AI Services: make a few deliberate bets

Most organizations do not need an AI strategy. They need to know which two or three things are worth building, whether their data can support them, and what it will cost to find out.

How we work

Choose an engagement that fits where you are

Each one stands alone. Most teams start with a workshop and only move further once they have something worth building.

AI Readiness Workshop

One day, on-site or remote

A working session with your data, IT, and program leads that turns a general interest in AI into a concrete, funded plan.

  • Live walkthrough of your actual CRM, warehouse, and exports
  • Governance and permissioning review
  • Readiness scorecard across ingest, organize, and AI-ready layers
  • A proof-of-concept connecting Claude to a sample of your governed data
  • Leadership-ready readout for a budget conversation

AI Data Strategy & Readiness

Eight weeks, three phases

The full engagement. We assess where you stand, build and test a prototype on your own data, and leave you with a sequenced plan and the governance to run it.

  • Stakeholder interviews and a systems and data inventory
  • Cross-functional use case workshop, prioritized by impact and risk
  • A working prototype for one priority use case
  • AI governance framework and build versus buy guidance
  • A 24 to 36 month roadmap with a near-term 90-day action plan

Build and Consulting Retainers

Ongoing, sprint by sprint

Once you know what to build, dedicated data science and engineering hours to productionize it and keep going.

  • Dedicated data science and engineering hours
  • Scope and rank deliverables at the start of each sprint
  • Pipelines, dashboards, predictive models, and AI applications
  • Ad-hoc analysis and early-stage prototyping
  • Expertise in R, Python, dbt, and SQL
The engagement

Eight weeks, three phases, five things you keep

Every phase ends in something concrete. Nothing waits until the end to become real.

Weeks 1 to 2

Discovery & Assessment

  • Kickoff and stakeholder interviews
  • Workflow and pain-point review
  • Systems and data inventory
  • Privacy and policy constraints
You get: current state assessment, in draft
Weeks 3 to 5

Use Case Development

  • Cross-functional use case workshop
  • Use case briefs with success metrics
  • Prioritization by impact and risk
  • Dependency mapping and rapid prototype build
You get: use case portfolio and a working prototype
Weeks 6 to 8

Roadmap & Governance

  • AI governance framework
  • Build versus buy guidance
  • 24 to 36 month roadmap
  • Executive readout
You get: final roadmap and readout materials
Deliverables

What is on the table at the end

Current State Assessment

People, processes, technology, and data, and how each affects your AI readiness.

Use Case Portfolio

Prioritized use cases with success metrics, sequencing, dependencies, and level of effort.

Governance & Risk

Policies, review processes, and monitoring, sized to the risk you are actually taking.

A Working Prototype

One priority use case built on your real data, showing practical opportunities and barriers.

24 to 36 Month Roadmap

Recommended sequence of initiatives, plus a near-term 90-day action plan and readout.

Use cases

Where this tends to land for nonprofits

A sample of what comes out of the prioritization workshop. Yours will look different, which is the point of running one.

Dynamic audience builder

Executive weekly brief

Automated data collection and cleaning

On-demand funder report

Dashboard questions in plain language

Budget variance explanations

Program demand forecasting

High-volume unstructured text analysis

Proof

The first one on that list already shipped

A dynamic audience builder came out of exactly this process. It is now a product you can use: describe the audience you want in plain language and it becomes a campaign-ready list, governed by the permissions you already trust.

See Audience Builder
Who we work with

Built for mission-driven organizations

Nonprofits
State & Local Governments
Federal Government
Chaptered Organizations
Brands

“Civis is always well-prepared and highly knowledgeable and seems to find a solution to every problem we have thrown at them, in addition to being kind and gracious and enjoyable to work with.”

Sarah Autry, Director of CRM Strategy, MSF-USA

"Civis lets us spend more time answering the questions that matter for our mission without needing to manage infrastructure."

$400ksavings/year
5MCRM records archived
Read full story
Covenant House League of Conservation Voters Human Rights Campaign

Start with a 30-minute scoping conversation

We will align on the decision you need to make, confirm data access and stakeholders, and lock the week-by-week plan.