Interview with Victoria Mandefield, Executive Director of the Solinum non-profit

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This article was written in part using ChatGPT, then reviewed and improved by a human 🤖 🤝 🤓

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Solinum is a nonprofit start-up that puts innovation and digital technology at the service of the fight against poverty. Among its activities are: Soliguide.fr, the online platform that references useful places and services that are accessible to people in precarious situations.

The association now has 53 employees, including a tech team.

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Integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) at Solinum‍

Because of its digital DNA, Solinum very quickly decided to take an interest in AI to optimize its operations and boost its impact. Here are some use cases tested and approved by its various teams:
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In case of seeking funding

Setting up fundraising files can be tedious and ChatGPT can fill them out accurately. The condition: provide with your request the necessary information and documents, such as the call for projects regulations!

Pssssst: we found you an example of a prompt that could help you set up files too, to be found in this article!
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In case of optimizing your operations...

Solinum gains in efficiency by using AI to:

- Facilitate the translation of documents into Catalan and French, thus breaking language barriers.

- Support the tech team by interviewing ChatGPT like an IT developer to solve potential code problems.

- Seek inspiration by using AI to identify and be inspired by similar projects around the world or to stay up to date with the latest trends and innovations.

... or some support functions!

To facilitate the recruitment puzzle, teams use AI to help them create relevant case studies according to their needs. A real plus for a team of more than 50 people.

All these missions are possible with two tools: Bard, as well as ChatGPT (with a license of 20€/month).

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The desire to go further

The association does not intend to stop there to integrate AI into its activities. Other use cases have been identified by Victoria:

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- To manage large quantities of data: The Soliguide provides information on more than 27,000 locations and 85,000 associated services, which requires an enormous amount of data (including at least one description and one postal address per location). The association is considering AI to collect, verify and update this data.

More anecdotally, teams want to use ChatGPT to quickly process data on multiple Excels (e.g. merging two Excel databases through the common postal address field).

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- To improve its relationship with its beneficiaries: A chatbot could help Solinum respond to its beneficiaries more easily and quickly.

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Easier said than done

Today, Victoria identifies two main obstacles to the development of AI for Solinum:

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- Teams use AI in a self-taught way. However, the lack of training considerably slows down the use of the tool and can pose risks in terms of data protection. Being accompanied on these subjects would be a real plus.

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- Money is still the lifeblood. However, investments for associations are still too little focused on tech - and even less so for AI projects. This risks further widening the technological gap between businesses and the associative ecosystem.

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In this sense, Share it is structuring its AI support program at the service of associations to raise awareness and support impact organizations. Are we working together?

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