Roddenberry Catalyst Grant Fuels Development of xf.app — AI Infrastructure for Nonprofits

We're excited to share that Experience Futures has been awarded a Catalyst Fund grant from The Roddenberry Foundation to accelerate the development of xf.app. Originally conceived in 2023 as part of our early work exploring AI use cases for social impact, xf.app has evolved through prototyping and nonprofit collaboration into a modular platform that helps mission-driven organizations transform their institutional knowledge into guided, accessible digital tools. The Roddenberry grant supports this ongoing work, building on grant proposals submitted in 2024.

Building Infrastructure for Inclusive AI

The Catalyst Fund backs early-stage ideas tackling global challenges with bold, unconventional solutions. xf.app fits this vision by providing a lightweight, embeddable platform designed specifically for nonprofits and mission-aligned organizations. It enables them to translate their processes, policies, and community knowledge into smart, conversational tools that support real outcomes—from benefit navigation and program design to staff onboarding and leadership development.

While 58% of nonprofits are experimenting with AI, fewer than 10% have ethical policies or structured tools in place. Many are navigating this shift without the technical infrastructure to deploy AI safely or meaningfully. xf.app bridges this gap by offering a platform that helps organizations operationalize their knowledge and workflows, while maintaining alignment with their values and safeguarding the communities they serve.

Introducing xf.app

xf.app is a multi-tenant, AI-enabled platform that helps organizations build conversational tools grounded in their own rules, processes, and expertise. It enables users to engage in guided interactions while still being able to ask questions, request clarification, or explore more freely using AI chat.

The platform is designed to integrate with an organization’s existing content, such as policies, forms, training guides, or planning documents, turning decades of institutional knowledge into structured, interactive experiences. What makes xf.app powerful is its ability to combine clear logic and pathways with AI’s natural language capabilities. Instead of forcing users down rigid paths or relying solely on unpredictable AI models, it blends the best of both.

This approach also addresses one of the biggest challenges in AI today: hallucinations, where models generate false or misleading information. With xf.app, organizations define the rules and logic—and AI supports the conversation, not the other way around.

Crucially, xf.app also enables organizations to define human checkpoints—escalation moments where a live person can step in. Whether the interaction involves legal aid, healthcare, or sensitive eligibility criteria, the ability to surface the issue to a human is core to xf.app’s design. This ensures nonprofits can embed oversight, empathy, and ethical guardrails directly into the way their systems function. For many mission-driven organizations, this kind of “human in the loop” capability is the essential foundation of responsible AI.

Example Use Cases Include:

• Helping staff build an "AI Blueprint" by walking through value-aligned planning questions and outputting a shareable plan
• Allowing leaders to build mentorship or program profiles from resumes, bios, and structured prompts
• Supporting benefits or services navigation through decision trees backed by uploaded documents and integrated community knowledge

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Our Approach to AI for Social Impact

Too often, AI tools are built for enterprises—with nonprofit adoption as an afterthought. xf.app reverses that model. It centers nonprofit workflows, document sets, and user needs, then adds just enough AI to make those processes smoother, smarter, and more scalable. Crucially, organizations retain control over:

• Logic and structure that reflects their missions and workflows
• Historical content that underpins their community expertise
• Infrastructure, whether hosted by xf.app or integrated with services like Google Drive or Vertex AI

Through xf.app, we’re building an AI foundation that any nonprofit can use—whether they need to automate intake, scale outreach, guide users through benefits, or match people with services. And it’s designed with privacy, flexibility, and equity in mind.

Toward an Open, Adaptable Future

We're designing xf.app to evolve as an open, modular platform. Built on open-source components and standard protocols, it’s designed to foster a developer and nonprofit community that can adapt, remix, and expand it.

"We believe AI infrastructure for the social sector shouldn't be proprietary. It should be accessible, extensible, and accountable to the people it serves."

By removing barriers—cost, complexity, and technical lock-in—xf.app ensures that nonprofits aren’t left behind in the AI revolution. They’re equipped to lead it.

Thank You to the Roddenberry Foundation

We’re grateful to the Roddenberry Foundation for recognizing the importance of equitable AI and supporting tools that make technology work for more people, not fewer. Stay tuned as we roll out our first flows and invite early partners to join us in shaping this new layer of social impact infrastructure.

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