Industry · Foundations and grantmakers
Centered Networks helps community foundations, private foundations, and grantmakers deploy Microsoft 365 Copilot and custom AI agents responsibly: with the donor-data protection, identity controls, and responsible-AI governance your board, your audit committee, and your grantees expect. AI strategy paired with governance, on the Microsoft platform you already use.
Two weeks. No commitment beyond insight. Or get the “Before You Enable Copilot” guide →
The picture today
Donors, grantees, and trustees are all asking sharper questions, and the AI conversation has arrived at the board table. Here’s what we usually find.
Anonymous donor preferences, donor-advised fund records, family-office relationships, and gift agreements all carry obligations beyond what generic privacy tools cover. Most foundations are running this on platforms that were never configured for it.
Trustees want to know your AI strategy, your responsible-AI policy, and how donor and grantee data is protected when staff use Microsoft 365 Copilot or experiment with other tools. The board meeting is coming. The answer should be ready.
Capacity-building funders increasingly include grantee technology assessments and AI readiness in their portfolios. The foundation has to model the governance it expects from grantees, and have a credible point of view on what good looks like.
Research summaries, grant memo drafts, due-diligence notes: program officers are pulling these together in consumer AI tools because the workflow is faster. Without a governed alternative inside Microsoft 365, that’s where grantee and donor information ends up.
Program teams are sophisticated. Grants management has matured. Investment offices are well-instrumented. Operational IT (identity, devices, data governance) often hasn’t kept up. That gap is what makes safe AI hard.
Most foundations pay for Microsoft 365 capabilities they’ve never enabled: the same capabilities (Microsoft Entra ID, Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Intune) that are prerequisites for safe Copilot deployment. Closing those gaps has standalone value before AI ever enters the picture.
How we help
Use cases for foundations and grantmakers, deployed with the governance, identity, and data-protection foundations that make them safe for donor and grantee information.
An AI agent that synthesizes your CRM, gift history, and public information to brief development staff on donor relationships: draft acknowledgements, surface stewardship opportunities, prepare meeting context. Built on Microsoft Copilot Studio with sensitivity labels and access controls scoped to your donor-data policy.
An agent that pulls together grantee context for program officers (prior grants, public filings, peer funder activity, news coverage, organizational history) into a structured brief. The kind of preparation that used to take half a day, ready before the call.
An agent that drafts board and committee reports from your grants management system, financials, and program data, on a schedule, in your foundation’s voice and format. Staff edit and approve; the first draft is done.
Microsoft 365 configured for grant operations: identity, device, and data-protection baselines tied to your gift agreement templates, due-diligence files, and grantee documents. Microsoft Entra ID, Microsoft Intune, Microsoft Defender, and Microsoft Purview, configured for foundation work, with up to 75% off licensing through the Microsoft Nonprofit Program for foundations that qualify.
A board-ready governance package: responsible-AI policy, data-classification model for donor and grantee information, audit trails through Microsoft Agent 365, and the documentation your audit committee and outside counsel can review. Adapted from Microsoft’s nonprofit and foundation guidance.
A 90-minute session for your trustees and senior staff that translates Microsoft’s AI direction (the Microsoft Frontier Suite, Microsoft Agent 365, governed agents) into the language a foundation board can act on. What good looks like for an organization your size, what to ask staff, what to fund. No charge.
Donor privacy
Configured for foundation accountability
Foundation data carries obligations that generic privacy tooling doesn’t address. Anonymous donor preferences, donor-advised fund records, family-office relationships, audit-committee files: each has its own access boundary, retention rule, and disclosure posture. We configure Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Entra ID, and Microsoft Agent 365 to those boundaries so AI never crosses a line that policy hasn’t drawn.
Foundations we serve
Outcomes
Two weeks of structured discovery tailored to a foundation. We identify the highest-impact AI use cases across development, programs, and operations; assess your donor-data governance readiness; and deliver a 90-day roadmap with measurable KPIs your board can review. No commitment beyond insight.
Prefer to start at the board level? Request a Frontier Briefing, a 90-minute session for trustees, no charge.