Smarter boards, stronger missions: AI’s role in governance

More about the podcast

Dottie Schindlinger is Executive Director of the Diligent Institute and a founding member of BoardEffect and Nithya Das is General Manager of Diligent’s Governance Business Unit and Chief Legal Officer. Together, Dottie and Nithya bring deep expertise on how purpose-driven organizations can strategically harness technology and AI to transform their impact.

We discussed why the urgency to modernize governance is greater than ever for nonprofits, foundations, school boards and local governments. Dottie and Nithya share how economic pressures and shifting regulations make nimble, tech-enabled governance absolutely critical — and how AI is moving mission-driven boards toward more efficient, transparent and equitable practices.

We also talk about what practical impact looks like, discussing real examples from boards using tools like Diligent Community and BoardEffect to streamline meetings, track strategic goals, boost community engagement and improve decision-making with AI-powered features.

Listen in as we explore the ethical side of AI adoption, touching on data privacy, bias and the importance of thoughtful policies. Dottie and Nithya offer actionable advice for leaders starting their digital transformation journeys, including the value of pilot programs, upskilling and collaborative change.

Plus, they share bold predictions about the future of governance that you’ll want to hear. And do stick around to the end for their great advice to help boards future-proof their governance and embrace technology confidently.

Resources for nonprofit boards on AI and technology

• The 3 E's of future-ready governance
• Smarter boards start here: A guide for governance leaders

Resources for school boards on AI and technology

• The 3 E's of future-ready governance
• Smarter boards start here: A guide for public sector governance leaders

Transcript of interview with Dottie Schindlinger and Nithya Das

Jill Holtz: Hi everyone, I'm really thrilled to be joined today by two powerhouse voices in governance. First of all, we have Dottie Schindlinger, Executive Director of the Diligent Institute and founding member of BoardEffect. And also, I’m so pleased to be joined by Nithya Das, General Manager of our Governance Business Unit and Chief Legal Officer here at Diligent. They both bring deep expertise in governance, technology, and I really wanted to pick their brains today about how organizations with purpose can use those to have impact. So Dottie and Nithya, welcome to the podcast.

Dottie Schindlinger: Thanks Jill, it’s great to be here.

Nithya Das: Thanks Jill, great to be here with you.

Why is it urgent for mission driven organizations to modernize their governance and use technology and AI?

Jill Holtz: So today we're talking about a topic that's all about reshaping the way mission driven boards operate, the future of governance, and in particular why technology and AI are essential tools for mission driven leadership. So to kick us off, I would like to ask you both, why is it urgent for mission driven organizations, whether that's a nonprofit, a foundation or public sector entities such as a school district or local government, why is it urgent for them to modernize their governance and use technology and AI rather than sticking to the way we've always done things? So Dottie, I'll start with you.

Dottie Schindlinger: Sure, thanks Jill. Well, right now we're in a very challenging time. So this is certainly true here in the US, but I think it's also true globally that there's been a lot of economic and political uncertainty. And with that uncertainty comes a lot of uncertainty in the funding picture. So a lot of the traditional places where nonprofit organizations especially have received funding, and I would also say municipalities and local governments here in the US, traditionally they've received a lot of that funding from the federal government but we're seeing a lot of changes at the federal government level in terms of funding going to states and going to individual nonprofit entities, as well as to different types of funding that whole departments, quite frankly, have been eliminated at the federal government level. So with those changes come a lot of pressures on these organizations and municipalities to make sure that they have the funds and resources needed to carry out their missions. And at a time like that, having good governance and having the right tools in place, it's just never been more critical. You need to be able to connect with each other, talk about different strategies, have access to all the documents and knowledge that are available for you to make good decisions. Sometimes those decisions have to happen very rapidly. mean, a lot of these changes have happened extremely quickly. And so things that we counted on in January didn't exist by March. And so we have to be able to be very nimble. And the only way to really be that nimble is to have the right technology tools in place.

Jill Holtz: Nithya, what's your perspective on this?

