ Nonprofit IT Management Reddit Community - https://www.reddit.com/r/nonprofitITmanagement Listen for part two in your podcast feed. _______________________________ 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.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #72

  Nonprofit AI: Carve Out Time To Experiment with AI

  Sep 22, 202630 minS7

  Carolyn Woodard digs into something that hits closer to home this week: a conversation with a friend who knows that parts of her job could be automated, but can't find the hour to actually build it. That tension of fixing the plane while flying it turns out to be a well-documented, structural problem across the nonprofit sector, not a personal failing, and Carolyn spends the episode working through what the research says and what to actually do about it if you need to find the time to look into using AI. What happens when funders and nonprofits invest seriously in nonprofit capacity and cutting down on busy work? What's the intersection with using AI to cut down on those repetitive time-sucking tasks? This episode covers: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's "Pace the Frontier" essay is still generating responses from every direction, and the UN General Assembly opened this week with AI as a headline issue - worth watching. A peer-reviewed 2026 study on nonprofit administrative burden, paired with a nearly 20-year-old RAND finding that one agency spent almost half its staff time on compliance alone, shows this isn't a new problem. A recent post from Vu Le's Nonprofit AF asks the sharper question of how much of that busywork nonprofits and funders create for each other unnecessarily. Trust-based philanthropy has real data behind it: a Center for Effective Philanthropy study of MacKenzie Scott's unrestricted giving found that over a third of nonprofit leaders reported reduced burnout, and recipient organizations held roughly double the cash reserves of comparable orgs. A Harvard Business Review field study found AI doesn't automatically free up time. Without deliberate norms around pacing and boundaries, saved time just gets absorbed into doing more, faster, indefinitely. A practical, step-by-step way to actually carve out the hour: audit last week's tasks, filter for frequent and time-consuming ones, pick just one, define success in a sentence, and pilot it with a human still in the loop. What to do if you're not sure what your organization's AI policy is? That's not a reason to stop investigating, but it is a reason to ask before you run anything through a tool. Resources Mentioned: "We Must Pace the Frontier" – Dario Amodei – https://darioamodei.com/post/we-must-pace-the-frontier "Challenges, Choices and Common Applications: Funders' Exercise of Power and Its Consequences for Nonprofits' Administrative Burden" – Katy Adams, Journal of Philanthropy (2026) – https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/nvsm.70064 Meeting Funder Compliance (2006) – RAND Corporation – https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2006/RAND_MG505.sum.pdf "Is a lot of our work just creating work for other people to do?" – Vu Le, Nonprofit AF – https://www.nonprofitaf.com/is-a-lot-of-our-work-just-creating-work-for-other-people-to-do/ "Breaking the Mold: The Transformative Effect of MacKenzie Scott's Big Gifts" – Center for Effective Philanthropy (2025) – https://cep.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/CEP_Breaking_the_Mold_FNL.pdf "AI Doesn't Reduce Work—It Intensifies It" – Harvard Business Review – https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies-it Case Study: Nonprofits Leveraging Microsoft 365 Copilot for Impact – TechSoup – https://blog.techsoup.org/en-us/posts/case-study-nonprofits-leveraging-microsoft-365-copilot-for-impact Nonprofit Success Stories (Gemini) – Google for Nonprofits – https://www.google.com/nonprofits/find-solutions/ Brian Impact Foundation Case Study – Anthropic – https://www.anthropic.com/customers/brian-impact-foundation "GitLab hosts nonprofit AI demo day to woo investors to innovation fund" – Chronicle of Philanthropy – https://www.philanthropy.com/news/gitlab-hosts-nonprofit-ai-demo-day-to-woo-investors-to-innovation-fund/ AI Acceptable Use Policy Template – Community IT Innovators – https://communityit.com/template-acceptable-use-of-ai-tools-in-the-nonprofit-workplace/ Register now: Growing IT Management Capacity at Nonprofits Webinar - Community IT Innovators - https://communityit.com/webinar-growing-it-management-capacity-at-nonprofits/ _______________________________ 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.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #71

  Growing IT Management Capacity at Nonprofits with Jean Westrick

  Sep 18, 202632 minS7

  Carolyn Woodard talks with Jean Westrick, President and CEO of the Technology Association of Grantmakers (TAG), about why nonprofit technology management should be treated as organizational capacity. Jean argues that digital resilience is becoming as essential as financial resilience. The conversation moves through why nonprofit IT funding is so hard to secure, what it looks like when funders get this right, and how technology providers and MSPs can be stronger partners. Jean and Carolyn also preview a white paper they co-authored for TAG and Community IT, Growing IT Management Capacity at Nonprofits, built on the idea that most nonprofit technology struggles are not about the software, they are about capacity - and that growing capacity is an opportunity for funders, nonprofits, and the sector. Want to learn more? Register for the Community IT September 23 webinar , where Carolyn and Johan Hammerstrom dig deeper into these ideas. This episode covers: Three reasons IT funding is so hard to secure: outdated ideas about overhead, funders treating a technology purchase as the finish line instead of ongoing management, and a failure to recognize that technology decisions are strategic, leadership decisions. Naming has power. When the Kauffman Foundation names IT planning, cybersecurity, and AI readiness as eligible capacity building expenses it sends a powerful signal to grantees that they are allowed to ask. How the Virtual CTO Program from TechSoup and Tech Impact gives small nonprofits access to technology assessments and long-term roadmaps at an affordable price point and connects them to a cohort of nonprofits on the same IT journey who can share resources and knowledge. Why every organization needs IT friends and translators, people who can connect a technology decision back to the mission it is meant to serve. A first look at Growing IT Management Capacity at Nonprofits, the white paper Carolyn authored, coming from TAG in early 2027. Resources Mentioned: Technology Association of Grantmakers (TAG) Virtual CTO Program for the Nonprofit Sector, TechSoup and Tech Impact Capacity Building Grants, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Register for the Sept 23 webinar with Carolyn and Johan Hammerstrom on Growing IT Management Capacity at Nonprofits _______________________________ 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.

  ListenShow Notes

Recent guests on Community IT Innovators Nonprofit Technology Topics. Study who booked and why before you pitch.

Based on semantic analysis of episode topics and host coverage, this show is a strong guest fit for executives in:

Industry fit is computed by PitchCentric using vector embeddings of the show's episode catalog.