Driving inclusion and accessibility with Microsoft 365 Copilot

Mission-driven organizations seek to make meaningful, positive change in the world, and the best of these also strive to embody progress within their organizations. Technology, particularly AI, has the potential to accelerate this work by engaging different perspectives, overcoming barriers to participation, and amplifying progress. Nonprofits are using Microsoft 365 Copilot to increase inclusion internally and champion equity in the communities they serve.

Nonprofits embody innovation. Sometimes their limited resources inspire a creative solution, leading to better outcomes than conventional action. Other times, nonprofits’ close ties to impacted communities—in other words, people in the field prompt insights. These days, mission-driven organizations that embrace innovation through technology have the tools to further increase their impact.

AI is particularly well suited to accelerate the values many nonprofits promote, such as inclusion and equity. Two mission-driven organizations we partner with at Microsoft Tech for Social Impact exemplify this dedication. Arapahoe Libraries, a library system in Colorado serving residents across 800 square miles through its eight community libraries, jail library, and Bookmobile, and the McKnight Foundation, a private family foundation based in Minnesota dedicated to climate action and racial equity, are both early adopters of Microsoft 365 Copilot. They are using the AI assistant on two important fronts. Firstly, they are walking the walk of their missions by applying Copilot to increase inclusion internally. In addition, they are leveraging AI to boost productivity and creativity, freeing up staff to innovate for greater progress. 

As social impact organizations tackle a host of persistent challenges, AI is a valuable tool to experiment, promote justice, and include a wealth of perspectives. As McKnight Foundation Senior Communications Officer Trisha Harms says, “We need to steward our resources effectively and responsibly. Copilot is one tech solutions we use that allows everyone to connect, align, and move forward on our mission.”

Advancing inclusion internally

Both Arapahoe Libraries and the McKnight Foundation are deeply committed to ensuring their staff and partners can equally participate in and contribute to their important work.

“We know every single person in this organization has a diverse, important perspective that helps them serve our patrons.”

Anthony White, Arapahoe Libraries Director of Innovation and Technology

Built-in features across the Microsoft stack, including Copilot, help Arapahoe Libraries comply with a recently enacted Colorado accessibility law and advance the organization’s internal accessibility framework. The organization invested in Copilot licenses for every employee so they can all benefit from the AI assistant.

Staff use Copilot to search across internal platforms, including Microsoft SharePoint, Outlook, and Microsoft Teams. Complex questions used to take 3 to 5 minutes to answer; now the AI assistant surfaces answers in less than 15 seconds. Similarly, Copilot recaps content across Teams and users’ inboxes into “easily digestible, not overwhelming” summaries. These time-saving uses help all staff apply their talents and expertise to their jobs.

Small and medium businesses (SMBs) using Copilot experience or anticipate an 18% increase in employee satisfaction on average. This rings true for Arapahoe Libraries. Assisting with repetitive and manual tasks enables library staff to cut through information overwhelm and add their unique perspectives. AI also enables them to easily locate the resources they need to do their jobs to the best of their ability.

“We see so much time savings, it’s creating a level of transparency and accessibility across all our teams that we didn’t have before.”

Anthony White, Arapahoe Libraries Director of Innovation and Technology

Similarly, the McKnight Foundation is using Copilot to democratize organizational knowledge. Staff can now more easily search for, synthesize, and add to the foundation’s documents. This allows staff to learn from each other and contribute their expertise, which in turn becomes more easily findable for others.

Copilot also suggests ways to improve the accessibility of presentations, graphics, and documents. For example, Copilot will recommend adjusting the colors used in a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation to make it more accessible to colleagues who are low-vision or color blind. This coaching helps staff who are less familiar with accessibility guidelines to create content that enables the participation of all staff and partners.  

“We really do care about making sure every staff person feels included and like they belong, technology is one part of our holistic approach to making sure everything we do drives our mission forward.”

Trisha Harms, Senior Communications Officer, McKnight Foundation

Promoting equity in communities

Arapahoe Libraries and the McKnight Foundation are dedicated to promoting equity in their communities. Arapahoe Libraries is working to eliminate gaps in access to library services, for example by bringing books to incarcerated individuals, automatically providing students library cards so they can access digital content, and placing library “Lending Machines” in locations with limited library access.

To further identify and bridge gaps, Arapahoe Libraries is using Copilot to categorize and find themes among 64,000 pieces of patron feedback. These evaluations, comments, and requests used to be siloed by branch and program. Now, the AI assistant is working through the treasure trove of information to distill ways to improve across the library district. The organization will use the data to best meet the community’s changing needs and ensure all community members can benefit from the libraries’ services.

In addition, Arapahoe Libraries directed Copilot to review its policies for accessibility concerns. For instance, the organization is planning to roll out AI-enhanced Surface laptops for checkout. The Copilot review identified disparities in some patrons’ ability to travel to physical library locations, pinpointing opportunities to improve technology access across the district. In short, “Copilot has helped us identify gaps in our policies so we can better serve our patrons,” White says.

The McKnight Foundation is also dedicated to equity, both locally and across the world. The foundation supports projects that empower Native nations through renewable energy infrastructure, increase home ownership for diverse communities, cultivate resilient food systems globally, and much more. The foundation’s ethical AI journey prioritized using a tool that would not plagiarize intellectual property. The foundation chose Copilot, which runs on a model that does not draw from the public domain. This enables the McKnight Foundation to apply the benefits of an AI assistant without appropriating others’ output.

The McKnight Foundation has found that Copilot has made an enormous difference for the nonprofit by saving time and kickstarting the creative process. By streamlining day-to-day operations and overcoming creative blocks, the AI assistant helps staff focus on their mission—from advancing climate justice to fueling economic mobility.

The foundation is far from alone in this benefit, which also affects budgets and therefore resources available for mission-focused activities. More than half of SMBs report that their operating costs have decreased 1% to 20% since adopting Copilot. “Any way we can increase efficiency and productivity means we can do more for and with our grantee partners,” Harms says.

The more dedicated energy and time staff invest in mission-advancing projects, the greater impact they can have on equity locally, regionally, and globally. As Harms says, “It makes a big difference for how much effectiveness we can have outside our walls.”

Explore AI solutions for nonprofits

Learn more about how Microsoft is supporting nonprofits, see how other organizations are using AI to drive impact, and get more information about how you can safely and securely deploy AI to support your business needs.