Nithya Das: There's also an efficiency and impact use case to be made, I mean, in Dottie's description of the pressure that these mission-driven organizations are under, it's no longer a nice to have to be able to find, whether it's smart automation, smart assistance, real-time reporting. In resource-constrained organizations and in the times that we're operating in right now, these have become essential in order to make sure that you're putting your energy, focus and priority on delivering the mission of the organization, not on managing compliance and regulatory obligations using manual, people-intensive processes. The great thing about AI is that it's able to spot outliers. It can connect the dots on data in your board materials. Much better, I think, than just simple human oversight can. And so having AI in the loop there to provide better support and better outcomes, which by the way are more equitable outcomes if we're analyzing the data and the inputs properly, leveraging that AI. I think really wrapping all of that together, it creates really good governance for nonprofits where they can protect their confidential information. They can have really well-informed data-driven decision-making with real-time inputs and just increase the level of transparency and risk mitigation that's happening within these organizations.

What are some practical ways to use technology and AI to transform governance?

Jill Holtz: And also, I suppose on the public sector side, you mentioned regulation and compliance, but one of the great things about technology is it helps keep the board compliant, doesn't it? You know, you have open meeting laws, you have requirements around accessibility, making your information available to your community. And I know that's one area that technology can really help with as well.

Can I ask you, what are some practical ways that you've seen technology and AI being used to transform governance in mission-driven organizations? Do you have any brief examples or case studies you can share with us? Nithya, I'll start with you.

Nithya Das: Yeah, so one great example that we've seen is with school boards using our Diligent Community product. And they use this to meet some of the compliance obligations that you just mentioned, Jill, but really to streamline agenda development, agenda management, manage their policies, and overall just improve transparency back to their community. They're able to save time on meeting preparation. And the great thing is Diligent Community also empowers their community members and keeps them up to date by helping comply with some of those regulations like the one that you just mentioned and provide those updates in a really transparent way. Again, I think with a tool like Diligent Community, AI can also help you create meeting minutes. We've seen school boards do this, you know, based on transcripts from their public meeting live stream, they can quickly create a first draft of the meeting minutes. And that is just a huge time saver for board secretaries, for clerks, in terms of being able to get those meetings done and at the same time again provide that oversight and foresight that's required.

Jill Holtz: That's great. It's kind of connecting the dots between transparency, accessibility for your community to the information they need, streamlining decision making, but even saving time, as you said, doing things quicker. So instead of focusing on those administrative tasks, you're able to create a set of minutes really quickly that you can share then with the community.

Nithya Das: Yeah, I was just gonna say, know, administration is table stakes, but doing it in a way that truly meets transparency and accountability is what allows you to heighten your compliance to really be good governance and at the same time, make the job more enjoyable and more effective for the people who are really doing the work.

Jill Holtz: Yeah, Dottie, I know you'll have seen some great examples. I'd love to hear what you've seen in action.

Dottie Schindlinger: Sure, well, I'll speak a little bit more about BoardEffect, which of course is near and dear to my heart, but also the product that I've used as a board member serving on a number of different nonprofit boards. I'm actually on the board right now of a foundation that uses BoardEffect, and I'm on the Nominations and Governance Committee. And one of the ways that we are going to be using BoardEffect, because I'm a brand new board member, is to really do tracking of board member engagement. This is something that the board has expressed an interest in doing a better job with to really understand you know, how engaged are the board members? Are there different ways that we could be leveraging their skill sets that the board members themselves would find more satisfying? So what we plan to do is use the survey capabilities to really do an audit of everyone's of skill sets and experience levels that we can then try to channel, if you will, into different projects that the organization needs to have good support on. And also really think about committee assignments. You know, as we try to align people with the right committees, sometimes we don't necessarily get that 100% right on the first try. And so having better understanding of everybody's skill sets, their interest levels, their availability, what they want to try to accomplish as a board member, we can use the survey capabilities in BoardEffect to help us do that data analysis and that gap analysis. I would say one of the other things we're going to potentially use it for is doing tracking of strategic goals. So we have a strategic plan. We're also in the process of an executive transition at the foundation. So we have our founding CEO is about to leave here in the fall of 25 and we have the new incoming CEO just starting. And so during that time, it's gonna be very important for us to use these tools to help us track and keep us on the straight and narrow path with our strategic goals. And as we've got the new leadership coming in, obviously some of those may begin to shift a little bit. And so we have to make sure we've got good tools in place for tracking and to really be able to communicate with each other what's happening. And then finally, I think we're really excited to get started using the AI features, particularly the Smart Book summary. Nithya mentioned the AI minutes creation, which is such a game changer and a time saver, but the Smart Book summary is really important. This particular organization has a lot of documentation that comes from external legal and from other parts of the business that can be very lengthy reports.

