Essentials of AI for non-profits
Workshop brochure
A full-day interactive workshop designed to help non-profit professionals explore how artificial intelligence can advance their mission, ease operational pressures, and amplify impact, without overwhelming their teams or compromising their values. No technical experience or coding knowledge is required!
Halifax, NS
August 12, 2025
Edmonton, AB
September 9, 2025
Background
This engaging, timely, and relevant session will show you how AI can be used ethically and effectively to advance your organization’s mission, ease operational pressures, reduce the burden on already stretched-thin staff, and amplify impact.
Through real-world use cases, group activities, and take-home tools, you’ll walk away with immediately applicable knowledge and the confidence to take your next step with AI.
Whether you’re in administration or communications, finance, fundraising, or program delivery, this workshop will show you how to develop an AI action plan for your organization and use this technology to support your team and community.
Learning objectives
In this interactive, expert-led workshop, participants will:
- Understand what AI is, including predictive and generative forms, and why it matters now
- Identify pain points AI can help address across non-profit and public-sector operations
- Reframe common misconceptions and explore real-world use cases
- Evaluate tools for functions like fundraising, volunteer management, communications, and reporting
- Apply ethical frameworks to assess risks and social impacts
- Reflect on how AI may affect roles, trust, equity, and accountability
- Use tools and templates to begin experimenting confidently
- Assess organizational readiness for responsible AI adoption
- Develop an AI action plan aligned with the organizational mission and values
- Communicate AI’s potential internally to build support
- Access resources to continue learning and implementing AI after the workshop
Scholarship opportunities
This scholarship program offers 50% off to select eligible individuals for the Essentials of AI for non-profits workshops. Our goal is to reduce barriers to participation and support a more inclusive, innovative, and equitable non-profit sector.
This initiative reflects MDR Strategy Group’s commitment to social impact, our mission to drive meaningful, lasting change across the non-profit and public sectors, and our core values of equity, diversity, inclusion, and access.
Click here for details and application instructions.
Instructor
Melissa Peneycad is Director of Public Engagement & AI Strategy at MDR Strategy Group, a Halifax-based social enterprise that drives meaningful transformation in non-profit and public sector strategic communications, public engagement, organizational design, and AI.
She is the award-winning author of Essentials of AI for Beginners and Generative AI Basics & Beyond, and played a key role in planning and delivering Canada’s first AI in Regulation conference (Toronto, 2025).
A recognized authority on developing tools and frameworks for evaluating and implementing innovations in communications, equity, sustainability, and technology, Melissa is known for making complex topics engaging and accessible. She is a sought-after speaker, trainer, and facilitator, having worked with hundreds of professionals and students in various sectors across Canada, the U.S., and Europe.