Knowledge in non-profits does not only amount to reports and grant applications – it is made of the stories of the NGOs beneficiaries, the experiences of its volunteers, proven methods of operation and hundreds of appeals for support. What if you could organize all these resources and make them instantly accessible to everyone on your team? NotebookLM is an AI-based tool that changes how NGOs manage knowledge and conduct internal training. It helps employees and volunteers find key information faster and makes education within the organization more effective. How can NGOs use NotebookLM in their daily work? Let’s find out!
How does Google NotebookLM work? Its key features
You can find hundreds of articles about every detail of the functionalities of NotebookLM. I particularly recommend Michał Serwinski’s article “How the NotebookLM Works: How Your Virtual Assistant Helps You Work with Information?“ NotebookLM allows you to efficiently add various source materials and take notes. These can be text files, Google Drive files, Google documents, PDF files, Google presentations, or links to YouTube videos. You upload them, and then the tool immediately answers questions and creates summaries based on them. You can organize each topic in a separate notebook, making the note-management process even easier.
In this article, I would like to focus on NotebookLM’s practical uses in educational and knowledge management contexts. To do this, we need to begin by summarizing its strengths. I recommend this video to see NotebookLM in action.
Generating summaries
NotebookLM introduces a revolutionary approach to document processing. The system seamlessly handles a variety of formats, including PDF documents, text files, organizational memos, and training presentations. The platform’s ability to quickly process voluminous materials and work with large data sets to help find key information proves particularly valuable. In practice, an employee can learn a report’s key themes and conclusions, typically requiring hours of reading in mere minutes. The system produces concise but succinct summaries, preserving the context and key details of the original document.
Interactive questions and answers
The interactive Q&A function is a real breakthrough when it comes to the accessibility of organizational knowledge. The system acts like an intelligent assistant that is fully aware of the contents of all documents uploaded to it. Employees can ask specific questions about procedures, policies, or technical specifications, receiving immediate, precise answers. The system is able to interpret the context of the questions, combine relevant information from different sources, and present it in a way that users can easily understand. This feature is particularly useful during training workshops and in daily work when quick access to information is crucial.
A quiz and exercise system
NotebookLM offers an advanced knowledge verification system that automatically generates personalized tests and exercises. The system analyzes training materials and creates questions that test various aspects of knowledge, from basic facts to complex connections. The learning process is dynamic and adaptive – the difficulty level automatically adjusts to the employee’s progress. The system provides immediate feedback, pointing out areas that need more attention and suggesting additional material on topics that cause difficulty.
It supports audio materials
The platform introduces an innovative approach to using audio materials in education. NotebookLM not only processes podcasts and recordings from training sessions but also enables their deep analysis. The system automatically creates transcriptions, generates summaries, and allows users to ask questions about the audio content.
Generating audio summaries
This is truly awesome! What distinguishes NotebookLM is its ability to convert text-based educational materials into an audio format. The system can actually generate a podcast – transform source documents into professional-sounding broadcasts, adjusting the pace of the narration to listeners’ preferences. What’s more, we can actively participate in the podcast by asking questions or commenting on the answers of the virtual presenters. This feature opens up new possibilities for multi-channel knowledge transfer, allowing employees to learn at times and in formats that are convenient for them. For now, this feature is only possible in English.
Before we begin, a few things about data security
NotebookLM is a powerful knowledge management tool, but it is important not to forget about data security issues. Non-profits often work with sensitive information, such as the personal data of beneficiaries, volunteers, or employees. Remember: do not add documents containing personal information, medical information, or other sensitive data, subject to GDPR and other privacy regulations, to NotebookLM. It is worth adopting an organization-wide rule that only general information, educational content, or internal organizational materials that do not contain identifiable information or have been anonymized are uploaded to the system. If an organization uses NotebookLM to work with sensitive documentation, it’s a good idea to develop a data security policy in advance to avoid privacy risks and ensure the cyber security of Polish users.
How can NotebookLM help education within your organization?
Now, let’s take the time to think about how we can use all of these functionalities in the field of education, making our work easier (and our beneficiaries happy). Let’s take a look at some of the most common processes and try to streamline them using NotebookLM, our virtual research assistant.
