GOOOAAALLL!!!
The teams I've been following all spring.
Everyone’s watching the World Cup right now. I am too. But I spent this spring following seven other teams, and their goals are the ones I can’t stop thinking about.
Seven AI-powered nonprofits just graduated from Fast Forward’s 2026 Accelerator, and getting to know each of them has been the best part of my job this year. Their goals: end wrongful insurance denials. Close the STEM gap for underrepresented students. Stop wildfires before they spread.
Each team created a one-minute mini-doc and four-minute TED-style talk — and while these clips won’t make ESPN, they may just make your day. I hope you’ll watch at least one.
These are the teams I root for. I think they might become your teams too.
Health Access Innovation
Goal: End wrongful insurance denials.
Over 20 million insurance denials are issued in the U.S. each year. Appeals work, but most people never file one because the process is exhausting by design. Mike Gartner navigated this system himself for a chronic condition — his most recent denial took over 30 hours to resolve. He built Health Access Innovation so no one navigates a denial alone. Their caseworkers help patients appeal denials for free, powered by AI and ML models trained on medical literature. So far, they’ve had a 95% success rate and recovered $856K. Every case also generates evidence that goes straight to regulators and lawmakers pushing for systemic reform.
MyCapitol
Goal: Give every American the same access to Congress that lobbyists have.
Lawmaking can feel like a black box. Julie Lin and Candace Moix both worked in Congress through the TechCongress Fellowship and saw the same thing. A typical congressional office has about 10 staff covering every issue imaginable. One meeting can decide whether something moves forward. Lobbyists know this, so they come in with a specific ask and leave with action. Constituents come in with a compelling story but leave with nothing. MyCapitol changes that by giving citizens and nonprofits the same intel lobbyists have: which bills matter, who’s funding them, and exactly what action to request. Their built-in AI assistant Billie builds the whole advocacy plan.
Pyronear
Goal: Detect wildfires in minutes, not hours.
French firefighters have a saying: one glass of water in the first second, one bucket in the first minute, a plane after thirty. The saying reveals how fast a small fire grows. Pyronear deploys open-source, AI-powered monitoring stations in forests: cameras paired with a credit-card-sized computer running an embedded AI model on-site. When smoke appears, fire departments get precise coordinates in under five minutes. They’ve already detected over 500 fires across 50 stations. Earlier detection means smaller fires. Smaller fires mean less CO2, fewer lives at risk, and time gained for firefighters.
SimPPL
Goal: Expose the networks manipulating what we see online.
Every day, coordinated networks of fake accounts manipulate what billions of people see online, shaping opinions before anyone realizes what’s happening. SimPPL‘s AI platform Arbiter gives journalists the tools to expose them. It traces networks across nine social media platforms in fifty languages. Investigations that used to take months now take minutes. Journalists in Bangladesh used it to expose harassment networks reaching 100 million people. Journalists in Kenya flagged political deepfakes faster than YouTube’s own labeling system. The networks manipulating your feed are coordinated and fast. Now, so are the journalists exposing them.
Culturally Relevant Science
Goal: Make STEM feel like it was built for every student.
Meagan Naraine spent a decade teaching science in Atlanta, watching students who clearly had the ability to thrive in STEM tell her it wasn’t for them. The instruction wasn’t wrong, it just wasn’t built for her students. Culturally Relevant Science fixes that. Meagan’s platform gives teachers ready-made, culturally grounded STEM lessons and an AI coaching assistant. In their first pilot, student proficiency grew 53% and teacher retention hit 100% for the first time in seven years.
Student Basic Needs Coalition
Goal: Help students access the public benefits they need to stay in school.
When Paige Swanstein started college, she was working three jobs and still skipping meals. Millions of students face that same choice. Programs like SNAP and Medicaid exist to help, but students collectively miss out on more than $3 billion in assistance every year because the systems are too hard to navigate. Paige built the Student Basic Needs Coalition to close that gap. Students complete a short screener powered by AI, get checked for eligibility across SNAP and Medicaid, and receive a clear action plan. Last year, they referred students to $116 million in benefits.
Go deeper on Paige’s story: Fast Forward and the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation just co-published a Humans of AI for Humanity feature on her.
SubjectToClimate
Goal: Put climate education in every classroom, not just science class.
85% of young people are worried about the climate. Margaret Wang-Aghania saw this firsthand as a high school teacher. Research shows climate education can cut more emissions than electric vehicles. But most teachers don’t teach about climate because the curriculum is full and there’s no time. SubjectToClimate gives every K-12 educator a free platform with standards-aligned resources through a climate lens, for any subject and any grade. Since 2021, they’ve reached over 1.5 million visitors. They’ve found that when teachers use the materials, students’ willingness to engage in civic action doubles.
Quick Bytes
Other Sector Stories
Anthropic just launched a program I’ll be watching closely: Claude Corps. It’s a $150 million program that will place 1,000 paid AI fellows inside nonprofits across the country. Fellows spend a year embedded full-time at an org and leave behind tools that keep running after they’re gone. I’m interested in how these fellows will help nonprofits integrate AI into their core solutions. More AI-powered nonprofits to benefit humanity. That’s real impact. Nonprofits can apply to host a fellow here.
Last month, Nan Ransohoff’s viral Substack piece sparked debates across the philanthropic world. It argues that AI wealth from OpenAI and Anthropic could unlock $37-100B in new annual philanthropic spend… and that we need to build entirely new organizations to put it to good use. The Chronicle of Philanthropy responded: money was never really the problem. The problem is that tech wealth has always stayed too far from the communities it claims to help. Andrew Dunckelman, Deputy Director at the Gates Foundation, offered a nuanced take worth reading too. More money is coming. But who controls it — and how close they are to the people they’re trying to help — will determine everything.
Fast Forward launched an AI Proposal Assessment Tool to help funders evaluate proposals from AI-powered nonprofits. Yes, it’s built for funders. But nonprofits, you should use it too. Run your proposal through the prompts, pressure-test your strategy, and sharpen your plans. I propose you test it out. Let us know your assessment.
APN Opportunities and Funding News
10x Impact Labs’ AI for Nonprofits Accelerator helps organizations move from siloed AI experimentation to organization-wide adoption through a three-month cohort program. Apply by June 30.
The Global Good Fund Fellowship is a 12-month hybrid program for social entrepreneurs driving impact worldwide. It includes $10K for leadership development, executive coaching, C-suite mentorship, and tailored resources to scale your work. Learn more here and apply by June 30.
OpenAI Foundation’s People-First AI Fund will award unrestricted grants to community-based nonprofits with annual budgets between $500K and $10M that are interested in exploring how AI can strengthen their work. No prior AI experience is required. Apply by July 15.
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