 Welcome to the nonprofit show thrilled to have you back here today our guest is none other than Trevor skill in he's joining us from Canada with foundation search and Trevor is here to talk to us about AI artificial intelligence and really understanding chat GPT and your nonprofit so Trevor we're excited to have you and I will ask you to share more about yourself in just a moment but for those of you that have joined us hopefully we're not new but today might look a little different because we are launching the nonprofit tech talk really you know here with Trevor's conversation so we're still the same Julia Patrick is here she's the CEO at the American nonprofit Academy and I'm Jared ransom I'm still your nonprofit nerd excuse me CEO of the Raven group and I am excited to nerd out over this conversation on today's nonprofit tech talk hey we also want to say thank you and extend our gratitude to our amazing presenting sponsors many whom I will see in just a couple of days in New Orleans for AFP icon but I want to extend again a huge shout out to our friends at Bloomerang American nonprofit Academy fundraising Academy at National University nonprofit thought leader your part-time controller nonprofit nerd and staffing boutique thank you so very much to these companies you know they invest Julia to our conversations to this platform but I really like to remind our viewers across the globe they invest in you your mission your organization and your community so please do check them out because they're here to help you with their help we have produced nearly 800 episodes and we are still growing so you can find us on streaming platforms podcast platforms so video audio however you like to consume that but wait there's more because I still love that good ShamWow commercial you can download the app we are on a both smart you know all smart phones so android iphone whatever that might look like so go ahead and download the nonprofit show app and you will get this recording of today's show here with Trevor in just a few hours so thank you for that Trevor again welcome those of you watching those of you listening Trevor skillen CEO foundation metasoft systems and foundation search welcome Trevor thank you very much I'm happy to be here Jared and Julia and excited to talk about some of the exciting things happening in AI and how we're responding to it and to take all of your questions and hopefully give you good answers yeah well we have a lot to cover and a little bit of time but would you do us the favor and share a little bit with us about foundation search so that we have at least that baseline of who you are and your knowledge in this arena good happened to do that so we've been in business a long time 88 we've been in the nonprofit sector with digital products since 1995 so pre-internet and our first digital product came out on a cd rom exactly what what was that that's my that's my time came out of the sea it was the dark ages everything came out on the cd rom and I think that lasted about 10 months and this new thing called the internet gave along and we weren't quite sure what to make of it but we thought well let's just get our product take the cd rom copied over to a website so we spent an afternoon building website and we were we were online in an afternoon wow it wasn't a pretty was not a pretty product but I think that is agility I mean that is tenacity innovation and agility right so was the screen still dark and the font was yellow um well I'll tell you I did all the graphics you can imagine how bad that was no if you want to I'll go back to way back and show you why I'm not a graphic artist but get the information out there to people and the wonderful thing you know we found about the web immediately was that you could be experimental the way that you can't be when you're publishing a product and you know putting an envelope when shipping it out to something you can't once it's been shipped but with the web you can throw all sorts of stuff up and say hey what do you think is this something that is valuable to you do you like it anything you don't like about it so we continue to use the web in that way and and sort of it's the the spirit of innovation that I think is allowed by the web that's so powerful for for developers and for clients too that can provide feedback we can get typically you know hundred pieces of feedback every day from our clients about what they like what they don't like other ideas so this is really a a community built product foundation search itself is as a name says a product that helps organizations identify appropriate funders for their causes in not both Canada and the U.S. so we catalog about 210,000 funders in in North America typically foundations but corporate sources as well and we also have a database of 325 it keeps changing 325,000 nonprofits so it's a it's a large body of information about the nonprofit sector that is fully searchable and easily used wow amazing well you know it's it's a you talked about your legacy and your journey within the digital space and how you know you've navigated new ideas and new products and new delivery methods and one of those things that I think is so fascinating and we talked about this in the green room chatter is that the nonprofit sector is just woefully behind the times when it comes to embracing or adopting new technology and we Jared and I see this all the time it's one of our big things that we've talked about from the beginning from the very first day of the nonprofit show and this new thing of chat gpt has come up it is it is like it's just revolutionary how you can use it everybody's talking about it and yet the nonprofit sector is kind of stepped back a little bit some are going forward so paint the picture what is chat gpt sure ones will happy to do that so chat gpt is a well it starts from modest beginnings basically a chat bot something that that talks to you answers questions and in English format so I think the real appeal you know to us and our users we've had it integrated into a foundation search for three weeks now we've had thousands of interactions and the feedback is that you know people are loving the fact that they can interact you know with with an intelligent piece of software and in a very natural way I think most people naturally compare it to google and they find that searching for things and ending up with lists of hits certainly is helpful but you know asking a question and getting