I didn't expect to tear up at a tech conference.

But there I was, in a ballroom full of nonprofit leaders from 40 countries, listening to Melinda French Gates talk about a woman in India who said, "Before this, nobody knew my name. Now everybody knows my name." And I felt something shift.

This was day two of Microsoft's Global Nonprofit Leaders Summit in Seattle. The focus was AI. The sessions covered governance frameworks, team buy-in strategies, responsible implementation. All the things you'd expect.

But the thing I didn't expect was how much the women on stage changed the way I think about this work.

Play. Experiment. Break Things (Safely).

Throughout the summit, I kept hearing the same word from presenters: play.

Not "deploy." Not "optimize." Play.

Leaders from organizations around the world spoke openly about creating space for their teams to experiment with AI, to try things without the pressure of perfection. One session spotlighted vibe coding, which made my nerd heart very happy.

The message was clear: you don't need to have it all figured out before you start. You just need to start.

This is permission I needed to hear. Not because I'm hesitant about AI (I'm the opposite problem, honestly), but because I've sometimes felt like the pace I want to move at isn't realistic for a nonprofit environment. Hearing other leaders say "let your team play" validated something I've been trying to articulate for the past 2 years.

The Human in the Loop

If there was a through-line across every session, it was this:

AI should augment, not replace.

The presenters weren't naive about the fears. They talked openly about job displacement anxiety, about the skeptics on their teams, about the very real concerns that come with introducing new technology into mission-driven work.

But they reframed it.

The goal isn't to automate people out of their jobs. The goal is to free people up to do the work that actually requires a human: the relationship-building, the judgment calls, the creativity, the care.

One presenter said something that stuck with me: "You need both the AI champions and the AI skeptics at the table. If you only have one, your implementation will fail."

I'm the AI champion, I know this about myself. I want to go fast, redesign everything, build systems that hum with efficiency.

But I've also learned, over eight years in nonprofit work, that speed without buy-in is just chaos. The skeptics aren't obstacles. They're the people who ask the questions that keep you accountable.

Identifying the Gaps

The summit helped me see where I still have work to do within my role at Zero Abuse Project.

I've been so focused on the "what" of AI adoption (what tools, what workflows, what outputs) that I haven't spent enough time on the "how."

How do I create psychological safety for my team to experiment? How do I build governance structures that are flexible enough to evolve? How do I make sure the people closest to the work have a voice in how we implement these tools?

These aren't technical questions. They're leadership questions. And the women on stage this week modeled what it looks like to lead with both ambition and humility.

Melinda French Gates and the Power of Being Known

The summit closed with a fireside chat featuring Melinda French Gates. Who, by the way, is brilliant. And down-to-earth. And spends her time focusing on advocating for women's equality. I didn't know any of that before this conference (shame on me).

She talked about her own nonprofit & the importance of having good data, about focusing on understanding both the quantitative and the qualitative parts. She told a story about survey data in Africa that only asked men about income, completely missing the economic contributions of women. "Our data is biased," she said. "And we don't admit that to ourselves."

She talked about philanthropy as partnership, not hierarchy. About giving your team trust and a long leash. About never correcting someone in front of others because "shame never works."

And then she told the story of Ena.

Ena was a woman in India who had joined a women's self-help group. She took Melinda around her village, introduced her to the other women, shared what the group had accomplished together. And at the end, Ena said:

"Before this, nobody knew my name. Now everybody knows my name."

That is empowerment.

Those women in India went on to demand that their village get the healthcare clinic it was legally entitled to. And they got it. Because one woman stepped into her power and helped other women step into theirs. That story sticks with Melinda all these years later.

What I'm Taking Home

I feel like I found my ambition late. It didn't show up until my thirties, when I finally started to believe that my ideas mattered, that my voice had weight, that I could build things that would outlast me. AI did that for me. Stepping into the role of mom did, too.

I think about that a lot now that I have two daughters. I think about what I want to model for them. I think about the messages they'll absorb about what women are allowed to want, allowed to build, allowed to lead.

Melinda said something else that I keep turning over in my mind:

"When women step into their power, their voice, their decision-making, their resource allocation, they make different decisions for their families. And we have great data about this. When women have the power, they change their families. They change their communities. And they change countries."

Less than 2% of philanthropic dollars go to women's issues. Less than 1% of global research dollars go to women's health. We are underinvesting across the board.

But the women in that room, leading nonprofits from 40 countries, are the ones keeping the fires burning.

That's what Melinda called it. Little fires, lit up everywhere. Helping with someone's health. Helping with their dignity. Helping a kid get through college. Helping someone survive. The world is currently on fire, and we need to take care of each other.

The Work Worth Doing

The summit ended with a quote from Theodore Roosevelt (though it was noted it might actually be Eleanor's):

"Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing."

That's what I saw this week. Rooms full of people doing work worth doing. Exhausted, underfunded, navigating impossible circumstances, and still showing up, optimistic as ever.

AI won't save us. But it might free us up to do more of what only humans can do: connect, listen, advocate, care.

And if we're going to build an AI-powered future for the nonprofit sector, I want it to be built by people like the ones I met this week. People who lead with trust. People who make space for play. People who know that data without stories is just numbers on a screen.

People who believe that when women step into their power, the world changes.

I'm still thinking about Ena. And I'm still thinking about what it means to be known.