What an AI agent can and cannot do for a small team
A chat assistant answers a question. An agent goes one step further: it can look at a shared mailbox, a SharePoint list or a spreadsheet, draft a reply or update a record, and then wait for a person to approve it. It works from the rules and data you give it.
It does not replace the people who know your donors, volunteers and programs. We treat an agent as a careful assistant for repetitive work, and we start with drafts that a staff member reads before anything is sent.
Four jobs nonprofits often start with
These are the tasks we look at first when a team tells us it is behind on routine work.
Donor follow-up
Draft thank-you notes and follow-up emails from the gift records you already keep, and flag donors who have gone quiet. A staff member reviews each message before it goes out.
Grant tracking
Watch a list of grant deadlines and reporting dates, remind the person who owns each one, and prepare a plain status summary for your director or board.
Volunteer scheduling
Collect availability, suggest shifts that fit, and send reminders. The volunteer coordinator approves the schedule and handles exceptions.
Email triage
Sort a shared inbox such as info@ into donor, volunteer, program and other, and suggest a reply for the common questions. Anything unusual goes to a person.
Microsoft Copilot Studio and Power Automate
Many nonprofits already pay for or receive Microsoft 365. Copilot Studio is the Microsoft tool for building agents, and Power Automate connects steps across Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, Excel and other apps, including approvals. Used together, they can run the four jobs above inside the Microsoft environment you already manage.
Copilot Chat comes with Microsoft 365 work accounts. Microsoft 365 Copilot and agent capacity are separate Microsoft products, and Microsoft decides what is available to your organization and on what terms. We put no prices on this page. We tell you in writing what a design would need before you commit to anything.
Human oversight is part of the design
Each agent we plan has a named owner. Anything that reaches a donor, a funder or a client is approved by a person first. Where an agent changes a record, we keep a log of what it did, so staff can check it and undo it.
Security and donor data
An agent should see only the mailbox, site or list it needs. We check who has administrator rights, whether multi-factor sign-in is on, and which apps your automations may connect to. Power Platform data policies can limit which connectors share information. We do not paste donor or client records into public AI tools.
Start with free IT help
Our free IT help is a written review of your Microsoft 365 setup. For this topic, we note which routine tasks could suit an agent or a simple automation, which ones should stay manual, and what to fix first. The answer may be nothing yet. We do not promise hours saved.
Questions we answer first
Do we need a developer on staff?
Not to start. Many first automations are built with low-code Microsoft tools. We say in the written review what would need outside help and what staff can run themselves.
Will an agent send messages to donors on its own?
Not unless you decide that. We start with drafts that a person approves, and we recommend keeping an approval step for anything sent outside your organization.
Is the free IT help really free?
Yes. There is no charge for the review and no purchase is required. Microsoft licensing and capacity are separate and set by Microsoft.
Where does the form go?
To hello@true.org. We reply to the work email you enter, usually within one business day.