a natural language answer in whatever level of detail you want is certainly more attractive and certainly more appealing to at least our customers the majority of our customers I personally love it right like I remember hearing about it and thinking what you know what is this and then really thinking about how AI has integrated and and really just like found its way in the nonprofit actually when we chatted Trevor and ironically I'm going to New Orleans for the AFP icon coming up but last year's icon conference in Las Vegas I realized AI was there right artificial intelligence was there it was on the floor it was being talked about and you know it has showed up also on nonprofits websites by way of the donor page you know where we go on to the donor donation page and it automatically based off of my information from my search engines will provide a suggested donation amount right so it's been there and I'm really hearing more and more about it and I'm just excited because we do we nonprofit leaders do so much with so little so little time so little money and I think that AI and where it's stepping into the space is really going to help us can you talk to us you know about the future of what AI looks like and again you know I keep saying AI but it's it is artificial intelligence and talk to us from what you've seen Trevor of the future of AI and how it's going to impact organizations in the nonprofit sector wonderful wonderful so let me just sort of back up a little bit about chat GPT and say you know the great thing about it is that something you can use right away and be productive with right away doesn't take excuse me any training at all and so what we're noticing is when we've had about 4000 questions through through AI and and people are being very applied about how to use it right away with no training and that's that's that's to me the holy grail of technologies you know you should just be able to sit down and use it you shouldn't be a programmer you shouldn't have to take a course and so people are saying write write me a letter of inquiry to this foundation looking for this amount of money for you know this cause this outcome and and they're getting wonderful output so I so I think you can sit down in 30 seconds get immediate benefit from using a tool like this so I think that's the strong appeal for nonprofits I believe and so you know I think that's not just true nonprofits but there've been 100 million users adopting this technology in the last eight weeks so so I think that's what's creating the incredible bonds and and excitement so where's this all going well with with with chat GPT specifically we're going to see sort of rapid introduction new versions so our particular implementations on chat GPT 3.5 we're finding it's right 85% of the time the other 15% of the time it's making up fantasy answers so so let's be honest humans do that too right like it's not just yeah and you know I think that's the issue of stewardship it's like if you're you know in programming and you have a report that comes through it is still incumbent upon you to check and verify that data to make sure that whatever is being delivered is accurate just like when you get monthly reports you know from the accounting department from development it's not like we're just sitting back and this work is getting done there's still a stewardship impact here I think it's even more stringent yeah I think so somebody described there's one of our support people said a client described this is having a really bright enthusiastic communications intern that writes a thousand words per minute doesn't get sick doesn't cost you that much but yeah you know who's work you have to check very carefully so I think that's a really good description I like that yes I love that and I think yeah so I think things move forward with chat specifically version 4 is out now it is you know literally a thousand times more powerful than 3.5 and chat GPT 5 is supposed to be out by the end of the year so we're going to see very rapid advances in the you know quality of information that it has access to and its answers and the complexity of you know response and what you can achieve so we're already experimenting with this technology in terms of having it right parts of our code in our products so our dev team is quite busy these days looking at all the various use cases and I think just to talk about you know how a non-profit might use this I think the key is what problems I'm having with writing communication and just make a list of the things that you know take time are causing problems that you know the resources for and I mean that's what we're working on with our clients we're working on building a focal process automatically which is a major roadblock for non-profits to the lack of resources to fundraise to identify appropriate organizations to apply to to respond to all their information requirements we think AI and tools like chat are going to provide all sorts of opportunities to do much more with the same number of people yeah you know we it's interesting we have a former guest who's come on josh from yearly who's written in and yearly is a fascinating company because they help non-profits produce their annual reports and they he's written in he's like you know we're using this to to write annual report content but he mirrored the exact same thing that you said and that is yes still have to work it you still need that and he uses the word you know human touch you've got that's not going to go away and so I think in in our sector there's still and I use the word stewardship there's still this factor just like we wouldn't bring on a brand new employee and say go get on buster I mean you gotta have oversight and yeah question no question and there's a whole there's a whole discipline and it's called you know prompt analytics which which you know really teaches you how to frame questions properly so you get the right answers or the answers that you'd like to get out of the you know out of the tool so and that is not surprisingly you know detailed instructions about what you want what format how many words what you want to look like and I think like everything else let's say managing your journey you need to be quite specific about what you want to get a quality result out so we're actually compiling a list of what we think are going to be very useful resources for nonprofits specifically in terms of using tools like this based on