AI for Nonprofits: How Charities Are Saving Hundreds of Hours a Year With Practical Tools

In this episode of Real Life AI with Flora Mercury, Flora sits down with Ben Cohen, AI Lead at Good Innovation, a consultancy transforming how charities operate and deliver impact. Ben brings 15 years in the charity sector, from Macmillan Cancer Support to the British Red Cross, and now helps organizations worldwide adopt AI in strategic, ethical, and very human ways.

Listeners will walk away understanding:

✔ How charities are using AI right now: From bots that answer internal questions instantly to tools that save 300 caseworkers up to a full day of admin every week, this episode highlights the real, unglamorous workflows where AI makes the biggest difference.

✔ What “human-first AI” looks like: Ben explains how Good Innovation guides organizations through mapping workflows, identifying “the boring stuff,” and creating structured pilots that quantify time and cost savings.

✔ The essential AI tools nonprofits should start with Including:

• Custom GPTs trained on internal documents
• Notebook LM for safer data analysis
• Gamma for instant slide creation
• Conversational AI for large-scale interviews (All discussed in depth in the episode.)

✔ Why nonprofits and small businesses share the exact same AI opportunities: Flora and Ben explore how automation, documentation, and workflow mapping are universal—meaning any mission-driven organization can benefit from the same structure.

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