From Acquisition to Adoption: How TechSoup and GTIA Are Empowering Nonprofits Through AI

Speaker A: Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Charity Charge Show. Today we have a really exciting episode for y'.

Speaker B: All.

Speaker A: We are joined by both Adam Eads of TechSoup and Kelly Ricker of the Global Technology association for IT Channel Leaders, otherwise known as GTIA. We are talking as they have collaborated with a really exciting grant to enable nonprofits to, uh, get connected with some of the really exciting tools that TechSoup has available for nonprofits. Adam, Kelly, thank you so much for coming on today.

Speaker C: Thanks for having us.

Speaker A: Well, Kelly, I know that this grant is fundamental. Can you maybe set the stage a little bit about the mission of, uh, GTIA and how y' all serve your community?

Speaker B: Sure. Well, we are, um, a foundation within a 501c6 trade association. So that trade association serves the indirect IT sales channel. Our members have let us know that charitable giving is very important to them. We are in the fortunate position of having a significant endowment. And so we have, um, started and stood up a, ah, 501c3 private foundation and just started giving within that foundation, um, in 2025. We do it in three ways. Give back. We roll up our sleeves and give back. In the local communities where we meet and gather. As an organization and as an industry, we, uh, do direct donations through our members. They have an opportunity to nominate and then select specific charities to receive a certain allowance of funds every year. And then we have our grants program. And that's how we came to know the TechSoup guys and their awesome proposal to teach other nonprofits how to leverage AI to better maximize their impact. And we were very pleased to be able to provide some funding to let them do that.

Speaker A: That's incredible. And on that note, Adam, tell me a little bit about broadly what TechSoup's mission is and then this specific program that you are the, uh, directing right now and kind of what you're looking to achieve.

Speaker C: Yeah, sure. TechSoup. Uh, put simply, we are also a nonprofit ourselves. We've been in, uh, in operation for, I believe, 38 years now. We're coming up on our. The end of our fourth decade here. We've been along, we've been enough that, you know, we used to mail floppy disks to people and had, um, a warehouse full of them. And then that obviously program key went by the. Yeah, exactly. Went on to program keys and downloadable software, and now even that is a little bit outdated for the most part. And m. Most of the technology that people are accessing, um, isn't software as much as. As cloud, subscription and access to platforms. And so you know, we've been around for, for quite a while. We've seen a lot of evolution in the technology sector and a lot of evolution in the nonpro sector. And we sit in this really interesting position, I think, where we get to operate as sort of a translator for both of those two communities. So we help the nonprofit sector, um, to understand their, their technology roadmap or their challenges and help them approach those challenges. And we also help, you know, our corporate partners understand the challenges of the nonprofit sector. I mean, there are, you know, there are kind of every, every organization is its own unique snowflake and has its own characteristics, but there are these broad themes we see with nonprofits that you wouldn' see so much in the private sector with, with larger companies. And I think, um, very often our tech partners, you know, the Microsoft's, the Adobes, the Googles, don't necessarily have a line of sight into what those unique challenges are. And so we're able to help kind of articulate in both directions, which is a really nice place for us to sit.

Speaker A: That's incredible. And then from What I understand, TechSoup plus really sits in this niche where it's kind of helping enable the nonprofits that you serve to actually kind of understand, educate themselves and actually use these technologies to their full capabilities.

Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. TechSoup is a relatively recent initiative for us, and it's really answering for something that we have been seeing for some time. Especially, uh, you know, this became especially acute during the pandemic. But like I said, we've been helping to unlock the, or remove the barrier of acquisition of the technology for a very long time. And what we've come to realize over the last decade is that it's not just the acquisition of the technology, of the technology, but the adoption of the technology. So, you know, it's very easy to, you know, download the software package onto your machine, but are you using it effectively? Are you using it effectively with all of the other tools that you're using? So TechSoup plus is one of the ways that we're really looking to help organizations unlock that adoption piece and understand not just how to use, like, the things that they're using, but how are other organizations maybe working in similar, you know, in similar sort of mission areas using those, those technologies, and what are the best practices around those that may be unique to those sectors to really be as effective as possible. And so we're building a community within TechSoup Plus. And through this grant, we're looking to not just expand. We're Looking to expand of course the use of AI and the understanding of AI. But we're also looking at using this to unlock different modes of helping to point people in the right direction for what their kind of most immediate challenges are. Um, so it's a very exciting, it's a very exciting collaboration and it's a great opportunity for us to be able to build out those muscles within the TechSoup+ environment. Um, to really help organizations to you know, take, um, take their digital transformation journey and let's say manageable bite sized pieces as opposed to being overwhelmed by you know, the enormity of, of the task ahead. Um, but really help them take that next step and then the next step after that.

Speaker A: That's incredible. And you know, you mentioned adoption and from what I understand, this collaboration, this Grant, it's enabling 100 new nonprofit organizations to role in TechSoup Plus. Can you tell me what that really means? A non profit comes in day one. They get signed up by the end of maybe one month, three months. What, what are, what is the outcome that you're really looking for?

Speaker C: Yeah, great question. So TechSoup plus is uh, you know, we're so through this grant we're able to add 100 members to our member base which I think is around 2,000 right now. So it's a pretty big, that's incredible increase in the, in the overall membership and the overall community that's, that's congregating there. TechSoup members get access to exclusive online events, so sort of webinars on specific topic areas for discounts on products that they might otherwise purchase. Full access to our on demand courses platform which has over 200 courses. Everything from like how to use Excel the first time to like project management and fundraising. So m, some very like technology specific courses and other other topics. So they kind of get access to this whole environment with, with all of these different benefits and it's up to organizations to sort of determine where the value is for them. What we're trying to develop around this, this, um, starting with AI and hopefully expanding to other areas is helping, helping to kind of surface the thing that is most relevant to an organization. Like I said, what's the kind of next step? So what we, what we didn't want to do was come in and say, okay, we're going to create like a six week course and we're going to kind of require everyone to show up for 90 minutes every Thursday and then there's going to be homework. And what we know about, you know, one of the One of the broad them we see across nonprofits is most nonprofit professionals, and I don't want to disparage anyone that doesn't fit this description, but most nonprofit professionals did not get into their work because they're passionate about the technical aspects of it. Right. Most of them don't have a, uh, strong grounding in those topics. And it's not really a strong area of interest. And yet we still want to make sure that we're able to help them move forward because they're doing something that they're passionate about. Right. They're feeding their community, they're working with domestic violence survivors. They're, you know, whatever, whatever their, their work is, we really want the technology to enable them to do the, do that thing. We don't want them to get bogged down and, you know, try to say, well, we're going to make you into an IT expert or an AI expert. And so what we're working on is a way to help to identify where the, the, the biggest, that, you know, again, that next step, the biggest bang for the buck for that organization. What's the thing that they should really work on? Is it what working on an AI policy. That's a big thing that organizations just by and large have not tackled, but some of them have. So we don't want to create a six week course where, you know, one of the, one of the modules will be how to create your policy. And if you've already created it, you might skip that one, you might not get back on the train. So we really want to help people kind of choose their own adventure a little bit and gravitate towards the things that they're really going to be able to tackle, get something completed, um, and then move on to the next thing and hopefully get that completed as well.

Speaker A: That's amazing. It's about recognizing that every nonprofit's going to be at a different stage of that journey. Right. You know, one nonprofit maybe is launching Excel for the first time for their organization, and another one maybe is, you know, wanting to develop a, you know, support agent to take on, you know, donor requests. And each one of these organizations has a really unique challenge that they're trying to solve and, and hopefully that's something that y' all can assist with no matter what step of that stage they're around.

Speaker C: Yeah, we want to meet people where they're at and we don't want to take away, detract from what they're doing day to day. I mean, the reason that we're bringing them into this program is we think that the work that they're doing in their community is super important. So we don't want to pull them away from that to go learn about something that's maybe not super relevant to them, but we do want to help enable that work.