the feedback we're getting from our clients uh uh you know how they're forming that in requests so um I can make that available to anybody that wants it afterwards like I can give you a web address uh that to email me personally I'll make sure our support teams can get with any client non-client but it's available for free I think uh hopefully it'll help people make better use of these sorts of tools yeah Trevor I'm I'm curious if you would be willing to answer this very um I don't know direct but leadership question when AI came to the forefront in conversation and you as the CEO could you share with us how those conversations went about integrating it into your platform because I'm curious if it was like absolutely we're gonna adopt this or was there some pushback um you know and and what was that timeline of you saying yes you your team saying yes and then implementing it would you be willing to share like you know a little bit about that I had so I'll put my bias on the table I've always lived on the bleeding edge I like technology um I started out lives as a software engineer so um things like this I said I'm a christmas presence under the tree for me so so my bias is to use things but um to you obviously use things that are also useful so so uh how did I hear about this um so a technology friend last August uh told me about this cool new tool called chat gpt I thought it was just a chat box he said no you better download it so I downloaded a product called genie uh out of the app store and um I began to ask it a bunch of questions generally uh but things I knew to see how accurate it was um uh in terms of things I knew so I asked about my company about me so I knew um it was right most of the time uh was very creative the balance of the time and so so I thought okay this is interesting technology it's easy to use um you know I find a lot of our clients when I when I start to look at our product would want a more natural interface and in terms of getting information they they don't want to do boolean queries and fill in selector boxes and filters uh so this might be a really good tool for people who uh uh you know don't want to uh uh you know be too technical and we we uh you know obviously we're in the technical business so we thought this is a very natural interface that will give people answers to questions and and produce the things they need um you know blogs and reports and letters of the empire and everything else that uh we have a professional services team they routinely ask us to do for them so um so that's that really was kind of the the go-no-go decision uh sitting at home just spending a few hours and saying this is really cool technology we think you can deliver a lot of benefit to our clients uh we're not exactly sure how they're going to use it but we have some ideas and and so that's usually the um the test we put things through that we can we can easily implement it get it up if you need to take it down if it doesn't work uh or cause us problems but um we rarely do that and so when it's easy to put technology out there and ask people for their opinion um that's usually the right thing to do for companies like like ours and uh we've got a great tech team that's also very excited about new technology and getting feedback as well so um uh so that that really is what drove our decision it's it's uh not a hard decision to make as I say when you're shipping things and in discs then you take a little bit more time to think about the implications of what you're shipping because you can't take it back but with the web we can take it all down say thank you for your feedback it was a bad idea uh we all learned something here so I've done that once so uh and so that's what drives our innovation is client feedback quick deployments and listening carefully what people have to say so um so the feedback is always very interesting because we're not fundraisers um professionally so we we don't know you know uh what's going to benefit people uh so does that answer your question it does and I really appreciate you know you sharing that because the thing that Julie and I have noticed over the last three years is the nonprofits that are being extremely successful or have seen the greatest success have been the ones to adopt something anything early you know be nimble right like make a decision implement it um and and I really appreciate you sharing that because as a leader I think it's often you know we don't get the opportunity to ask that question so I appreciate you you answering that well let's let's move us um Julia into you know how do we stay current because if there's a lot going on and you mentioned there's a 4.0 or a 5.0 coming from chat gpt by the end of this year there's a lot of happening right so how do we keep current and what should we be looking for uh yeah that's that's a great question so I think they're all sorts of discussion groups um we're developers so we are you know plugged into github and and then our brothers develop our websites forums uh co-chairing sites so we we naturally see what people are doing what they're talking about uh you know we go under the vendor sites themselves open AI is a great source of information um I think um um google certainly we google all the time uh I'm plugged into a bunch of news feeds um I think a lot of the information is not specific uh with regard to technology to nonprofits and I think as I say we're we're compiling a resource list of sites and and uh uh locations where people can get regular feeds uh and I will make that available I think uh because you know nonprofits do have very specific needs and um I think uh that would be something that is beneficial to do we we typically share this with our customers via blog uh or other sorts of news alerts I think you received one of them um so we're happy to share that with with your audience and that's yeah of course free of charge and uh uh we can update that uh we typically update it on a monthly basis uh so people could keep current with any new new information new sites that we found it seems to me that we do need to be thinking um um forward about or at least receptive to new ideas and um I you said something really interesting it's like once a month if we at least dedicate some time once a month to like what's new and what's popping not that we have to run out there and jump on that bandwagon but to at least understand the vocabulary and the possibility I agree yeah I