Most nonprofits we would talk to are not short of software. They have a donor database, an email tool, an online giving page, a volunteer sign-up system, accounting software and a shared drive full of grant reports. What they lack is someone with the time and authority to make those systems work together. The development director ends up exporting spreadsheets at night, and the executive director signs software renewals nobody has reviewed.
InTheory acts as a fractional technology lead for small and mid-sized nonprofits. We would choose one recurring workflow that drains staff time, such as gift entry, donor data cleanup or funder reporting, measure it, and lead a scoped 90-day improvement. Staff and leadership still approve every donor communication, grant narrative and decision about the people you serve.
Years of event imports, online giving integrations and manual entry leave the donor database full of duplicates, missing households and outdated addresses. Year-end acknowledgment letters go to deceased donors or the wrong spouse. Development staff stop trusting reports, so they keep their own spreadsheets, and the CRM drifts further from reality every campaign.
Each foundation, government grant and corporate sponsor wants outcomes reported in its own format and on its own schedule. Program staff pull numbers from a case management system, a spreadsheet and memory, then the grants manager rewrites the narrative. Reports consume weeks of staff time that funders often will not pay for directly.
The communications coordinator also manages the website, the volunteer database and the office printer. Turnover is high and training is informal, so knowledge leaves with each departing staff member. Nobody has the time or mandate to step back and decide which systems to keep, connect or retire.
Grant writers and communications staff are trying free AI tools to draft appeals and reports, sometimes pasting in donor names, client stories or confidential program data. Leadership knows it is happening but has no policy, no approved tools and no clear sense of what is safe to share with which service.
We fix one at a time, starting with the one that costs you most. Each page shows the steps, the tools, what stays human and what we would measure.
Merge duplicate donors, rebuild households, standardize gift coding and fix integrations in Bloomerang, Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud or similar, so development reports and acknowledgment letters can finally be trusted.
See the workflow →Plan and produce newsletters, appeals, impact stories and social posts on a steady calendar, with AI helping draft from approved program material and staff editing every word that goes out.
See the workflow →Pull donor and gift details from checks, donor-advised fund grant letters, stock transfer notices and pledge forms into the database without retyping, with a person confirming each batch.
See the workflow →Give staff and volunteers one place to ask about policies, program procedures, grant boilerplate and past reports, answered from your own documents rather than whoever has been there longest.
See the workflow →Assemble funder and board reports from program and finance data on a schedule, so the grants manager edits a draft rather than rebuilding the same tables every quarter.
See the workflow →List every system, nonprofit discount and renewal date, find overlap between donor, email, event and volunteer tools, and decide what to keep, connect or cancel before the next budget cycle.
See the workflow →Write a clear, practical policy on which AI tools staff can use, what donor and client information must never be entered, and how AI-assisted content is reviewed before it goes out.
See the workflow →Reduce the admin of hiring and onboarding staff and volunteers, from posting and screening to background checks, system access and first-week training, while people make every hiring decision.
See the workflow →How we deliver this: AI automation for small business or fractional CTO leadership, scoped in writing and run over 90 days. See pricing or the sample scope.
We start with what you already pay for. New tools have to earn their place.
Nonprofits hold donor giving histories, payment details, and often sensitive information about the people they serve. Online giving should stay within PCI-compliant payment processors. Health, youth or education programs may bring HIPAA, FERPA or funder-specific confidentiality terms. Donors expect discretion, and many organizations follow principles like the Donor Bill of Rights. Before any AI tool touches client stories or donor records, we would confirm what data is shared, where it is stored and whether consent exists. We flag these questions; your counsel and board decide.
General information, not legal advice.
Defaults are illustrative for nonprofit organizations (new major gifts or grants per month). Change them to your numbers.
a month in staff time, before any lost sales
Illustration only, not a forecast or guarantee. Recovered staff time becomes a cash saving only if spending actually declines or the time goes into paid work. Tool costs are an assumption; we replace every number here with yours before recommending a scope.
It depends on budget and the size of the problem. Advisory is $2,500 per month and Lead plus delivery is $5,000 per month over an initial 90 days. For some organizations a single retained major donor or a grant report completed in days rather than weeks justifies that. For others, a short paid diagnostic is the honest first step before committing.
Some funders offer capacity-building or technology grants that cover consulting and systems work. Whether a specific grant can be used depends on its terms, which your grants manager and finance lead would confirm. We can provide a written scope and measurable outcomes that make a capacity-building request easier to write and report on.
Usually not. Most frustration with Bloomerang, DonorPerfect, Raiser's Edge or Salesforce comes from messy data, inconsistent entry and broken integrations rather than the platform itself. We would clean and configure what you have first. If a switch is justified, we would build the case and the migration plan before you sign a new contract.
AI can help draft from approved material, such as program descriptions, outcomes data and past proposals, which saves time on first drafts and reformatting. Your staff still write the parts that require judgment and voice, check every figure, and approve the final version. Funders and donors are trusting your organization, not a tool, so a person always signs off.
We would treat client and beneficiary data as off limits for AI tools unless there is a clear purpose, consent and a tool with appropriate data terms. A typical first step is separating what is safe to use, such as anonymized outcomes, from what must stay inside your case management system. Your staff and board set those boundaries.
In 30 minutes we look at one recurring workflow, what it costs you today and whether there is a credible case to improve it. If there is not, we will say so.
30 minutes with Phil or Martin. No technical brief, no pitch deck. Phil or Martin replies personally, usually within one business day.