Speaker A: And now you mentioned, you know, that the people that are signing up for TechSoup plus, they, you know, they're probably not in the space because they want to be doing tech and they want to be doing it. But now, Kelly, that is your organization, your members are IT experts within the field. Can you tell me a little bit about how this grant is really in line with the overall mission and work that GTIA is all about?

Speaker B: Well, I think, you know, our members work to make companies more effective, and that's essentially what TechSoup is doing in the, uh, specific case of nonprofits. So we really like that they are allowing these nonprofits to work smarter, not harder, and spend more time with the people that they stand to impact through their mission versus the operations of their work. It dovetails quite nicely with the work that our members do. And, um, yeah, this just made a whole lot of sense to us. It was a proposal that kind of jumped out of the pile.

Speaker A: That's incredible. And you mentioned, Adam, this tech adoption gap is really kind of this, this aspect that you're looking to solve whenever you're, you know, do you have. Do you have an example that you could maybe share of an organization that maybe had access prior to some of the discounts that, you know, TechSoup offers, but maybe weren't able to fully understand, you know, how they're actually going to use it to, uh, solve a business need in their organization.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I can, I can speak. This is maybe not a specific case study, but, you know, in a, in. In a general sense, something we very often see is organizations who have grown, you know, maybe an organ. A lot of times a nonprofit will start with, like, two people, right? Two people that are really passionate about a thing, and they'll start doing that thing, and then they'll get a foothold in that thing. They'll start to get some momentum, then they'll grow. And so the systems you might set up for those two people, maybe you just have, like, the free Gmail account and, you know, a Facebook page, and you're kind of getting by on that might be appropriate for the, you know, your first six months with two people, but it's probably not going to be appropriate when you get to 10 people and you've been around for two years. And so what very often happens is there's not really forward thinking about what's that technology trajectory that we need to take to map to the growth that we're expecting to have or that we're hoping to have. And so that tends to happen somewhat organically or without, you know, a lot of forethought and planning. And so very often you've got maybe a set of mismatched tools or you bring somebody in who's more of a Microsoft, Microsoft person than a Google person or some people for project management want to use Asana and other people want to use Airtable. And these things are, you know, let you behind the curtain a little bit. We have this at TechSoup, right? We, we use a lot of different tools. People get very excited about different things. And so we're always kind of navigating this tension as well. But for a small organization without, you know, somebody who's in like a CTO role to provide that strategy, looking ahead, that growth in the technology stack usually happens somewhat haphazardly. And so what, what we very often will find is organizations that are, you know, kind of getting to what we might think of as like medium size in their, in their maturity haven't, um, they haven't matched that maturity of, of their organization or their, their, their operations with the maturity in their technology. And so kind of peeling back the layers and saying, okay, well maybe rather than having, you know, some documents, one person puts their documents in Google Drive and the other person's using SharePoint, let's choose one and make sure that all of our systems are kind of aligned into that enterprise level system. You know, where we've got email that's using a custom, ah, domain as opposed to like a kind of free email account. Um, you know, there's security, there's credibility, there's all these other aspects that kind of go with that growth. And I don't think organizations usually don't have the luxury of kind of thinking ahead. So very often what we're, what we're finding with, with nonprofits are they've, they've sort of, they've taken a couple of, I don't want to say wrong turns, but maybe suboptimal turns. And we're just helping them sort of wind back the clock a little bit and say, okay, well let's, let's integrate these tools you have, or maybe take a couple of tools off of the plate because you've got some redundancies you don't need, probably zoom and teams in your Stack maybe you just want to align around the tool. That's going to be the best approach for you. And so that's, that's very often, you know, in a general sense what we see where we're just helping organizations figure out not necessarily how to get more stuff, it's much more often how to better use the stuff that they already have.

