Many nonprofits know they should embrace AI, and most are already feeling the stress to maneuver quicker than their assets enable. AI is advancing at a velocity that’s laborious for them to maintain tempo with, not to mention undertake responsibly. For mission-driven organizations with lean groups and restricted assets, the query isn’t simply easy methods to implement AI. It’s easy methods to do it ethically and in ways in which assist the long-term wellbeing of the communities they serve.
At Cisco, we imagine that technological experience, deployed with objective, is likely one of the strongest assets we are able to supply our nonprofit companions. Past monetary funding and entry to know-how, what many nonprofits want is direct entry to individuals who perceive this AI second deeply and can assist them translate that data into observe.
That conviction formed our first annual Tech for Social Good Hackathon. In early 2026, greater than 160 Cisco specialists volunteered to kind 27 groups and spent one week constructing AI-powered options for seven Cisco Basis nonprofit companions working throughout local weather resilience and financial alternative. Every staff began with an precise downside assertion submitted by the nonprofit group and a mandate to unravel the issue responsibly.
Contained in the construct to develop moral AI options for nonprofit companions
Throughout all 27 groups, the best options shared one thing in frequent: they had been constructed by volunteers who thought as a lot in regards to the individuals implementing the instruments as the issues the instruments had been fixing. As Venkata Naga Rajesh Badveti, a Cisco engineer who designed a workflow answer for Technology’s curriculum growth staff, which creates classes for hundreds of learners worldwide, put it: “AI is a multiplier, not a standalone answer. It really works greatest when it amplifies human experience relatively than changing it.”
That mindset prolonged to how groups thought in regards to the communities their options would finally serve. Sathwik Kothapalli labored with Farmers for Forests on an AI software to automate the verification of handwritten paperwork in a number of regional languages, a prerequisite for farmers becoming a member of the nonprofit’s reforestation program in India. His staff constructed for velocity with out sacrificing accuracy, embedding human evaluation at each step with a clear-eyed understanding of what was at stake for every individual within the course of. “Figuring out {that a} farmer in rural Maharashtra might get verified quicker and be a part of a reforestation program sooner due to code I wrote made this essentially the most significant challenge of my profession,” Sathwik shared.
“The Tech for Social Good Hackathon jogged my memory that the talents we hone and develop on daily basis at Cisco may be genuinely life-changing for communities which have by no means had entry to them.”
– Sathwik Kothapalli, Cisco engineer
Abhishek Kumar, who helped construct a donor prospect platform for Alternative Worldwide, introduced each hands-on engineering depth and the systems-level considering that comes from managing technical groups. “These are the sorts of operational bottlenecks I assist my very own groups remedy on daily basis, and seeing that very same sample at a nonprofit bolstered how transferable our expertise actually are.” Greater than the technical output, although, he noticed the Hackathon as a logo of what partnership with Cisco appears like: “An occasion just like the Hackathon alerts that we see our companions as organizations with actual operational challenges that deserve the identical caliber of engineering we deliver to our clients.”
“Monetary contributions and company donations matter, however constructing a working AI answer {that a} nonprofit can really deploy — that’s a basically completely different type of partnership.”
– Abhishek Kumar, Cisco engineer
For Cisco volunteers, the expertise was significant. They deepened their AI experience, collaborated throughout groups, and noticed fast impression from their work, all of which strengthened each particular person talent and organizational tradition.
Deployable instruments, lasting impression
The suggestions from collaborating organizations was equally constant: the volunteers got here able to pay attention and supply tailor-made options, and left their companions energized about what else was attainable. “You not solely discovered nice one-stop-shop options for a number of points we’re making an attempt to unravel,” says Maja Cimpric, Digital Product Lead at Technology. “This complete expertise can also be triggering nice follow-up conversations on our staff about our workflows and different potential for automations, which we’re assured will result in extra thrilling initiatives down the highway.”
That sample, an answer that solves the issue and reframes what’s attainable, confirmed up throughout organizations. Jennifer Wolford, Operation Hope‘s Chief Innovation Officer, mirrored: “Working with Cisco’s staff made it clear how rapidly the precise technical experience can flip concepts into actual, usable options that enhance how we serve our shoppers. That type of collaboration is what permits us to undertake rising know-how in a manner that truly scales impression.”
For some nonprofits, the Hackathon represented one thing extra basic: an opportunity to maneuver previous the guide, resource-intensive methods of working which have traditionally restricted their attain. Jessica White, Director of Information Analytics and Methods Integrations at Alternative Worldwide, described it in concrete phrases: “They took a course of that was beforehand inconsistent and laborious to scale and turned it into one thing actionable. That shift from guide effort to strategic motion has actual potential to extend fundraising and increase our impression for the shoppers we serve.”
The case for skills-based volunteering as a social impression technique
Cisco has lengthy invested in its nonprofit companions by offering funding and know-how, however skills-based volunteering, at this degree of rigor and technical depth, represents one thing additive: a chance for the type of engaged, purposeful experience that helps organizations construct actual AI functionality from the within out.
“As we live and evolving within the AI period, we at Cisco have a singular alternative to make a right away impression with nonprofits by way of our state-of-the-art know-how,” stated Tim Barnes, Cisco engineer who labored with NESsT. “Think about if we did this for all of society’s challenges? We might streamline and improve nonprofit operations, releasing funds for them to elongate attain, widen scope, and allow them to raised assist these in want.”
The Tech for Social Good program will continue to grow. We’re bringing extra volunteers and companions into this mannequin — our subsequent cohort will increase into Disaster Response and Schooling sectors — as a result of the outcomes counsel it’s value scaling. In a second when AI fluency is turning into a prerequisite for nonprofit effectiveness, that is yet another manner Cisco can assist shut the hole.
