AI Workshops for Nonprofits | 90-Minute Hands-On Training | Digismart

AI Workshops for Nonprofits

From AI confusion
to real grant drafts,
donor letters, and board reports.

A 90-minute hands-on workshop built for nonprofit teams. Your staff leaves using AI on the work that actually fills their week — appeals, reports, social posts, volunteer comms — not theoretical examples from a slide deck.

Data privacy, covered. We walk through what should never go into an AI tool — donor data, beneficiary records, anything HIPAA-adjacent. Your organization’s information stays yours.

90 minutes · In-person or online · From $950 for nonprofits · Recording & handout included

GRANT Draft LOI for Knight Foundation DONOR EMAIL Q4 appeal — first draft in 8 minutes S SET M MAKE A ARCHITECT R REFINE T TIGHTEN PROMPT — DONOR THANK-YOU ✓ READY MJ DR AL KP YOUR STAFF — UP TO ~25 90 MIN

Recent engagements across the U.S.

Including a Miami youth-mentoring nonprofit, a regional United Way chapter, a national arts-education org, and a community foundation in the Upper Midwest.

  • United Way Marquette County
  • Arts for Kids Inc
  • Teens of Color Abroad
  • MTOC
  • WSCN

WHY THIS WORKSHOP

Your team is already stretched. AI shouldn’t be one more thing to figure out alone.

Most nonprofit staff we meet are running three roles at once. Someone’s writing the grant, drafting the appeal, posting on socials, prepping the board deck, and answering volunteer emails — sometimes all in the same morning. AI could take real hours off that week, but only if people know how to actually use it.

Ninety minutes, hands-on, with a simple framework and real examples from your work — your appeals, your programs, your reports — and most teams leave using AI the same afternoon. Not theoretical. Not a keynote. A working session built for the way nonprofits actually operate.

What your team walks away with

Four concrete outcomes. Not “AI awareness.” Not vibes.

AI Workshop from Digismart — hands-on session with nonprofit teams

A working mental model of AI

Beyond the headlines, beyond the hype. What these tools actually are, what they’re good at, and where they’ll embarrass you if you let them. The grounding everything else builds on.

The SMART prompting framework

A repeatable five-step method for asking AI for things in a way that gets useful answers on the first try. Set, Make, Architect, Refine, Tighten. They take it home in a one-page handout.

2–3 real use cases for their actual job

Donor thank-yous, grant LOIs, board summaries, social posts, program reports — whatever fills their week. They build the prompts during the session, not afterward.

Confidence to start using it Monday morning

The biggest blocker isn’t capability — it’s the “where do I even start” wall. By the end of the workshop, that wall is gone. People know the next move when they sit back down at their desk.

PRIMARY OUTCOME

Your team stops being afraid of the blinking cursor — and starts treating AI like a teammate they can actually delegate to. That shift, in a single afternoon, is what the workshop is for.

90 min
to a team comfortable using AI on real work
3–6 hrs
typical weekly time savings reported within 30 days
1 framework
your whole staff shares — instead of everyone reinventing it

Built around the work nonprofits actually do

We don’t run generic exercises. We run yours. Here are some of the use cases teams build during the workshop:

FUNDRAISING

First-draft grant LOIs

Pull from your case-for-support and turn a funder’s prompt into a workable first draft in 10 minutes — instead of staring at a blank page for two hours.

FUNDRAISING

Donor thank-you letters

Personalized acknowledgments at scale, in your voice — not the awkward template that makes major donors feel like a number on a spreadsheet.

FUNDRAISING

Annual appeal copy

Headlines, body copy, subject lines, P.S. lines — variations to test, ready in minutes instead of the afternoon-long writing block.

COMMUNICATIONS

Newsletter drafts from staff interviews

Turn a 20-minute call with a program manager into a clean, on-voice newsletter draft — with the human stories the team always says they wish they had time to tell.

COMMUNICATIONS

Social media variations

One announcement, reformatted for Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and email — in your tone, with the right length and call-to-action for each.

REPORTING

Board reports & program summaries

Turn raw program data and field notes into the executive summary your board chair actually reads. Same content, half the time, twice the clarity.

OPERATIONS

Volunteer onboarding emails

Welcome sequences, role briefs, scheduling reminders — written once with AI, then reused and personalized for every new cohort.