Speaker A: And I mean that's the whole ethos of the nonprofit space, right? Is being scrappy, it's being efficient. And it's also because in some ways that's how nonprofits are graded, right? It's like what's the. How are you spending programmatically versus on operations? And uh, it's very incentivized to make that operation side as efficient as possible. And you know, but then some of the investment in helping organizations get there has been lack.

Speaker C: Well, if I can give a shout out to GTI for, for forward thinking on this. I mean I think the philanthropic sector by and large has a lot of um, I don't want to disparage them. They're great people. They have a lot of. There's a lot to learn in terms of what needs to be invested in technology. You know, I think technology very often gets lumped into this category of overhead which for some funders is uh, like a big. No, no. We want to minimize overhead as much as possible. And so I think that a lot of organizations, a lot of grantees adapt to that reality by cutting corners, by skimping on the technology because they've sort of internalized this need to be efficient and be scrappy, but maybe at the expense of being, being uh, you know, strategic in their growth. And so you know, we really, we're constantly putting out the call for more funders to see the need to invest in technology. Investing in technology is not just an extra add on nice to have. It's really investing, you know, if you're investing in an organization to you know, provide meals for, for kids in the summertime for ex. And you don't also think about what are the tech, what's the infrastructure that's going to make that possible, you're really putting the overall investment at risk anyway. So you know we're really, we're constantly. And there are, I want to say there are a lot of very forward thinking funders out there, but I think still in general, I think the latest number that I saw, and this might be a couple of years old, still under 1% of philanthropy goes to technology. So it's not enough. I mean the, the, the Big surprise headline here is technology is expensive, um, and it's not getting any cheaper. And so it just really does require thoughtful investment. And so, you know, shout out to GTIA for. For kind of seeing that as, like, an area where they can really have an impact and. And, um, meet a need that's very commonly unmet.

Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you for that. We had some very intentional discussions about that when we were putting our plan in place, um, because up to very early last year, we were really focused on a lot of programmatic things, whether it was improving digital literacy or skilling people up for jobs, and all of those sound really sexy and great, but we. Somebody on the committee stopped and said, hold on, there's so many good causes out there, and as the technology association, we should really be looking to fund operational grants. And so we did include both programmatic and operational grants in our purview.

Speaker A: And Kelly, I was going to ask, because your background, it's really unique, right? You both sit in, um, the operations seat for the nonprofit association, but also, you know, within this role in the foundation side as well, has that shaped your perspective in terms of, you know, you have that experience and how important the operations is to achieve the mission of a nonprofit and enabling that in the space and how important it is?

Speaker B: Absolutely. I mean, a lot of what Adam was just talking about, the growing pains. I mean, those are growing pains of any organization, right? And so charities are little businesses. So it's a matter of understanding how to run, uh, an efficient, effective operation in order to better fulfill and serve your mission.

Speaker A: Can you talk a little bit? You know, identified. There's still this need, right, in terms of this investment in technology. You, uh, know, if there's another maybe funder or foundation that's listening in. Can you walk me through a little bit of what that thought process looked like internally and really where you were able to align that, hey, an operational grant is something that we want to do and we really want to stand by.

Speaker B: I think it helps that our members do this every day. You know, they are helping organizations work efficiently and better serve their customers or their community or whoever their end user is. So it helps having people at the table who do that every day to say, hold up, let's not forget about that expensive technology, um, line item that Adam mentioned. So, you know, I think it was not an either or. It was a yes. And because people still wanted the opportunity to give to cool projects. You know, if you're helping kids get, uh, you know, early reading programs by, you know, deploying, uh, new Tablets and some new software that we want to be able to fund that. But by the same token, we also want to make an impact in our member communities with the causes that our members care about. And their causes are not always technology centric, but those organizations need technology to better operate. So, yeah, we approached it as a

Speaker A: yes, and that makes complete sense. And it's so funny that, you know, you mentioned it's like, yeah, we're in a room probably of people that are running into the same challenges in their work because even in a for profit, you know, space, oftentimes technology is also still underinvested in. So they're probably looking around. It's like, hey, we see this every single day in my job. I'm sure nonprofits are probably facing something really similar too.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: That's incredible. As you look to, you know, the future and kind of the vision here. Adam, can you speak a little bit to what you hope that this grant is really able to achieve and maybe set the groundwork for something bigger for TechSoup Plus?

