Director

The AI support team that helps nonprofits stay focused on impact

Turning under-resourced founders into fundable, operationally tight organizations

directorforgood.org

Problem – Founders Are the Whole Leadership Team

Nonprofit founders are carrying 5 jobs on 1 salary.

They're expected to:

  • Lead programs and vision
  • Raise money (major gifts, grants, events)
  • Run operations and finance
  • Own communications and storytelling
  • Manage staff, boards, and compliance

When funding tightens and staff are cut, all of this collapses back onto one person. Promising orgs plateau at $300–600k or quietly shut down — not for lack of impact, but for lack of backbone.

Ideal Customer – Downshifted Orgs (Beachhead)

Our initial focus: orgs that already proved they can raise $400k–$1M.

These orgs:

  • Have real donor and community relationships
  • Have a history of 7-figure budgets or close

But in the current funding environment:

  • They've laid off staff
  • The founder is back to doing everything
  • Many are considering shutting down despite strong demand

This hits founders of color especially hard, as equity-era funding retrenches.

These leaders don't need another tool. They need a backbone.

Broken Options

Existing solutions don't fit this stage.

DIY SaaS stack

CRMs, grant tools, accounting, email… Founders don't have time to integrate and maintain them.

Consultants & agencies

Project-based, expensive, seen as "overhead." Advice without ongoing responsibility.

Rebuilding staff

  • ED: $100–150k
  • Ops/Finance: ~$100k
  • Development: ~$100k
  • Comms/Program ops: $60–100k

There is no integrated, AI-native backbone designed for $400k–$1M orgs that have real relationships but no team.

Director – What We Are

Director is an AI-native backbone and forward-deployed team for nonprofits.

Director OS – a vertical operating system for:

  • Revenue & relationships
  • Runway & finance
  • Ops & compliance
  • Board & funder narratives

Director Pod – shared leadership capacity:

  • Forward-Deployed Director (FDD)
  • Finance/ops leadership
  • Dedicated dev & ops roles as we scale

We plug into an existing org and donor base and give them the leadership bench they can't afford to rebuild alone.

Fundraising Philosophy – Relationships First

Director is built around major gifts and real relationships, not grant roulette.

Durable funding comes from:

  • Major donors
  • Anchor institutions
  • Long-term partners

Grants are part of the picture, but:

  • They are downstream of relationships
  • "Open call" grant-chasing is mostly a distraction for this segment

Director's focus:

  • Map and grow the major gifts pipeline
  • Prepare founders for high-stakes meetings
  • Use grants strategically once relationships exist

Director is a relationship and revenue engine, not a shot-in-the-dark grant factory.

The Director Pod – Capacity Ramp

Pods scale from 4 → 8 → 16 orgs as the OS and agents mature.

Year 1 – Proto-Pod Team:

  • Founder/CEO
  • 1 Forward-Deployed Director
  • 1 Finance Director
  • 1 Founding Engineer

Phase 2 – 8 orgs

Mature core agents handle repetitive tasks. Same structure supports more orgs.

Phase 3 – 16 orgs

2+ FDDs. Standardized playbooks. Agents do recurring work.

Director OS – Product Overview

One pane of glass for an org's backbone.

Revenue & Relationships

Major gifts map, warm pipeline, next-best actions

Runway & Finance

Live cash forecasts, budget vs actuals visibility

Ops & Compliance

Recurring task engine, checklists, playbooks

Narratives & Reporting

Board decks, funder reports, impact one-pagers

Data flows in from email, calendar, finance systems, docs, and existing CRMs.

AI Agents – How We 2–4x Human Capacity

Specialized agents do the repetitive work; humans do the judgment.

Major Gifts Agent

  • Scans email, calendar, CRM
  • Maintains relationship maps
  • Drafts donor emails & briefs

Finance & Runway Agent

  • Pulls accounting data
  • Proposes categorizations
  • Raises runway alerts

Ops & Compliance Agent

  • Runs recurring checklists
  • Generates reminders
  • Manages task lists

Board & Reporting Agent

  • Assembles board decks
  • Creates funder reports
  • Keeps board-ready view

Agents explore, compile, and draft. FDDs and Directors review, edit, and decide.

Economics – Why This Makes Sense

Director makes a serious backbone affordable and scalable.

Traditional backbone costs ($500-700k org):

  • ED: $100–150k
  • Ops/Finance: ~$100k
  • Dev: ~$100k
  • Comms/Program ops: $60–100k
  • Total: $360–450k/year

With Director:

  • ED/founder: $100–150k
  • Director Pod: ~$80–120k/year
  • Total backbone: $180–270k/year

As Pods scale, pod-level gross margins expand while keeping human leadership involvement high.

Why Now – AI Agents + Nonprofit Pressure

Two timing curves are intersecting.

Agentic AI is production-ready:

  • "AI coworkers" already shipping in engineering, finance, and customer ops
  • Small human teams can manage far more complexity with agents

Nonprofits are under structural pressure:

  • Orgs with $1M+ budgets are losing staff
  • Funders want grantees with credible backbones and visibility

Director sits at this intersection: an AI-native backbone delivered by a lean, forward-deployed team to orgs that cannot justify rebuilding full in-house leadership.

Go-to-Market

We start where we already have pull.

Existing relationships

First 2–4 orgs from founders you're already effectively "directing."

Downshifted $1M orgs

Target leaders who proved they can raise $400k–$1M but had to cut staff.

Funder collaborations

Position Director as capacity-building that makes grantees more investable.

Sales motion:

  • Short diagnostic: map "today vs with Director"
  • Demo Director OS + agents
  • Show what gets taken off the founder's plate
  • Close annual retainers
  • Expand scope over time

Business Model & QSBS-Friendly Structure

AI-native vertical SaaS with embedded forward-deployed team.

Revenue model

  • Annual retainers per org
  • Tied to budget band and complexity
  • Goal: multiple Pods, each supporting up to 16 orgs

Cost structure

  • Lean Pods (FDD + Finance Director)
  • Supported by agents and product
  • Engineering compounds across all clients

QSBS-aware design

  • U.S. C-corp
  • Product-centric operating business
  • Software & data model assets

Team – Lean Year-1 Plan

Small, high-leverage founding team with 12 months of runway.

Founder & CEO

Vision, sales, fundraising, relationships

Forward-Deployed Director (hire #1)

Nonprofit ops + fundraising, embedded across first ~4 orgs

Finance Director (hire #2)

Finance + ops across pod, designs playbooks

Founding Engineer (hire #3)

Director OS + first wave of agents

Target raise: ~$1M for 12 months runway. Early org retainers reduce net burn.

Roadmap & Ask

Roadmap

0–12 months (this raise):

  • Hire FDD, Finance Director, Founding Engineer
  • Onboard 2–4 orgs
  • Ship v1 Director OS and core agents
  • Prove: 4-org pod delivers revenue and stability lift

12–24 months:

  • Scale pod to 8 orgs
  • Harden agents and playbooks
  • Add additional FDD/finance/ops capacity

24+ months:

  • 16-org pods on mature OS
  • Multiple pods focused on key verticals

Ask

$1.0M

  • Fund 12+ months of lean team and product development
  • Prove the 4 → 8 → 16 org capacity story with real customers
  • Build Director into the AI-native backbone for the orgs that can least afford to lose theirs

Ready to Build Your Backbone?

Let's talk about how Director can help your organization scale.