Onboarding (introduction) of new employees and volunteers
Current reality: a new employee gets a stack of documents taller than the Eiffel Tower and spends his first week on the job searching for the coffee machine. The mentor who was supposed to take them under their wing has just gone on a two-week vacation (what a coincidence!), and the only person who knows all the procedures is on sick leave.
How would NotebookLM improve this situation? NotebookLM completely transforms the onboarding process. The system automatically creates personalized training paths, including various educational materials formats. The new employee receives access to an interactive guide to the organization, consisting of text documents, audio material, and a unique Q&A system. Particularly valuable is the ability to get immediate answers to questions about the organization’s procedures or policies, significantly speeding up the onboarding process.
Building an organization’s knowledge base
Current reality: A foundation that supports people with disabilities and chronic illnesses maintains subaccounts for its beneficiaries, from which invoices for rehabilitation, medication, and medical equipment are paid. Accountants process hundreds of documents every day, but the regulations are complicated, and each reimbursement requires careful analysis – does the invoice meet the correct requirements? Does the cost qualify for reimbursement? Is the doctor’s signature missing? As a result, the approval time for invoices is long, and beneficiary families have to wait for reimbursement.
How would NotebookLM improve this situation? NotebookLM can become a centralized tool for automating the organization and interpreting of reimbursement rules. The system can:
- Process reimbursement regulations and generate simplified guidelines for accountants.
- Create an interactive Q&A database where employees can quickly find answers to questions like, “Can the cost of a rehabilitation camp be reimbursed?” and “What documents are needed to pay invoices for medicine?”
- Generate summaries of regulatory changes so accountants can keep abreast of new legal requirements and reimbursement procedures.
- Convert documents into audio versions, enabling new foundation employees to quickly grasp key principles.
📌 An example in action:
When a new accountant joins a foundation, instead of sifting through hundreds of pages of regulations, they can ask a question in NotebookLM: “Can I approve an invoice for Tomatis therapy?” or “Do we reimburse travel expenses for rehabilitation?” The system automatically finds the answer in the foundation’s regulations database and indicates the documents required to approve each payment.
As a result, accountants can analyze documents faster and more accurately, beneficiaries can receive reimbursements faster, and the organization can reduce errors and inconsistencies in their accounting.
Legal and accounting training for grant processing
Current reality: The organization receives a new grant, and suddenly, everyone has to learn the complicated rules of its accounting. The project coordinator gets an eighty-page guidance document from the donor full of legalese. Employees try to wade through it, but after the third page, they begin to wonder if working at a coffee shop wasn’t a better idea after all. Ultimately, everyone interprets the regulations differently, leading to billing errors and stress during audits.
How would NotebookLM improve this situation? NotebookLM can transform long and complex grant guidelines and regulations into accessible summaries. Instead of poring over all of the documentation, the organization’s employees can use an interactive Q&A database to find clear answers to frequently asked questions. The system can also generate short audio clips that make it easy to digest key rules quickly, such as how to properly account for expenses or the most important reporting deadlines.
📌 An example in action:
A foundation that helps children has received a grant from a new EU program that requires the rigorous reporting of expenses. Instead of sending employees dozens of pages of documents, the organization uploads the guidelines to NotebookLM, which automatically creates summaries and a Q&A section based on them. Employees can quickly see what invoices are correct, what documents they need to gather, and how to properly report the use of funds – without having to dig through hundreds of pages of rules and regulations.
Managing technical knowledge
Current reality: The organization has been in operation for years, with numerous projects, but the documentation is scattered across various folders, Google Drives, and old emails. Some procedures are described in Word files, others in Excel sheets, and the most important things are in the director’s head, who has remembered everything for years anyway. New employees or volunteers try to find information, but everyone refers them elsewhere. Half the team uses one version of the beneficiary application form, and the other half uses a version from three years ago. As a result, a lot of time is wasted searching for documents, correcting errors, and transferring knowledge that should be readily available.
How would NotebookLM improve this situation? NotebookLM can systematize organizational knowledge by collecting procedures, reports, project documentation, regulations, or manuals in one place. The system automatically processes and indexes materials, allowing for the quick retrieval of information.
📌 An example in action:
With the interactive Q&A function, employees and volunteers can simply type in a question – for example, “How do I account for an invoice from a grant?” or “What are the criteria for admission to a support program?” – and receive an accurate answer without having to wade through lengthy documents.