OPERATIONS

Funder reports & grant follow-ups

Outcomes data + your program narrative → a funder-ready interim or final report draft. Then the program officer just edits, instead of writing from scratch.

PROGRAMS

Translating materials

Quick, decent-quality first drafts in Spanish, Haitian Creole, or whatever language your community speaks — for review by a native speaker on staff.

We pick the 2–3 that match your team during the intake call. Whatever they actually do every week — that’s what they practice on.

What we cover in the 90 minutes

Four topics. Tight pacing. No filler.

1

How to think about AI (beyond the hype)

What these tools actually are, what they’re good at, and what they’re bad at. A quick mental model so the rest of the session lands. Especially useful for the EDs and board members who keep getting asked “are we using AI yet?”

2

Why AI is a communication skill — not a technical one

The people who get the best results aren’t engineers. They’re the ones who can explain what they want clearly. This is the part that lands hardest for nonprofit teams who think “I’m not a tech person” — because it turns out, that’s not the bar.

3

The SMART framework: Set → Make → Architect → Refine → Tighten

A repeatable five-step method for building prompts that get useful answers on the first try. The backbone of the session — and the one-pager every participant takes home.

4

Live, step-by-step prompt building

Watching it happen on real tasks — your tasks. Then doing it themselves. We use the use cases from your intake call so the practice feels like work, not a contrived demo.

Tools we work with

We work with ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini — whichever fits your team’s needs and budget. Most nonprofits start with the free tiers and upgrade only when the value is obvious. We’ll show you what each one’s good for, and what the differences actually mean for the way your team works.

THE HANDS-ON HALF

Progressive Prompting Exercise

Participants build prompts in real time using the SMART framework — starting vague, then layering in specifics. They see the difference between a vague ask and a high-quality ask instantly, on their own screen, with their own work.

This is the part people remember six months later. The “oh — that’s how you talk to it” moment.

VAGUE PROMPT

“Write a thank-you letter for a donor.”

SMART PROMPT

“You’re writing for [Org Name], a youth-mentoring nonprofit in Miami. Draft a 200-word thank-you to Maria, who just gave $500 — her third gift this year. Reference our Saturday programs. Warm, specific, no jargon. Sign-off from our ED, Carla. Three subject-line options at the top.”

Same task. Wildly different output.

Delivery & format

Designed to fit a nonprofit calendar — not blow it up.

90 minutes

Long enough to do real work. Short enough to fit between a board call and pickup.

In-person or online

Whichever works for your team. Both formats are 50–70% hands-on.

Handout pack

SMART one-pager, prompt library tailored to your use cases, follow-up checklist.

Recording included

So new hires and absent staff don’t have to start from zero. Re-watch anytime.

Nonprofit pricing

A reduced rate, because we know how nonprofit budgets actually work.

MOST BOOKED

NONPROFIT RATE

From
$950

One 90-minute session, up to ~25 participants live. Recording, handout, and SMART one-pager included. Same workshop, reduced rate.

BOOK A WORKSHOP →

DEEPER ENGAGEMENT

Talk to us
Custom

Multi-session series, train-the-trainer for larger nonprofits, or a follow-up implementation block 4–6 weeks after the first session.

SCOPE A PROGRAM →

Fees can be adapted depending on scope, format, and context. If budget is tight, tell us — we’ll figure something out. We’ve never let budget be the reason a mission-aligned org doesn’t get this training.

WHO IT’S FOR

Nonprofit teams who want AI to be practical — not theoretical.

Development directors. Communications staff. Program managers. EDs and operations people. The full-time staff and the part-time staff. The board members who keep asking about it.

Especially good for organizations where:

  • Half the team is quietly using ChatGPT and the other half feels behind
  • Someone keeps saying “we should be using AI” — but nobody’s been shown how
  • The communications calendar is always slipping because writing eats the week
  • You’ve tried a webinar or a YouTube video and it didn’t translate to the actual job
  • You want one shared language across staff so people stop reinventing the wheel
  • You’d rather invest in skills than software subscriptions you won’t fully use

WHO THIS IS NOT FOR

Honest about who shouldn’t book this.

We’d rather tell you up-front than have a session that doesn’t land. If any of these match, let’s talk about a different fit — or a different provider — instead.

