Articles
What we learn working with organizations.
Problems that come up again and again in nonprofits, and how we solve them. No jargon, real examples.
Field Notes
One email a month with what we learn in the field: one idea, one case and something to do that week.
What we learned
The hours that never show up in any report
A team's time doesn't go into the big tasks: it goes into copying, renaming, forwarding and answering the same thing again. Before automating, you have to see it.
Edmundo Spohr · October 14, 2026
5 min read
Questions we get
What do we do if our main funder leaves?
Several organizations we talk with are losing their biggest funder. This is what we see them exploring, what didn't work and what's worth doing before the notice arrives.
Felipe Soto · October 14, 2026
5 min read
Questions we get
We have no budget for technology, and who maintains it afterward?
These are the two questions we hear most before getting started. Here are the answers we give, no fine print.
Edmundo Spohr · October 8, 2026
5 min read
Practical guide
Which number do we show our funder?
You have lots of information and a report full of averages. Your funder wants to see just one thing: whether something changed.
Felipe Soto · September 22, 2026
5 min read
In-depth case
Martina: practicing the hardest conversation before you have it
We wrapped up the Martina pilot, an AI simulator that helps teachers practice how to support a student in crisis. Here's what it left us.
Edmundo Spohr · September 15, 2026
6 min read
Practical guide
AI turned out expensive, and we don't know how to use it well
Paying more doesn't make AI do more. What lowers the bill and improves the results is choosing well what you use it for, and how.
Edmundo Spohr · August 18, 2026
5 min read
Practical guide
A volunteer built our platform, and now nobody can touch it
Someone generous built the platform when the organization was small. Now everything depends on that person. A practical checklist to take back control without starting over.
Felipe Soto · July 21, 2026
5 min read
What we learned
Before writing a line of code, we went to their workshop
Working with Fundación Summer taught us that technology is the last step, not the first. This is what we did before the architecture.
Felipe Soto · June 23, 2026
5 min read
Practical guide
Use the channel your people already have
The best tool is useless if nobody can get in. Before asking your people to learn something new, reach them where they already are.
Edmundo Spohr · May 19, 2026
5 min read
Questions we get
AI on sensitive topics: can it make things up? Will it replace people?
When an organization works on mental health or with young people, the concerns about artificial intelligence are serious. These are the questions we get asked most, and how we answer them.
Edmundo Spohr · April 21, 2026
5 min read
Practical guide
Why does nobody answer the exit survey?
Lots of people fill out the intake survey and almost nobody fills out the exit one. Without both, you can't show what changed. Here's what works.
Edmundo Spohr · March 24, 2026
5 min read
In-depth case
Reconciling donations ate up our whole month
A children's nonprofit with more than 50,000 donors was matching bank transfers, cards and automatic deductions by hand. Here's how it went from losing days to reconciliation to knowing, every month, who stopped giving.
Felipe Soto · February 17, 2026
5 min read
What we learned
We pay for tools nobody uses
Many organizations have more tools than they use. The problem is almost never the tool: it's that nobody adopted it.
Edmundo Spohr · January 20, 2026
5 min read
What we learned
Your data lives in 20 spreadsheets (and that's why nobody can find anything)
Every program has its own form and its own Excel file, and the team spends more time looking for data than using it. Before you choose a platform, get your house in order.
Felipe Soto · December 16, 2025
5 min read
What we learned
Before reading your project, the funder already checked three things
We talked with someone who reviews applications at a corporate foundation: what they check before reading, what happens after you win, and why, now that AI makes every application sound good, your results are what set you apart.
Felipe Soto · November 18, 2025
6 min read