Salesforce AI Powers ‘Always-On’ Support for Good Things Australia, Boosting Digital Inclusion Across the Nation

Good Things Australia is using Agentforce, Salesforce’s digital labour platform, to deliver round-the-clock support to community partners nationwide. The non-profit’s first AI agent is already transforming how it supports community volunteers, boosting efficiency and helping to close Australia’s digital divide.

Driving the news: One in four Australians is digitally excluded, lacking the skills, confidence, or access to technology needed to thrive.

Good Things Australia empowers over 4,000 local organisations to deliver digital inclusion programs and manages the Australian government’s Be Connected program, supporting older Australians in developing digital skills. Over the last seven years, Good Things Australia has distributed over $32 million in grants to community organisations.

While the integration of AI into non-profit operations continues to hold the promise of transformative change, only 12% of NFPs globally are leveraging AI in their day to day operations, while at the same time, over 37% of nonprofits struggle with workload management.

The Good Things team were in a similar situation, faced with the immense task of supporting its network of community organisations with a small support team. This made it challenging to provide the immediate, round-the-clock assistance that volunteers often require, especially those working outside standard business hours.

In response, Good Things Australia deployed ‘Grant’, an AI agent built on the Salesforce platform. Accessible through a secure portal on Experience Cloud, Grant uses Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to provide immediate and accurate answers to partner questions.

The agent is trained on the organisation’s internal knowledge base, enabling it to handle inquiries ranging from general program information to specific, complex details about grant applications and reporting.

The impact has been immediate. Volunteers can now get the help they need, whenever they need it, freeing them to focus on their core mission. By leveraging Nonprofit Cloud to streamline the entire grant lifecycle and the Einstein Trust Layer to ensure data security and privacy, the AI agent has already reduced helpline calls. This allows the Good Things Australia team to dedicate more time to complex support cases and strategic initiatives that build the capacity of their network.

The Good Things Australia perspective:

Jess Wilson, CEO of Good Things Australia, said Agentforce is transforming how the organisation supports its partners. “Agentforce provides always-on assistance that’s crucial for volunteers working outside business hours. This not only frees up our team to focus on building capabilities and increasing collective impact, but also allows us to experiment with agentic AI in a safe and trusted environment, thanks to its integration with Salesforce’s Einstein Trust Layer and the secure space where our data is already store. 

“We see incredible opportunities for AI to promote digital inclusion, which is why it’s important for organisations like ours to have the opportunity and funding to start using it ourselves and apply our learnings and insights to benefit the community.”

The Salesforce perspective:

“At Salesforce, we’re proud to play a role in Good Things Australia bridging the digital divide across the country.” said Andrew Hill, AVP for Nonprofits, Salesforce ANZ.

“Agentforce is supporting the organisation’s work with thousands of local communities by delivering responsive, always-on customer service that can provide community groups with grant details, reporting requirements, and more. This is enabling the Good Things Australia team to better manage its workload and achieve productivity improvements.”