  • Solo or 2-person nonprofits — usually better served by a 1:1 coaching session, not a group format
  • Orgs looking for a keynote speaker or inspirational talk — this is a working session, not a stage performance
  • Teams that need a full enterprise AI strategy and policy framework before any training — that’s a different engagement (we offer it, but it’s not this)
  • Staff with no time to practice afterward — without 30 minutes a week post-workshop, the muscle won’t form
  • Organizations expecting AI to replace headcount — we teach AI as a teammate, not a substitute for staff

WHO RUNS IT

John Frydman

John Frydman

John Frydman is the founder of Digismart, with 20+ years in digital. He’s been in the room since the early commercial web — building one of the first online travel agencies, then helping brands and organizations adapt as the technology kept changing underneath them.

Today, through Digismart, he helps small businesses and nonprofits apply AI to improve processes, streamline workflows, and get more done with the same teams. He focuses on turning new technologies into practical, everyday tools people actually use to do their best work.

He’s run this workshop for development teams, ED-and-board combos, communications departments, and full-staff retreats. The format adapts. The goal doesn’t: leave with people actually using it.

Common questions

Is 90 minutes really enough?
It’s enough to get your team using AI on real nonprofit work, which is the hard part. It’s not enough to make anyone an expert — nobody claims that. The point is to get over the “where do I start” wall in one sitting, with a framework people can keep getting better with. Most teams that want to go deeper book a follow-up 4–6 weeks later, once everyone’s had time to use what they learned.
Do we need to prep anything beforehand?
Almost nothing. Participants should bring a laptop and access to one AI tool (ChatGPT free is fine). We’ll ask you a few questions on the intake call — what your team works on, what’s draining their week, what use cases would matter most — so the examples during the workshop are from your world, not generic ones.
What if half our team is already using AI and half isn’t?
That’s the most common mix, and the workshop is built for it. The framework is new to everyone — even daily users usually don’t have a structured way of prompting. The people already using AI often get the most out of it, because they finally have a shared language with their teammates and stop being the lone “AI person” on staff.
Can you tailor it to a specific function — fundraising, comms, programs?
Yes. The 90-minute format stays the same, but we shape the examples and the hands-on exercise around the team. Development team? We’ll focus on appeals, donor letters, and grant LOIs. Comms team? Newsletters, social, press. Mixed group? We pick a use case from each function so everyone has something to take home. Tell us during intake.
What about data privacy — donor info, beneficiary data, etc.?
We cover this directly. There are concrete rules nonprofit staff should follow about what to put into a public AI tool — and what not to. We give your team a simple, practical guideline (not a 40-page policy) they can apply Monday morning. If your org has a more formal AI use policy in the works, we can align with it; if not, the workshop gives you a starting point.
In-person or Zoom — does it matter?
Both work. In-person has slightly better energy for the hands-on portion because people look over each other’s shoulders, which is useful. Zoom works well for distributed teams or staff working from multiple sites. We’ll tell you if we think your team would be better served one way or the other.
Can our board attend?
Yes — and we’d encourage it for at least one or two members. Board members who’ve sat through the workshop tend to ask better questions, push less hype, and support staff better when AI use comes up at meetings. We’ve had EDs tell us the board changing the conversation was worth the workshop fee on its own.
What if our budget is tight right now?
Tell us. We’ve adapted scope, format, and timing to make it work for organizations of every size — from two-person nonprofits to multi-program agencies. The published price is the typical price; the actual price depends on what you can do. We’ve never said no over a budget conversation.
What if we want to go further afterward?
Some teams book a follow-up session focused on a specific function. Some move into an AI Audit to map out where automation could save real hours across the org. Some take what they learned and run with it for 6–12 months before doing anything else — and that’s a great outcome too. There’s no pressure and no upsell during the session. The workshop is the workshop.

BOOK THE WORKSHOP

Ninety minutes. Hands-on. Your nonprofit team actually using AI by the end of it.

Start with a quick intake call — we’ll scope the session, confirm a date, and adapt the examples to your team’s actual work.

BOOK A WORKSHOP →
✓ 90 minutes, 50–70% hands-on✓ SMART framework handout✓ Recording included✓ Nonprofit rate from $950