Pacific Legal Education and Outreach (PLEO) is using AI to bridge the legal knowledge gap for nonprofits. Their new AI-powered chatbot offers quick, reliable legal guidance—without the high cost of a lawyer. Learn how they built it, the challenges they faced, and key takeaways for any nonprofit exploring AI solutions.

TechSoup Connect BC‘s signature annual event is an avalanche of lightning talks on emerging tools and techniques that nonprofits should be exploring in the coming year. Check out our eight experts!

🤖 Ready to supercharge your nonprofit’s fundraising efforts? Check out the replay of our latest TechSoup Connect session featuring the fabulous Deepa Chaudhary! From AI grant writing to creating compelling visuals, Deepa shares invaluable insights to help you navigate the digital space effectively. Don’t miss out on learning how AI can be a game-changer for your mission. Watch now and get inspired!

Curious about how feasibility studies could transform your project planning? 🧐 Alida Horsley of Tandem Studios shared invaluable strategies for ensuring your initiatives are set up for success. From stakeholder interviews to operational efficiency, this session is packed with actionable tips.

Watch the replay now! 🎥

After spending the last year exploring the decentralized web for makers and civil society, I think some of the strongest use cases come from the world of Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (GLAM!)

Decentralized storage enables true data ownership, which is critical for communities that have had their data suppressed. Canadians know well that Indigenous communities have had their stories, cultural practices, and language outlawed, so it’s understandable that independent data ownership is non-negotiable.

But how do you put decentralized storage into practice? 221A is currently running a survey on the practices of organizations working on the digital preservation of cultural assets.

If you work in arts and culture and need to store assets such as digital art objects or other digital cultural media, I invite you to complete an anonymous

.

Your insights will help prototype a distributed storage system developed by 221A’s The Node Library and Hypha Worker Co-operative dedicated to arts and cultural heritage workers who want to preserve digital assets in the long term.

The Node Library is also seeking support from Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web via Artizen. If you have some crypto sitting in a wallet why not join me as a sponsor, or vote for their project?

We are all creating a huge amount of data including photos, videos, and text. Unlike in the past when we would have physical copies of photographs, today’s data is temporary and can easily disappear. Niall Firth from MIT Technology Review reminds us that platforms like YouTube and Instagram may not always be around, and if (and when!) that happens, our history and memories could be lost forever. This has happened before with platforms like Geocities and Myspace.

Fortunately, there are people and organizations working on solutions. I find Jack Cushman, the director of Library Innovation Lab @ Harvard Lab, and organizations like Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web to be particularly interesting. They are part of a movement by archivists and historians to ensure that future generations will be able to piece together the story of our generation.

I am excited that TechSoup’s Public Good App House is delving into this area over the next year with a new program to assist galleries, libraries, archives, and museums in adding their archives to the decentralized web. Follow me on LinkedIn for more updates or contact me at eli@techsoup.org.

I just hosted the session with Dan Lombardi at the TechSoup Connect BC meetup, and I’m reminded of how automation isn’t just about efficiency—it’s about enhancing the quality of interactions we have with our community.

My pal Weldon’s latest project is a cocktail blog, and I was honored to be one of his “cocktail correspondents.”

Head over to his site to read my take on the “Moroccan Tease” at Au Comptoir.