The organization can also upload all of its existing materials, such as annual reports, instructions on how to work on projects, or beneficiary guides, to NotebookLM. The system can then generate summaries and simplified versions of the materials, such as abbreviated guidelines for volunteers or checklists for employees.
Specialized training (e.g., fundraising, cooperation with local support centers)
Current reality: New fundraisers at non-profits often learn by trial and error. They receive a stack of fundraising strategy materials but lack practical guidelines on effectively interviewing donors or writing compelling grant proposals. Experienced fundraisers, on the other hand, spend a lot of time answering repetitive questions and transferring knowledge to newcomers. As a result, the process of learning how to fundraise is chaotic, and the organization loses potential funds through a lack of well-prepared campaigns.
How would NotebookLM improve this situation? NotebookLM can help non-profits systematically train fundraisers by automatically transforming extensive fundraising materials into practical, interactive tools. Instead of tedious documents, new staff members can use dynamic summaries of key fundraising principles, practice various donor interview scenarios, and review answers to common funder questions.
📌 An example in action #1:
The organization can also upload past fundraising appeals, emails to donors, materials from previous campaigns, campaign plans, or annual reports to NotebookLM. The system can analyze these and indicate which messages ended up being most effective, what strategies worked best, and how older content can be adjusted for use in new campaigns. It can help analyze the effectiveness of previous emailing campaigns or create a database of the best points to make when talking to donors. You can also ask NotebookLM to automatically adapt previous materials to a new audience – for example, rewriting an email aimed at companies into a version for individual donors or creating a shorter version for a social media appeal.
The automatic question-and-answer generation feature helps quickly find information about an organization’s previous campaigns, past donors, or effective persuasive strategies for asking for support. In addition, thanks to audio materials, fundraisers can learn effective narrative and argumentative techniques, for example, while commuting.
📌 An example in action #2:
An organization dedicated to helping the unhoused is introducing a new staff member responsible for contacting local support centers. Instead of overwhelming him with hundreds of pages of documentation, he uses NotebookLM to create an interactive guide summarizing the organization’s key policies, intervention procedures, and frequently asked questions. This lets the new employees quickly orient themselves in the specifics of the work and saves the team the time previously spent explaining the same rules over and over again.
Looking for more inspiration? Check out Connie Malamed’s blog!
Cases of NotebookLM use in NGOs’ activities
In order to illustrate the versatility and potential of NotebookLM in different contexts, here I present hypothetical scenarios of its implementation in organizations with different profiles. Although fictional, these examples are based on actual needs and challenges faced by organizations today in training and employee development. Each case illustrates how the system can be tailored to an organization’s specific requirements.
📌 Fundacja „Bezpieczna Droga” (“Safe Way” Foundation)
Subject: Training for volunteers educating children about traffic safety
The foundation, which conducts classes for children in schools and kindergartens, struggled with chaotic training materials. Each volunteer had their own notes and different versions of official lesson plans, leading to inconsistencies. NotebookLM helped standardize the educational materials by making them into interactive guides and generating lesson plans tailored to the children’s ages. As a result, new volunteers could get into teaching faster, and the level of education across the foundation became more consistent.
📌 Stowarzyszenie „EkoAkcja” (“EcoAction” Association)
Subject: Knowledge management and ecological education
The organization, which implements environmental projects, was looking for a way to share ecological knowledge more effectively. NotebookLM helped create question-and-answer databases, making it easier for volunteers and educators to prepare for lectures or workshops quickly. The system also made it possible to transform existing environmental reports and analyses into accessible educational materials and short audio recordings (currently available in English, shortly in Polish as well) that activists could use, for example, during meetings with local communities.
📌 Fundacja „Wiedza dla Wszystkich” (“Knowledge for Everyone” Foundation)
Subject: Educational accessibility for people with disabilities
NotebookLM has become a key tool in the organization’s work on adapting educational materials for people with disabilities. The system helped convert documents and presentations into more accessible versions, such as summaries in simpler language or audio recordings for the visually impaired. The automatic generation of ideas and summaries has also made it easier to prepare shorter, more accessible versions of materials that can be used by people with reading difficulties.
Case study: A comprehensive NotebookLM implementation
Project: The transformation of knowledge management at the “EkoEdukacja” Foundation
Context and challenges
The “EkoEdukacja” Foundation, a medium-sized non-profit with fifteen employees and 150 volunteers, faced the challenge of modernizing its knowledge management system. Its main issues included difficulties in effectively transferring knowledge to new volunteers, ineffective management of educational projects, and problems maintaining consistent quality standards across different locations.
