I don't suppose you have experience with how badly small non-profits are fucked by every tech consultancy they ever work with? They are paying for a service at the very top of their budget, and receiving services perceived from the bottom, as almost "pro bono" by the consultancy, via intern labour.
They all have PTSD from the status quo.
Getting nonprofits into AI that feels even marginally more self-serve, that is a step forward. Again, even if it just feels more agentic, that's a step forward -- maybe even if they end up screwing things up more in the process -- because the lack agency with their tech is so demoralizing in the sector
I used to volunteer for an animal shelter doing IT stuff. They didn't really have much money, and what they had they needed for actual, real-world problems like buying dog food and paying vet's fees etc.
They ran on ancient hand-me down Windows PCs, with a donated HP server, fully on-prem. The MS licences they got from some government/MS program for free (not sure).
It was kinda crappy, but it did the job, there were some databases, Active Directory, some CRUD stuff to manage the internal workings of the shelter, and a locally hosted website.
But it cost nothing to run besides the electricity, and it did the job.
If we were to replicate the same system on top of SOTA AWS hardware, it would cost thousands of dollars per month, which would be a significant part of their operating budget.
Considering how much they actually needed every cent, I shudder at the thought.
Eh, I bet an intern with AI could build some internal tooling stuff for the non-profit that they use for years. Same as they’ve been using, unedited, that one Excel sheet someone wrote in 1995.
They all have PTSD from the status quo.
Getting nonprofits into AI that feels even marginally more self-serve, that is a step forward. Again, even if it just feels more agentic, that's a step forward -- maybe even if they end up screwing things up more in the process -- because the lack agency with their tech is so demoralizing in the sector