Speaker C: Yeah, I think, you know, specific to the AI learning journey, I mean, I think the more that I've been kind of diving into this, and I'm not an AI expert myself, so, you know, I'm kind of, you know, grappling with this in a way that, in the way that a lot of our, um, you know, our constituents are grappling with it. And you know, I do focus a lot on cybersecurity and other programs that I manage at, uh, TechSoup. And what we've really learned about cybersecurity, or I have personally over the last several years, is that it's so much more than, in fact, much more than a kind of adoption of a tool. It's a mindset change, it's a behavior change, it's a cultural change within an organization that's going to put you on solid footing in terms of the security posture. And I think AI with the, with the speed with which things are evolving and changing, I mean, every week the story is different. So, you know, if we put together, you know, that six part series that I told you we're not going to do, by the time it gets out there, it's probably obsolete or a little bit out of date. And so what we really want to focus on is helping organizations embrace what's coming, figure out the parts that are going to be relevant to them. Not try and boil the ocean, but have a bit of a mindset change to kind of, you know, again, not necessarily say, well, now You've got to become a technology expert, but be open to kind of a continuous learning pathway where you're, you're just going to have to keep up on these things a little bit. You know, AI increasingly is not, you know, the, uh, the kind of standalone LLMs that we're all familiar with, like ChatGPT and Claude. Um, but increasingly they're little widgets in the software you're already using. So if you're using Adobe Acrobat and suddenly there's a little AI thing up there, you're like, well, what's that? Do I need to be afraid of that? Can I put some, you know, can I put data in there? Safe, like, you know, and so just being able to kind of, you know, understand what this landscape is, where it is now, where we think it's going. I think it's going to help people follow it along so we don't just teach them. Well, here's what it is in May of 2026. But actually here's how you can kind of keep, keep yourself ahead of the game as m we go forward. And these things kind of change week by week in some cases.

Speaker A: And it makes complete sense, right. That, that's a culture and attitude adjustment, like as you said, right. If you're, if you're teaching to what the current landscape is, it's, it's changing so rapidly. It also, it's a big opportunity. Anybody in the space can really be an AI expert because it's so new. It really is such an emerging technology. Whenever you're talking about this, that mindset shift, like, what would you add to, uh, you know, the coo, the executive director of one of the nonprofits that's enrolling in TechSoup plus, like that. How should that shift kind of go about?

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. We ask people, you know, very often in a variety of our programs where we're getting kind of deeper with, with, with different organizations. You know, one of the most important things is kind of having an openness to change. Right. And we're actually working, I'm, um, working on a training series around, for a different program around change management. Because we really see that that tends to be one of the things that either unlocks or does not unlock the adoption piece, uh, of new technologies. Right. You know, sometimes there's just that one person who's been at the organization maybe for a really long time is really accustomed to using this one tool, and they are not going to switch to the new thing that you just got. No matter how much, you know, how Much you tell them they have to. So there, that becomes the sticking point. It's not necessarily the technology or even the expertise sometimes it's just the cultural shift within an organization. So really, I think again, getting people to kind of embrace the uncertainty, embrace the change and embrace new ways of doing things and then start to see little victories, right? Like being able to celebrate, uh, a little win and say, oh, wow, I just like, I did this thing, you know, I was able to create, uh, this PowerPoint deck that would normally take me three or four hours. Was able to do it in like 30 minutes by just like chatting back and forth with this, this tool. So when people start to see how it can like free them up to do other things, you know, one of the other. You know, if we're talking about kind of the, the characteristics that are common amongst nonprofits, I mean, one of them is like, everybody's wearing multiple hats, right? You hear this all the time. And so if you're able to free someone's time up where they're doing three different jobs and you're able to free up a couple of hours in their day or their week to kind of, you know, put something to bed so they can focus on something else, that's really going to start to make a big difference. So, you know, while there's some apprehension and some fear around AI and I think this is, I think it's reasonable, like there's a lot of unknowns about what's coming, there's a lot of opportunity and we really want organizations to kind of dive into that opportunity, be somewhat clear eyed about the risk and the kind of uncertainty, but be able to kind of feel comfortable navigating in that space.