Dottie Schindlinger: Obviously as board members, we read them, but we want to make sure that we have a good summary in place so that we can, as we go into the meeting, just have something we can quickly refer back to. And it doesn't require us, the board member, to take personal notes that could end up in deposition. So we want to be very careful about that because there's a lot going on right now. And so having that smart summary that is controlled by the CEO, by the person who is the board administrator provided to the board members, it's a huge, huge benefit. It really helps us to make sure we're talking about the right things.

How should mission-driven organizations tackle ethical tech adoption and governance?

Jill Holtz: So some things just to recap that I've heard you talk about there are efficiency, doing less with more, doing things more quickly, maybe freeing up time for more strategic things. I love that idea of continuity because a lot of public facing boards or non-profit boards, you know, people serve a term and then they leave, but what happens with the continuity of that information? The fact that you can use technology to have people be able to see, what were the decisions made in the past? And then I love that kind of idea of reporting and using AI to summarize and ultimately help board members to come better prepared to meetings as well. I'd like to ask you next, obviously we hear a lot of hype, but then also concern around technology and AI, concerns about data privacy, unintended bias, even job displacement. What do you think boards and leaders should keep in mind to ensure ethical and effective tech adoption and governance? Nithya, let me start with you on this one. What's your take?

Nithya Das: Yeah, you know, think starting off with the board, there's a need for boards to make sure that they have a really solid understanding around AI, both in terms of how is it being used in the organization, but also how does it impact the long term success of the organization? So, you know, that level of literacy, I think is absolutely necessary for board members. The board and the organization also needs to have a really clear policy to ensure safe and ethical adoption of AI. They should be asking their vendors questions around AI capabilities. What are the data privacy, security, ethical bias, know, components of their AI development? They should make sure that they understand how as technology continues to evolve, how the AI capabilities will continue to evolve. A lot of this is emerging technology. Within Diligent solutions, whether that's Diligent Community, Diligent BoardEffect, or diligent Boards, which all exist within our broader Diligent One platform, we're actually allowing clients to pilot our secure AI technology in a low risk way. So for Diligent, a big part of our culture, reputation, value proposition to our customers is around trust. And so we've really adopted that same mindset as we've been developing AI technology for the boardroom. We also offer a set of educational resources that can support board members and leadership teams and staff in terms of upskilling their own knowledge and information around AI. We actually have an AI and ethics certification program, which Dottie helped to build and write and launch that certification. It's something that we also update on an ongoing basis. So we definitely encourage our customers to take advantage of that and utilize it to make sure that you do have the right level of information across the organization. think organizations that are leaning in to adopt AI, are the ones who will be the success, the successors, the successful ones who emerge as we look into the future. But it is definitely an imperative that you do it in a knowledgeable and responsible way.

Jill Holtz: I love that Dottie, do you have anything to add?

Dottie Schindlinger: Yeah, I would just say, you know, we recently did some research at Diligent Institute taking a look at how board members are using AI. And what we learned from that survey was that they are. Whether or not you are providing them the tools to do it, they are using it. And what we learned was a good portion of them are using the free versions of things like ChatGPT to get ready for board meetings. And so what I would definitely recommend is have a conversation about this.