Phase 1: Digitization and knowledge organization (Months 1-2)
The NotebookLM summary generation function was used for processing:
- Three 20-page manuals of foundation procedures
- 30 scenarios for environmental workshops
- 10 hours of training recordings for volunteers
- 200 pages of reports on educational projects
NotebookLM automatically processed these materials, creating:
- A concise, 10-page summary of information and key procedures
- An interactive index of workshop scenarios
- Transcriptions and summaries of training session recordings
- A database of key lessons learned from past educational projects
Phase 2: Create training paths (Months 2-3)
Using the interactive Q&A feature, the project team:
- Identified the most common questions from new volunteers and trainees
- Created a database of answers to common concerns
- Developed personalized training paths for different roles in the foundation
- Prepared scenarios for solving common problems in projects
Phase 3: Audio material development (Months 3-4)
NotebookLM converted key materials into audio formats:
- Instructions for conducting workshops were turned into podcasts
- A series of podcasts on managing educational projects was created
- Audiobooks were recorded about key foundation procedures
Phase 4: Implementation and the first results (Months 4-6)
The system was tested in one regional branch, where:
- 3 employees and 30 volunteers were given access to the platform
- Training on the use of the system was conducted
- The use of various functions was monitored
- Feedback from users was collected
The first results showed:
- Reduction in the time needed to onboard new volunteers by 50%
- A 30% increase in the efficiency of conducted workshops
- A 40% improvement in the quality of project reporting
- A 70% increase in volunteer satisfaction with the use of the support system
Phase 5: Full implementation and optimization (Months 6-8)
The system has been made available to the entire organization:
- Personalized training paths for all positions were implemented;
- The system was integrated with existing project management tools;
- Regular updates to the knowledge base were introduced;
- A mentoring program supported by NotebookLM was launched.
Results after a year
Quantitative:
- Reduction of volunteer introduction time from 1 month to 1 week;
- A 40% increase in the number of workshops conducted;
- A 25% increase in fundraising efficiency;
- Saving 80 hours per month on onsite training.
Qualitative:
- A higher level of standardization of conducted educational projects;
- Higher quality of educational materials;
- Increased involvement of volunteers;
- More effective management of organizational knowledge.
Key findings from the project
- Regular digitizing of knowledge is crucial to the effective operation of an NGO.
- The Q&A system reduces the burden on coordinators created by repetitive questions.
- The automatic generation of summaries speeds up the process of knowledge acquisition by new team members.
- Regular updates and monitoring of the system’s usage are essential to maintain its effectiveness.
- NotebookLM’s audio features significantly increase the availability of materials for volunteers.
Plans for the future
The EkoEdukacja Foundation plans to further develop the system by:
- Introducing training modules in minority languages;
- Expanding the knowledge base to include new areas of ecological activity;
- The Integration with volunteer management systems;
- The development of an AI-assisted mentoring program.
This comprehensive project demonstrates how the systematic use of all NotebookLM functions can transform knowledge management processes in a non-profit, bringing tangible benefits to the execution of its mission and operational efficiency.
What if your organization operates in a completely different area? The NotebookLM implementation mechanism described in the case of the EkoEdukacja Foundation can be easily adapted to different types of organizations – from those supporting refugees through facilities helping the elderly to cultural or environmental initiatives. All you need to do is think about what processes in your work could use the organization of knowledge, quick access to information, or the creation of educational materials – and NotebookLM can help you streamline all of that.
Education and knowledge management with NotebookLM: Go beyond Google Docs and PDFs!
As this article shows, this clever system can turn a pile of boring documents into enjoyable training materials faster than an employee can say, “How do I do this?” NotebookLM adapts to any environment like a chameleon in the NGO jungle: it can adapt to match the needs of sports and social welfare organizations as well as educational and cultural ones.
So, if your organization still relies on stacks of faded manuals, shared drives that few can actually navigate, and endless PowerPoint presentations—it’s time for a change! NotebookLM is waiting to transform your employee training system from a boring marathon into a sprint for knowledge.
Take the risk, experiment, test it out – what’s the worst that can happen? That your employees will finally actually use your organization’s knowledge and benefit from your training? Now, that would be terrible, wouldn’t it?