AI Adoption and Integration for Arts and Nonprofits
Choose a useful first project. Build it around your work. Help your team use it.
Pursued by a Bear helps arts and nonprofit organizations explore where AI can be useful, develop practical tools, and improve the workflows around them. Michael Barker brings nonprofit executive experience to the work, with attention to the information, staff time, and resources your organization can sustain.
Book a Consultation
Ways we can help
AI assessment and project selection
If you are unsure where to begin, start with the work you need to accomplish. We can review recurring tasks, current tools, information sources, and staff capacity, then identify a manageable first project.
An assessment can produce a prioritized set of opportunities, a comparison of possible approaches, and a project brief. The recommendation may involve AI, ordinary automation, or a change to the process. The goal is a useful next step with a clear reason to pursue it.
Focused pilots and working tools
A pilot gives your organization a way to evaluate one idea through a working example. We can define the task, build a first version, check it against agreed criteria, and review it with the people who will use it.
Possible projects include bringing information together for an executive report or organizing prospect information for a development team. The scope can include the tool, its evaluation, documentation, and a recommendation about what should happen next.
Explore Executive Reporting · Explore Prospect Research
Workflow integration
When the same information is copied between systems, spreadsheets, and reports, the first question is how the process should work. We can map the inputs and outputs, identify available exports or connections, and develop an approach around your existing tools and permissions.
The scope should include how information is updated, how exceptions are handled, and who checks the result. The appropriate solution depends on access, source quality, technical feasibility, and what your team can maintain.
Explore the Tessitura Skill
Staff training, handover, and support
A useful tool needs people who understand how to operate it and check its work. Training can focus on the actual workflow, with documentation, examples, reviewer responsibilities, and a clear handover.
Ongoing support can be scoped separately. Together, we can agree on who maintains the result, how changes are requested, and which software, hosting, or support costs need to be planned for.
How an engagement works
- Understand the task. We discuss the current process, the people involved, the output you need, and the constraints. A description or sanitized example is enough to begin.
- Agree on a first project. A proposal sets out the deliverables, inputs, responsibilities, fees, and how the result will be evaluated.
- Develop a first version. We build around the agreed sources and workflow, keeping assumptions and review needs clear.
- Evaluate it with staff. We check the output and the experience of using it. Any comparison of effort should include review and correction time.
- Hand over and decide what follows. The agreed documentation and training support ongoing use. The next decision may be to extend the work, revise it, or stop there.
The depth of each stage depends on the project. A clearly defined task may need a focused engagement; a more complex integration may need investigation before we can agree on a reliable scope.
Read Our Approach
Led by someone who has run nonprofit organizations
Michael Barker is principal and CEO of Pursued by a Bear. He brings more than 20 years of experience in mission-driven institutions, including seven seasons as managing director of Westport Country Playhouse and earlier leadership roles at Marin Theatre Company, Laguna Playhouse, and the Antaeus Company.
He holds an MBA from Yale School of Management and an MFA in theater management from Yale School of Drama. That experience informs the work: financial constraints, fundraising priorities, staff responsibilities, and the information leaders need to make decisions.
Read Michael's Biography
Pricing and scope
Pursued by a Bear's published nonprofit consulting rates start at $110 per hour, with each engagement scoped individually. For AI work, the proposal should establish the total professional fees, deliverables, staff participation, and any separate software or support costs.
The scope depends on the number and condition of information sources, integration requirements, development work, review, training, and ongoing maintenance. A focused assessment, a working pilot, and continuing support can require different arrangements.
Where relevant, the proposal should distinguish professional fees from subscriptions, model usage, hosting, travel, and maintenance. It should also explain the assumptions behind the estimate and how changes to the scope will be handled.
Read our general consulting FAQ
What a small AI pilot should include
A useful pilot starts with a specific task and a decision to make at the end. The proposal should cover:
- The problem and intended user: what needs to improve and who will use the result.
- The first workflow: what is included, with clear boundaries.
- Information and access: the permitted sources and any dependencies.
- Deliverables: the tool, process, documentation, or other outputs to be provided.
- Staff participation: who supplies context, checks the output, and takes ownership.
- Evaluation: the criteria for deciding whether the result is useful.
- Fees and continuing costs: professional work, external services, and support where relevant.
- Handover and the next decision: what your team receives and how you decide whether to continue.
For an executive report, evaluation might include reconciling selected totals, making dates and forecasts clear, and tracing important statements to sources. For a prospect workspace, it might include retaining source information, keeping types of giving distinct, and using agreed filters and exports successfully.
If reducing preparation time is a goal, establish the starting workload and measure comparable work after implementation. Include checking and correction in that comparison.
Questions about getting started
Do we need to choose an AI tool first?
No. Start with the task and the result you need. Tool selection can be part of the engagement, informed by your existing software, permissions, budget, and staff capacity.
Can you work with the systems we already use?
That is the starting point for scoping. Some projects can work from existing exports and spreadsheets; others need a connection to a system. Available interfaces, access, and the condition of the information determine what is feasible.
Will the finished tool use AI every time we use it?
That depends on the design. AI can assist in developing software whose calculations, filtering, or scheduling then run through ordinary code. Other workflows may use a model during operation. The proposal should explain which approach is intended, what information is involved, and where human review is needed.
How much staff time will this require?
The proposal should identify who supplies information, explains the current process, tests the first version, and owns the result. Staff participation is part of the scope, including the time needed to review and learn the workflow.
How can we evaluate your experience and work samples?
Read Michael's biography and explore the project pages. The public demonstrations use fictional information, with the originating work and the demonstration's limits explained alongside them. References are available on request; we can discuss what experience is most relevant to your proposed project.
Bring one task you want to improve
A recurring report, a research backlog, or a workflow with too much repeated handling is a useful starting point. We can discuss the problem, the information available, and what a manageable engagement would need to include.
Book a Consultation
PURSUED BY A BEAR