Gemini success stories: Climate Ride and Dutch Bamboo Foundation

When trying to make positive difference in the world, admin tasks can sometimes take a backseat in the list of priorities. Generative AI (such as Gemini, ChatGPT or CoPilot) offer a toolkit that promises to help make the admin work a little bit easier. For not-for-profits the Dutch Bamboo Foundation and Climate Ride, AI tool Gemini has been effective in helping the day-to-day work smoother, integrating seamlessly into the wider Google Workspace, allowing the team to focus on their goals rather than the admin. 

For the one-person team at the Dutch Bamboo Foundation, Gemini has been an integral addition to aid founder Brian Wennersten in content creation, research assistance and grant writing. The mission of the Dutch Bamboo Foundation is to help reverse climate change by utilizing bamboo as a viable solution to capturing carbon emissions. As a small team already familiar with the Google Workspace environment, the addition and implementation of Gemini was a natural next step for Wennersten. Working in the climate change space, there is a lot of information coming out on a near daily basis, and Wennersten has found that working alongside Gemini has been a big help when it comes to wading through the vast amounts of information available. 

"I’m always scrambling to keep up with the latest research on climate change and sustainability, and I’m interested in how large companies are responding to the climate crisis. But the amount of relevant information in scientific journals and corporate reports is overwhelming," Wennersten laments. 

Thinking of how to make digesting the massive amount of information easier, Wennersten turned to Gems, a function of Gemini that allows users to provide specific instructions and goals to the AI assistant, focusing the output on a specific topic or task. With this, Wennersten built a researcher Gem, which is now able to analyse and summarise a range of complex climate change related publications. 

"I instructed the Gem to summarize the main findings of each report in jargon-free language, identify the most important data and stakeholders, and provide links to all citations and source materials to ensure accuracy," explains Wennersten. "With Gems I can stay abreast of the most important climate science information, find and connect with experts in the field, and develop new ways for Dutch Bamboo to pursue its mission." 

Being a team of one, Wennersten has also taken advantage of Gemini’s ability to assist with writing grant applications, social media posts and fundraising emails. By training the AI assistant in the Dutch Bamboo Foundation’s mission and background information, Gemini can draft responses in the style and voice of the organisation. This has cut the time that Wennersten is spending on these tasks, giving him the space to work on the organisation’s mission and goals.  

This time-saver has also been an integral part of not-for-profit Climate Ride, who have used Gemini to help generate content and ideas for marketing and social media. Climate Ride focus on providing outdoor experiences and personal challenges to help raise funds and increase activism on climate policy. By treating Gemini as a collaborator, Partnerships Manager Mackenzie Cole has been able to offload the tedious tasks, leaving more time to focus on creating engaging and unique events.  

"During our yearly Annual Fund campaign, we now use Gemini to play with email copy, collaborating with the tool to come up with fresh takes for describing our work and impact," Cole says. "We can experiment with novel ways to make our emails more engaging." 

Working in smaller teams means that you can be stretched a little thin. Taking the time to learn and implement tools such as Gemini can bring some positive benefits and save a lot of time. You can read more about how AI is helping both Dutch Bamboo and Climate Ride at the Google Workspace website.