don't have to come back every month you can five minutes I'll tell you everything has changed every month I'm happy to do that for you careful we might hold you to that right with our nonprofit tech talk I'm happy to do that it'd be uh be my honor to do that actually it's a good way to get the information out as well and uh so just say the word I love it it's so important and I just think it's also Jared I mean you and I have said this so gosh so often now for three going on into our fourth year um that we really need to be um in the across the sector more open to new ideas and technology um we're so far behind and and it's really interesting Jared because we work in such a scarcity mode and and like chat gbt can really be a solution for that nonprofit that is struggling with just managing your tasks oh yeah you know and you know there there's so much out there we have another former guest uh you're very popular Trevor our former guests are showing up to hear from you um you know at Cardana saying that they're using AI to calculate the donor specific impact with each car donation so each vehicle donation that's made so really looking at how you know technology can drive can drive innovation and you know I personally have used it on so many things um ironically there is an email I needed to respond to I wasn't pleased when I received the email I was you know pretty full of emotion and so I copied the email I put it in chat gbt and I see respond to this favorably very good no that's that's a really good way to do it there's no question so yeah I think the I think possibilities are endless the use cases are all there and it's just up to our imaginations inside what to do with the product and I um I try to inspire people say what are your three biggest problems and and then try to work out technology solution into addressing those uh it's it's always a great question to ask anybody because it's non-technical non-threatening and and then you know it's up to the technologists to say well how can we remove you know as much of that irritation that'll solve as many of these problems as we as we can and I think that hasn't changed I think in technology you always have to look at tech that way uh although it's cool it has to do something for you ultimately it does easy to get lost in the weeds when you're a technologist so oh my gosh I love it hey Trevor this has really been a lot of fun you know again for those of you are regular viewers if you're watching us you know things might look a little different on the screen but this is one of our new products that we're doing just like we do the non-profit thought leader this is called non-profit tech talk and when we find something that we think is really a value to our sector that specifically addresses something within uh tech we want to be able to bring our viewers along for this discussion and this journey so Trevor thank you you're actually kind of you're our first person that we've had on for non-profit tech talks so this is really really fun you can find yeah it's been great I've learned a lot from you um check out trevor's company foundationsearch.com you have a lot of amazing articles and you'll see the different things that they're doing and uh really a great way to kind of understand how you and your non-profit might be able to be thinking about things in a different way again really interesting conversation I am so fortunate that I get to be here day in and day out I'm Julia Patrick CEO of the American Non-profit Academy been joined by the non-profit nerd herself Jarrett Ransom CEO of the Raven group the non-profit nerd will be at AFP icon broadcasting live on Monday and Tuesday of next week at the Bloomerang booth so yeah Bloomerang come find me so come find her it's going to be live um during the the the showroom you know floor area we we are so fortunate our amazing partners at Bloomerang actually have dedicated a space for us to produce our shows there Mike Geiger who is the CEO of AFP international is going to kick off the show at you know on the non-profit show he's going to kick off his show icon at the non-profit show we'll have a bunch of surprise guests that come by if you are at icon stop by introduce yourself to Jarrett and be part of the conversation it's going to be a lot of fun Jarrett came back last year so profoundly um smarter smarter but I remember Jarrett you were like looking across the show floor and you were like Julia it's all tech it was all technology them I would say 90% right yeah yeah it's going to be really fun to hear what you have to say what our guests coming by the booth are going to have to say um they're going to be courses they're going to be all sorts of things that are going on cocktail parties luncheons it's a whole thing so we hope to see you at AFP icon next week it'll be a lot of fun hey again our thanks to our sponsors Blumerang American non-profit academy your part-time controller non-profit thought leader fundraising academy at national university the non-profit nerd and staffing boutique these are the folks that join us day in and day out as we move towards our 800th episode most of these folks have been with us from the very get-go and so again we want to say thank you to all of them Jarrett travel safe my friend it's going to be a lot of fun uh to see you in action in norlands to get your commentary from uh guests and viewers and so I'm really looking forward to it me too and uh we did have a another question come in so all of our episodes are recorded so if you missed the first part of today's episodes with Trevor um or you want to share it and just go back and listen again uh we stream these uh broadcast so many of the most of the streaming platforms we're also on podcast and then we now have an app so go to your app store ask for the non-profit show uh this conversation plus all of our 700 plus plus plus conversations are on all of those platforms so we're here for you um free consumption right uh thanks to our sponsors and thanks to our guests like Trevor who joined us today uh to to really just you know share his valuable time and expertise when it comes to artificial intelligence in the non-profit space so thank you Trevor thank you very much I appreciate the invite it's been a lot of fun hey everybody as we'd like to end every episode of the non-profit show we want to remind ourselves and our community across this non-profit sector to stay well so you can do well thank you so much Trevor