Project Evident is thrilled to announce the launch of its new OutcomesAI practice, which is dedicated to advancing the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for greater impact within the social and education sectors. The practice will be led by Sarah Di Troia, who brings a wealth of experience in strategy, product innovation, and growth within both nonprofit and for-profit organizations and has played a pivotal role in Project Evident’s AI work to date.

As AI continues to evolve, its potential to transform operations, enhance outcomes, and drive systemic change in civil society has never been greater. Despite this, many social and educational organizations have yet to embrace AI fully, and existing AI tools often focus solely on outputs rather than meaningful outcomes. Project Evident’s OutcomesAI practice seeks to bridge this gap by providing consulting, technical assistance, resources, and field-building initiatives to help practitioners and funders strengthen their ability to use AI to understand and improve their impact, support decision making, advance R&D, and allocate resources toward better and more equitable outcomes. 

“We are excited to launch the OutcomesAI practice at such a pivotal time,” said Sarah Di Troia, Managing Director of OutcomesAI at Project Evident. “AI offers incredible potential to enhance equitable outcomes for communities, but it must be implemented carefully. Our work will ensure that organizations not only understand the opportunities AI presents to free staff to focus on mission and enhance outcomes, but also how to integrate it in ways that prioritize equity and transparency. Our society needs the social and education sectors’ collective voice in shaping policies and laws on AI integration into our economy. Increasing these sectors’ knowledge about AI and encouraging safe experimentation will inform and strengthen that voice.”

Building on Project Evident’s commitment to creating a more actionable and practitioner-centric evidence ecosystem, the OutcomesAI practice will be made up of a cross-disciplinary team and a network of partners that collectively provide organizations with the capabilities, flexibility, and speed this moment calls for.

“Project Evident is deeply committed to supporting the adoption of AI in ways that center the learning and decision-making needs of practitioners,” said Kelly Fitzsimmons, Founder and CEO of Project Evident. “With Sarah’s leadership and our strong network of partners and funders, we are uniquely positioned to guide organizations through this transformation, ensuring that AI becomes a tool for positive change. We understand the need for learning, experimentation, and capacity building with AI and our hope is that while folks may come for efficiency gains that AI offers, they stay for the positive social outcomes that we believe are possible with this transformative technology.”

OutcomesAI builds on Project Evident’s role as a leading voice around impact-focused AI in the social and education sectors, including producing a national survey in collaboration with Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, creating an AI Adoption Framework for grantmakers in collaboration with the Technology Association of Grantmakers, and developing a diagnostic aimed at helping organizations assess their AI engagement readiness. These efforts are part of a broader strategy to build an inclusive AI field that serves the needs of the social and education sector leaders.

About Project Evident

Project Evident is a leading organization dedicated to harnessing the power of data and evidence for greater impact in the social and education sectors. We believe that by empowering practitioners to drive their own data and evidence building while also strengthening the surrounding ecosystem, we can increase the number of effective solutions in the social and education sectors and scale them faster—ultimately producing stronger, more meaningful, and more equitable outcomes for communities.

For media inquiries, please contact:  

Dustin Sposato 
Deputy Managing Director, Field Building and Communications 
dsposato@projectevident.org