Speed Needs Direction: What Small Teams Taught Us at OFN42

AI can help CDFI teams close the gap between big visions and limited capacity, but only when planning, execution, and measurement come first.

By Gustavo Banchero, Director of Communications, Ascendus

As nonprofits, we live with a gap. Our missions are big and bold, and the capacity we have to deliver on them rarely matches. For CDFIs, this isn’t new: capacity has been a structural challenge for as long as our field has existed. What’s new is the pressure around it. There’s less time, more demand for capital, and more complexity in every audience we serve.

In that context, clarity about where we’re going has become the real differentiator.

That idea was at the center of “Small Teams, Big Reach: Working Smarter with AI and Technology.” I co-presented that deep dive at OFN42 in New Orleans on October 22 with Rhema Nnadi of BBIF Capital and Erin Shull of BlueHub Capital. Between the three of us, we represented communications teams of one to three people. Each team supports fundraising, programs, lending, and leadership at the same time.

Three pillars before any tool

We came to talk about AI and technology. What stood out, as we walked the room through each organization’s setup, was how little any tool does on its own. With attendees, we mapped our work across three pillars (planning, execution, and measurement) and three audiences: funders and stakeholders, clients and communities, and internal teams.

Tools showed up in every cell of that matrix. But they only made sense because of the decisions around them: what we choose to create, who owns each step, and how we follow through.

What we learned at Ascendus

Every year, our communications function delivers dozens of recurring projects for four audiences: small business owners, funders and partners, our own team, and the organization as a whole. They range from client stories, videos and newsletters to our annual report, press releases, and internal communications. We do it with a lean structure, working hand in hand with agency and production partners and with colleagues across the organization.

AI has changed what a team our size can produce. It helps us draft, adapt content across audiences and languages, and prepare reports faster. But one of our biggest lessons is that speed without direction creates new problems instead of solving old ones. Producing more doesn’t help if what we produce drifts away from who we are.

For us, quality starts with staying true to who we are, to our processes, and to our direction.

• Who we are lives in our brand and compliance standards. We’ve built them into our AI tools, so every draft starts aligned with our voice and our commitments.
• Our processes keep every project accountable, from planning to approval to distribution.
• Our direction is tied to organizational goals. Communications accelerates a vision the organization has already agreed on.

Measurement closes the loop. Our Brand Health Dashboard, which we shared at OFN’s Marketing and Communications CDFI Practitioner Summit in Arlington this March, connects our brand book to the results we track across four stages: awareness, differentiation, relevance, and loyalty. Our brand metrics sit on the organizational dashboard alongside lending, credit risk, finance, people operations, and operations and innovation, so communications answers to the same goals as the rest of Ascendus. (We wrote more about this approach in Brand as a Driver of Organizational Impact.) It tells us what to repeat, what to rethink, and where to focus next.

AI as a catalyst

AI without strategy is a risk. It can multiply off-brand content, blur priorities, and add noise to channels that depend on trust. AI with direction and guidance is different: it becomes a catalyst. It helps close the gap between our vision and our capacity, and it can even improve the way our teams work together.

Two principles have made the difference for us. First, AI never replaces human judgment. Every piece still goes through people who know our clients, our mission, and our standards. Second, AI helps us listen better. It lets us process and analyze the voice of our clients much faster. That gives us better information and more speed when we make communications and customer experience decisions, and keeps us aligned with what our clients need and want.

That matters because every hour we recover goes back to the people at the center of our work. For over 35 years, Ascendus has supported 62,000+ entrepreneurs with $435M+ in capital. When our communications reach further, more entrepreneurs find the capital and coaching that help them rise.

Let’s keep building together

Small teams across our field are solving this in different ways. We learn the most when we share what’s working and what we’re still figuring out. If your team is working through the same questions, we’d love to hear from you.

This Way Up.