First Place for Youth is proud to be featured in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, sharing what we learned from piloting an AI tool designed to lighten the administrative load on our direct-service staff.

Like most nonprofits, we’re often stretched thin, with limited time and resources to explore new technology — even when that technology could make a real difference for our teams and the young people we serve. When we had the opportunity to join an AI accelerator built specifically for economic-mobility nonprofits, we jumped at it.

The result was Note Ninja, an internal tool that lets staff talk or type through what happened during a meeting with a young person and receive back a streamlined summary — formatted in a case-management framework, with key focus areas and next steps ready to go. With 78% of our staff working in direct service, reducing time spent on paperwork means more time and energy for the relationships that matter most.

We piloted the tool with a small group of staff and learned a lot along the way — about what worked, where we still need to be thoughtful (like data privacy and cost-efficient scaling), and how to build staff buy-in for new tools from day one.

Read the full story on The Chronicle of Philanthropy: We Used AI to Ease Staff Burnout. Here’s What We Learned.

Related Content