Speaker B: I think this is where the smaller organizations are going to take the lead in some respects because they were scrappy, like somebody's said earlier, and already doing more with less. So anybody who has an opportunity to fast track a task is going to jump on it. So, yeah, I see them being the early adopters for sure.

Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker A: And Kelly, you know, Adam mentioned that change management piece that, that is oftentimes so challenging within your role. And I'm sure you also are navigating change management, you know, in that COO seat as well. What have you seen or have there been any lessons that you've learned around that that maybe our nonprofit audience can maybe take from your expertise?

Speaker B: I mean, just using the, you know, characterization that Adam just used, that there's the person who's been in their role, who's accustomed to doing it A certain way for years and years. I think, you know, what I have learned is that, uh, our IT team needs to seek that individual out and have an exploratory meeting with them and start to understand certain workflows or pain points and then introduce how AI is able to streamline that for them. You know, they don't have the time or the inclination to go at it alone. So it really takes some one on one prompting to start to see that happen. But then once they see it, they're sold. And then they are coming forward and saying, I need a new workflow for this and, you know, not getting exactly what I need out of Claude, can you come help me with some prompts? And it becomes more of a partnership that way. So we see people who are jumping in way too fast and maybe a little fast and loose with some of the data. But we also have been on the opposite end of the spectrum. Those folks, folks who are not necessarily resistant, they're just not proactive. So we are seeing everything in between. And our real challenge, I think now is balancing. Adam, I think you said we've got to meet people where they are, and when you've got a large staff, trying to do that in many different ways becomes the challenge.

Speaker A: I love what you shared and I think it really shows the synergy, you know, within, within this partnership. Right. Because, you know, you shared how that partnership has been kind of what's maybe unlocked that door. And in many ways that's what, what TechSoup plus is. It's this, you know, IT partnership where, uh, they have that, you know, that partner walking hand in hand with them, kind of showing them like, hey, this is that little small win, you know, that that gets them excited. It starts to kind of snowball of the culture shift kind of within the organization. So that's incredible. Adam, Kelly, do y' all have any closing thoughts y' all like to share, you know, with our, with our audience, with your community, uh, around, uh, Yalls partnership or really the mission of Yalls organizations?

Speaker B: Well, for us, I would love to encourage the community to seek us out. We're always looking for new, exciting projects. GTIA.org grants is where you can find more information. And we're pretty new at this, so we are evolving how we select projects and organizations all the time. So proactive outreach is a smart way to let us know that you're out there and need some funding.

Speaker A: Incredible. Adam, on. On TechSoup and TechSoup Plus. Anything that you'd like to highlight?

Speaker C: Yeah, I would just say that, you know, uh, many, many organizations do kind of know TechSoup and have engaged with us in some way or another over the years. And I still continually meet organizations who have never heard of us. And so, you know, if anybody out there is listening, um, is not familiar with TechSoup, definitely check us out@techsoup.org um, you can get all the information about what's available as what we call a TechSoup core member, which is free, doesn't cost you anything. You can just sign up if you're eligible. You get all these discounts, access to different educational materials and things like that, and then tons of information there on TechSoup, plus how to join, um, what the benefits are, you know, what the user experience is and all of that. So definitely encourage organizations to visit us there.

Speaker A: Well, Adam, Kelly, thank you all both so much for coming on the show today and talking a little bit about this collaboration that you all have and are hopefully paving the way to increase that, that 1%, uh, of technology investment and get more money in nonprofit's hands and kind of building that capacity. Thanks again for coming on.

Speaker C: Thanks, Jason.