Where Should Your Nonprofit Start with AI? Introducing the Getting Started Package
From curiosity to adoption
Across the nonprofit sector, staff are already experimenting with AI to draft grant reports, summarize meetings, write communications, and more. But at many organizations, there are no shared AI practices and no clear path from experimentation to real, organization-wide value.
Leaders see the potential but often feel stuck on where to begin. Which tasks are worth automating? Who owns our AI rollout? Where should we start? If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. With the rapid development of AI, we are at a big moment of technology change, and it’s normal for it to feel overwhelming.
The good news is that you don’t have to do the big lift from scratch. That’s why we created the Getting Started Package: to bring the plan, guardrails, training, and templates your team needs to get rolling.
Introducing our new Getting Started Package
The Getting Started Package is a three-month engagement built to support Claude adoption. It guides your organization from the AI groundwork stage to at least one working, adopted AI solution.
The package is built to reflect The Idealist Way, our project framework we use across every engagement at Idealist Consulting. For the Getting Started Package, it moves through three phases:
Phase 1: Foundation
This first phase sets the groundwork for responsible AI adoption. We assess your organization's AI readiness, draft an AI use policy if you don’t already have one, and lead introductory training sessions on getting the most from Claude, paired with self-service skill-building resources.
The outcome: your organization has an AI governance foundation that fits how you work and what you value.
Phase 2: Discover
Discover brings your team's work into focus. Through use-case workshops and user story collection, we produce a prioritized AI roadmap built around how your organization really operates. Together, we choose which roadmap items to tackle first in the next phase.
The outcome: a prioritized view of where AI can make the biggest difference.
Phase 3: Build
This phase is where we put your roadmap into action. We configure the solutions your team selected in the previous phase, such as customized Claude skills, automated workflows, and connectors to tools your team already uses, like Slack, Google Workspace, or Asana. We conduct training sessions and give you an AI playbook to take with you after the engagement ends for ongoing documentation and iteration.
The outcome: at least one working, adopted AI solution addressing a priority use case, which your team can sustain and extend.
Who the Getting Started Package is for
The Getting Started Package is a good fit if your organization is early in its AI journey and ready to make Claude part of how your team works. That might look like:
- You haven’t started using Claude yet, but want to
- You have a few Claude licenses, but adoption hasn’t taken off
- Your AI use policy is still a draft, or you don’t have one yet
- Staff are experimenting with AI on their own, without shared practices
If your team already uses Claude well and wants to go further, or your work involves highly sensitive data, we’ll help you find the engagement that fits best.
Why this approach works for successful AI adoption
The Getting Started Package intentionally incorporates the Idealist Way, rooted in change management, as a backbone to the project because we are not interested in simply making you a solution and then sending you on your way. Instead, we focus on actually educating, guiding, and empowering organizations as they incorporate new technology.
Your team stays in the driver's seat. You choose what gets built, based on a roadmap shaped by your own staff. At Idealist Consulting, we know that nothing is one-size-fits-all.
Responsible from the start. Governance and policy come first, not as an afterthought after an AI tool is already implemented. By the time your team is in the build phase, you already have guardrails in place.
Grounded in real work. Because use cases come from workshops and user stories, the solutions we build fit the way your people actually work, which is what drives adoption.
Built to last. We provide your team with an AI playbook and train-the-trainer sessions to create internal champions, so knowledge stays with your organization rather than walking out the door with a consultant.
A partner who knows nonprofits. Idealist Consulting has worked with nonprofits for 20 years, with more than 2,000 engagements across over 800 organizations. We were one of four partners at the launch of the Claude for Nonprofits offering in 2025 and continue to work with Anthropic’s Beneficial Deployments team.
Ready to get started?
In just over three months, the Getting Started Package takes your organization from uncertainty to clarity: a governance foundation, a prioritized roadmap, and at least one working AI solution your team actually uses. When the package wraps up, our Managed Services team can keep adoption moving as your use cases and teams grow.
If your organization is ready to move from AI curiosity to real results, we'd love to talk. Reach out to our team to learn more about the Getting Started Package. Let's build your path to AI adoption, the Idealist Way.
Not quite ready to talk? Watch our webinar, 90 Days to AI: A Nonprofit Roadmap, to see what the first three months of AI adoption can look like.