It's really good to have some acceptable use policies in place so that everyone understands these are the tools we should use for things like meeting book summarization, right? You don't want to have a situation where your board members are taking your sensitive proprietary information that is meant to be shared only in a board meeting and loading that into the free version of ChatGPT to get a summary because now that is available to the world. It has become part of the ChatGPT large language model once they do that. So you want to make sure you're using tools that are locked down and are specifically used for governance. That's one of the reasons why Diligent has invested so heavily in building out these tools. We want to make sure to give our customers the ability to do this in a way, you know, as Nithya mentioned is totally safe, is going to keep your data secure and make sure that everything remains where it should, but still giving you the benefit and the power of things like meeting book summarization and automated minutes and other tools that just are really good time savers and an aid to meeting effectiveness. So those would just be some recommendations. And just generally, I would say, as you start to have conversations about AI around the board table, remember that it is both risk and opportunity. Do what board members always do well. Ask good questions. Ask questions like, what does this technology do? How do we know that it does that? And what are the safeguards we're putting in place to make sure that it continues to do only that? Those are good questions for board members to be asking as you start to use AI in things like fundraising or donor engagement or engaging with your constituents in your communities. There's a lot that AI can do that's greatly of benefit, but it does come with risks and you just need to make sure that you're keeping an eye on that and having good conversations at the leadership level.

What is some advice for managing digital transformation in mission driven organizations?

Jill Holtz: And being able to have confidence that your board management software is ring-fenced and that any sensitive data that you are discussing at the board level, as you say, going out to the wider world is important. So I heard three key things. Education, making sure everybody on the board is educated and up-skilled, a really good ethical policy around it, and understanding where you're using it and guiding that is important.

So let's talk, just take a step now to kind of the wider topic of digital transformation. So many mission-driven organizations, they're short staffed, as you say, things have changed a lot in the last while. They might worry about having the capacity or the expertise to successfully implement technology and AI tools. So what first steps would you recommend for boards and leaders who might be thinking, well, I'd love to do this. We want to get away from paper board packets. We want to move to more use of AI. What are those first steps that you recommend? Dottie, let me start with you on that one, please.

Dottie Schindlinger: Yeah, I mean, think really a good place to start if you're thinking specifically about implementing AI is just to ask the question, how are we using AI now? I guarantee the answer is not going to be, we're not. Because someone within your organization is using it somewhere. Whether they're doing it appropriately or using the right tools is a different question. But it absolutely is in use somewhere. So doing a quick audit to figure out how are we using AI now.

And then start to think about within the confines of governance, within the confines of the board, how might you use AI? There's a lot of opportunity here. I we've talked about some of the basic stuff, right? Using it to summarize meeting books and meeting minutes. But there's a lot of potential for AI to help you do things like scenario planning, risk analysis, competitive analysis. I know we don't like to talk about competition in the nonprofit sector.

But let's face facts, right? There's lots of organizations competing for fewer and fewer resources these days. We're all trying to do good in the world, but how are we going to survive? You we are organizations that still have to pay payroll and keep the lights on. So we have to be candid about that. So we could use AI to help us do those kinds of analyses and give us some interesting ways of thinking about our strategy. Maybe challenge our strategy, you know, using it to challenge what could go wrong with this plan could be really helpful and just give you some new insight and really great conversations at the board level. So those would be some ways that I might suggest you start in addition to using the right tools to get those efficiencies that we mentioned earlier. Nithya, I'd love to hear what's on your list.

Nithya Das: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would say as a lawyer by training who's led legal teams through tech transformations that is the resistance to change is definitely something that I have lived through many times. But also as a manager, know very often it can feel easier to just do it myself easier to just do it with my existing process, then have to think about a new way of doing something or adopting a new tool or technology. Inevitably, through the course of my career, when I have felt like it would be easier just to stay the course, but I invest just the little bit amount of requisite time to learn a new process, a new technology, a new system, it's one that I never regret once I make that time investment and move forward.

