AI for nonprofit executive directors
Give it the QuickBooks export, the donor CRM list, last year’s board packet and the funder’s RFP, and Ultramarine Work drafts grant proposals, builds the board dashboard and writes the acknowledgment letters.
Board-packet-November.pptxExampleAsk it for
“Write the LOI for the county youth mental health RFP from our logic model, last year’s attendance data and the funder’s priorities.”
LOI-youth-mental-health-RFP.docx“Build the FY27 workforce grant budget of $248,000 a year, fringe separate, indirect at 15% of MTDC, and the match checked for 2 CFR 200 allowability.”
FY27-workforce-grant-budget.xlsx“Put together the dashboard for the November board packet: budget to actual by program, restricted fund balances and the cash forecast through January.”
Board-dashboard-November.xlsx“Draft the acknowledgment letters for the 96 December gifts of $250 or more, with the good-faith FMV stated for the gala tickets and auction items.”
December-gift-acknowledgments.docx“Compare the fall appeal to last year’s by donor segment on response rate, average gift, retention and cost per dollar raised.”
Fall-appeal-comparison.xlsx“Turn the staff notes on the client fall at the adult day center into an incident report, with who to notify and by when.”
Incident-report-client-fall.docx
How it works
- 1
Start with your own folders
Point it at the folder your shared drive syncs to. It reads the QuickBooks export by class, the donor CRM export, past board packets, signed grant agreements, the RFP you’re answering, attendance rosters and this month’s appeal results.
- 2
Ask for the work
The budget comes back as a workbook with live formulas, the dashboard as another, and the LOI and letters as Word documents. Every number cites the file behind it, and anything it could not find, like a missing award letter, gets flagged.
- 3
Review, then make the calls
Trace each figure to its source, rewrite anything that could describe a dozen other nonprofits, sign the letters and send them yourself. The ask amount, the budget the board approves and the report the state receives are yours to decide.
Inside the Nonprofit Executive Director mode
Nonprofit budget and restricted funds
The budget keeps donor-restricted money separate from money you can spend, plans the releases from restriction and splits program, admin and fundraising costs.
Program evaluation
Builds the logic model and the survey plan. Each indicator is defined the way the RFP words it, and the people you serve are counted once, unduplicated.
Fundraising performance analysis
Lists the donors who gave last year and not this year, works out retention and cost per dollar raised for each appeal, and tracks the campaign against its goal.
Program grant proposal
It drafts the LOI, the full proposal and the interim and final reports. The need data, program design and capacity story come out of your own files.
Grant budget and justification
Assembles the budget by year and category, checks fringe, indirect and match for allowability, then writes the justification.
Donor acknowledgment and stewardship
Writes receipt letters that carry the substantiation language for gifts of $250 or more, the quid pro quo values and your state’s disclosure line.
Mandated report and critical incident
Organizes the staff notes into the report the licensing agency expects, with the timeline, the witnesses, who was notified and the follow-up plan.
Compliance policies and procedures
Covers the policies a grant or contract requires in writing, procurement and conflicts procedures among them, and names the rule behind each element.
HR policy and handbook
Drafts the handbook, the at-will disclaimer and the policies your state requires, and flags any rule that would chill Section 7 rights.
Prospect research and portfolio review
Builds the prospect profile from public records and your gift files, shows the method behind the capacity rating and leaves out the sensitive details.
- Office skills
- Excel, Word, PowerPoint, PDF
- Tools
- Read, edit and write files, Search files, Run code, Search and read the web, View images
- Connectors
- SharePoint, Google Drive, Gmail, and additional custom connectors
- House style
- Your fonts, layouts and rules, on every file
Who it’s for
Executive directors and CEOs of small and mid-size nonprofits who lead fundraising, programs, finance, staff and the board themselves.
Questions
Can we put donor records and client data into it?
You can, but whether you should is a decision for your organization. Ultramarine Work changes files only in the project’s folder. When a request needs it, it can read files elsewhere on your computer, never passwords, keys or app data. The model runs on Paper Instruments’ servers, so the content it works on is sent there to be processed. Paper Instruments is SOC 2 Type II, and our security and compliance details are on our compliance page. Your donor privacy promises govern what goes in the folder.
Will foundations reject proposals written with AI help?
That depends on each funder, so check its guidelines and the application portal before you rely on any tool. Some foundations now say how they treat AI-assisted content, and several require you to disclose it or confirm that a person verified the facts. What gets rejected is generic prose. The draft still has to carry your community’s data, your program design and numbers a program officer can trace, and the review of every draft stays yours.
Will it invent numbers in a grant narrative or funder report?
It is told not to guess. Its skills direct it to cite the source file behind every figure and to flag what it could not find or reconcile, so a gap shows up as a note rather than a plausible invention. That is not a promise of accuracy, because the check is yours: read every file it touched against the attendance sheets or the ledger the figures came from. Reviewers at foundations notice an unsupported statistic before they notice anything else.
Does it prepare our Form 990 or run the audit?
No, audits and Form 990 preparation sit in a different mode, Accounting & Close, and the outside accountant or auditor does that work regardless. This mode organizes the material that work draws on, from gift agreements and restricted fund balances to the functional expense split Part IX asks about. Your treasurer and auditor still verify every line.
Who is responsible if a mandated report it drafted is wrong?
You are, as the mandated reporter, so a report goes out only after you have checked every fact in it. Ultramarine Work sorts the staff notes into a draft that sets out the timeline and the notifications your state’s licensing rules require. What to report is your decision. Suspected abuse gets reported to the agencies your state names, and you make that report yourself.