Accelerate What's Possible

Overview

Social impact organizations are already using AI to help solve some of the world’s biggest challenges—but not yet at the speed we need. Informed by our global network of partners and five years of program delivery at data.org, the 2025 Accelerate Report is a roadmap for how data and AI can be used innovatively and intentionally to drive social impact. From fair finance to workforce upskilling, 2025 Accelerate highlights the people, practices, and technology accelerating progress where it’s needed most.

Recommendations to Accelerate

1

Stay focused on how AI can assist you and your mission.

Don’t lose sight of what you’re trying to accomplish with technology. Incorporate data and AI in ways that fuel both operational excellence and impact strategies.
2

Harness the power of partnerships.

Partnerships help us all go farther by sharing best practices, curating important information, and facilitating sharing of data, talent, and infrastructure.
3

Remember who you’re serving.

Building trust and leading with localism are essential to ensuring the tools, technology, and systems you’re building are responsible, inclusive, and sustainable.

Report Insight

Globally informed, locally led solutions build trust, drive adoption, and deliver impact.

Quipu is using AI to open fair credit access in Colombia—providing 22,000 small business with the capital they need to grow.

Today, there is a greater urgency to understand what data companies have, what shape the data is in, and what data is missing. Having mature, representative data means more inclusive AI solutions, so everyone can benefit.
Payal Dalal Executive Vice President of Global Programs Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth

Report Insight

Trust is the foundation of meaningful, sustainable, and scalable social impact.

The Mississippi AI Collaborative is building a trusted AI education ecosystem designed by and for Mississippians—training over 4,000 people across schools, universities, and small businesses to date.

AI has the potential to serve as an accelerant, integrating disparate, non-standardized datasets in a way that we can uncover deep insights about how programs work together to improve outcomes, and that is very exciting.
Amber Oliver Managing Director, Robin Hood Learning + Technology Fund Robin Hood

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The social sector is creating AI solutions that work for all.

The Myna Mahila Foundation’s AI chatbot delivers sexual and reproductive health information in Mumbai’s local languages and dialects, powered by local women trained in generative AI and prompt engineering.

You can’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Too often, organizations think they need to have an AI expert in house before they start to think about adoption. The truth is that there are simple best practices that can get you started, and beginners can partner with organizations that are more advanced to learn and build from what works.
Alex Nawar Member of the Global Affairs team OpenAI

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Data and AI are most effective when guided by a people-first approach.

Link Health is using AI to increase access to underutilized federal assistance programs through trusted settings like medical offices, already putting more than $4.3 million back into households.

About the authors

Perry Hewitt

Chief Strategy Officer

data.org

Chief Strategy Officer Perry Hewitt joined data.org in 2020 with deep experience in both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors. She oversees the global data.org brand and how it connects to partners and funders around the world.

Ginger Zielinskie

CEO

Evergreen Strategic Advisors

Ginger Zielinskie is the CEO of Evergreen Strategic Advisors, where she collaborates with social impact organizations, government agencies, and philanthropies worldwide to harness data and technology to address complex challenges.

Danil Mikhailov, Ph.D.

President and CEO

data.org

Danil Mikhailov, Ph.D. is the President and CEO of data.org. He has over 20 years of experience setting up multiple start-ups and leading work across a range of diverse sectors, always investigating and innovating in the space where technology, culture, and society converge.