So, I like to go back to what's the problems that we're trying to solve, whether your organization is struggling with transparency, engagement, risk management, information sharing, identify the kind of root problem that you want to solve and try to stay focused on that. Invite the folks who are doing the work into the process to help you identify solutions, vet solutions. I think it's a great way to get buy-in to change is to really create a collaborative evaluation process. And then last but not least is think about doing some pilots. AI technology is evolving very rapidly. I would encourage you to find trusted vendors like Diligent that are including AI native and AI responsive capabilities into existing trusted products or do trials because things are changing quickly. And so, you know, whether that's adopting something like Diligence Govern AI set of capabilities or AI risk essentials to benchmark and highlight areas of risk to the board, these are small little incremental things that you can pilot. And you can also look at how to use software just within one smaller set of processes. You know, we have lots of clients who are adopting our AI capabilities for committee work to start with. And then maybe they're moving to transform and adapt that to topco board work. so look for some smaller little, I like to say, bites of the apple that you can take before you try to digest the full apple. Because again, I think it's all about forward progress and not perfection. Don't let that be the enemy of the good, right? That's the old cliche.

Jill Holtz: I think that's excellent advice and really doing those little pilots, showing everybody the successes as well, that helps to get that buy-in that you were talking about. People see transformative results, they go, well I would like some of that too, don't they?

Nithya Das: Yeah, one thing that I'm actually really excited about that we've been doing here at Diligent is piloting our govern AI capabilities for our existing clients. And so we've just started off recently doing that with our Boards clients. We're working on a plan to be able to let our BoardEffect clients do that as well. But, you know, we're just, we're so confident in the capabilities that we've built and the impact that they can bring to our organizations that we want clients to be able to try it before they decide to, you know, make a, a broader commitment.

Future of governance in mission driven organizations

Jill Holtz: I love that. I really do. Thank you. So now this was on the topic of the future of governance. So I'm now going to ask you both what's one bold prediction or hope that you have for the future intersection of AI technology and purpose driven governance. Dottie, you go first.

Dottie Schindlinger: Well, one of the things I'm really excited about when it comes to AI is its potential to kind of level the playing field. If you think about a typical nonprofit organization or even a small municipality or local government, they don't tend to have the resources that the big Fortune 500 companies do to do things like strategic analysis and competitive reviews and so on. And yet AI, for a very reasonable cost, can give them that power. And so I really envision a time when these smaller organizations really have the same capabilities as Fortune 500 companies using this technology. And I feel like that leveling of the playing field could be a big game changer, particularly as we're in this time of some unique challenges.

Jill Holtz: And Nithya, what's your prediction or hope?

Nithya Das: Yeah, I would say as we as we look into the future, know, I think that so often today a lot of these whether we call it governance controls processes. It's really something that's pretty time intensive for teams today It's for the staff for the team for the board and I think in the future this is going to become a much less time intensive process for compliance and also one that's much more data enriched and that will in the future make us much more effective and ideally allow us to spend more time again driving mission impact without having to focus on some of the heavy lifting that happens right now on the backend.

Jill Holtz: Love it. And finally, to finish off, I'd like you both to ask you both to answer in 30 seconds or less, what's one piece of advice you'd give to mission-driven leaders looking to future-proof their governance? Nithya, I'll go with you first.

Nithya Das: Yeah, I would say think of good governance as a way to enable strategic process for your organization, not just compliance that's a, you know, has to be done kind of process.

Jill Holtz: Love it. Dottie, what's your advice?

Dottie Schindlinger: My advice is just get started. know, AI in governance is new for everyone, so just take some small steps and just get going. Don't wait, don't fall behind, just get started.

Jill Holtz: Absolutely love that too. So thank you both very much for taking time out of your, I know, very busy schedules to talk to me today. I really loved hearing your advice and perspective. Thank you.

Nithya Das: Thank you so much for having us, Jill. This was fun.

Dottie Schindlinger: Thank you so much.