From Nonprofit Founder to Automation Expert 🤖

I really feel like we have an opportunity right now to make the most of, this movement and use AI and automation for good.

It doesn't have to be doom and gloom.

Hi, my name is Mark Garza and I am the founder of flatwater.org and I wanted to make a quick video to explain who I am, a little bit about my journey and talk about automation and AI.

My mission right now, to help people, help organizations, help founders that are coping with growing their mission.

you know, I lived it firsthand and I went through a terminal diagnosis with my father to learn that a lot of times what life hands us, we turn into action, to support, to helping our community.

And I'm very proud of the work I've done.

But I want to explain in a video what it really means and how I got here to this journey with automation and AI.

So as you see here, waves in every direction, then calm water.

I really felt like this diagnosis, I felt it firsthand with my father.

And after that getting, getting that news.

I spent 12 years, almost 13 years building this non profit to help others get back to that calm water, which is flatwater.org and moved to the board of directors where I sit now.

And I went into a sales position where I started implementing more of this automation technology to solve problems and really started making a difference.

But from the corporate side of things, I kept being drawn back to helping others.

And so almost two years ago I left that position and I went into a role where I could dedicate myself to the craft of understanding automation and AI.

These tools that are moving so fast, what they can do and what they mean and helping small businesses.

I realized I could make a difference again, with my expertise and help these companies make an impact.

So where I am today is I have the nonprofit.

Almost two decades of running and building a nonprofit, I have this knowledge that I've built up on automation and AI.

And so I really am called right now to find partners that I can work with in a fractional role and do the work, help them do the hard work so they can focus on mission and being a great person and working with the people in their community and, and not tasks.

So let me tell you a little bit about what, what my story is.

So my dad was given 12 months, a 12 month to live a terminal diagnosis.

And with that, you know, I found two things when I went to run around and figure out how to get help.

And that was the price and then the wait list or the, the challenge of getting help.

So as it moves outward, as you see here, it's really about the patient and then the spouse, children to parents to finances.

One ripple Causes waves in so many directions as you see in the site here.

And I knew that I needed to show up and I got on a paddleboard.

And that led to something incredible in my life.

I found essentially through this path and the learnings and teachings of my dad, there are no do overs in life.

You can use this calling, use where you are right now and make a difference.

So what did I do?

I put together a PR stunt, this paddle board that I started getting on when my dad was diagnosed.

Really I found it saving my life, connecting with nature, getting outside, getting in the sun, 6am in the dark even every day.

my heart was just in it for, for the, for the calm, for the connection, spending time with my thoughts.

And so I got about 14 of my friends, about 15 of us went out and we paddle boarded 21 miles.

As you'll see at the top of the screen here.

I'm tracking this whole journey that I'm telling you through that lens of a 21 mile paddle.

It wasn't a fundraiser and $32,000 rolled in.

And I knew pretty quickly my career.

I worked at gsdn, which is a large ad agency in Austin, Publicis in San Francisco, Mother in New York on the Dell account.

I spent a lot of time on big corporate accounts doing advertising and, you know, starting movements with brands.

But I thought, this is it, this is my calling.

And so I put a group together that then grew over time to what is now 230 people.

And I'll get to that here in just a second.

But every summer we're still out there on the water.

This is not a paddleboarding movement.

This is about mental health.

But we did it on paddle boards.

So in 2011 we got our 501C3.

2014, we added equine therapy.

My mission being to, to help those families find this calm, this serenity through mental health support when touched by cancer.

2015, we went global with this paddle.

We started it in 2010, 2011 here in Austin.

But in 2015 we went global and did, 137 miles through Holland as a small group, raised a couple hundred thousand dollars.

In 2016, our little 21 mile paddle in Austin hit half a million in one year.

That's that one year, a half a million dollar event.

We went to Lake Tahoe, did 71 miles, looped the lake.

We started to look at ways to get attention, ways to get people behind this mission and spread a global message that is taking care of your mind matters, especially when something like a cancer diagnosis comes in 2018, we started doing a golf tournament that goes on today with our friends at Mama Betty's.

2019, we hit that million dollar mark.

And as you see, it continues to grow to 2025, a record year, and then again 2026.

This year, the paddle event, $1.6 million.

But this event is really just a movement and something that we grew with, starting with two people running it to team of volunteers, 50 volunteers, amazing brands.

And what we've accomplished is changing lives.

We've now we're approaching 80,000 hours of therapy, have raised and provided, almost $20 million in care.

We've raised over $20 million for these families that we're putting right to this program and making a difference so that they don't have to cover the cost of mental health therapy when touched by a cancer diagnosis.

If money's keeping them from it, we want to remove that barrier and take care of that for them.

40 sessions per person.

It's a long time.

And for our event, we now have reached a point where we fundraise through sponsorships more than the event costs.

So all the donations to our paddlers doing the event, they donations can go to the cause.

So what did I actually find through all of this?

Well, what we built and what I, what I discovered as an executive director is we created a fundraising engine.

We created an event that created movement.

Right.

It's now a $1.6 million event.

I'd built a HIPAA compliant platform from the ground up.

I architected this and built it with a donor.

so because, because I knew they were protecting the money, they that we as a donor themselves, that we were building and so building a platform at the time, this is before a lot of AI coding, we needed to get it done.

I put together partnerships with all the top cancer organizations, other cancer nonprofits, built a seven figure budget like I said, where this is all going to this care, built a therapy network.

Very important person to person, finding providers in the community that want to be a part of this for the right reasons.

and then also built the most amazing board we could have possibly ever imagined.

This is all from the ground up over many years.

So this calm water we can now see as an operating system.

I've transitioned now into automation and AI and full circle.

Now I'm understanding nonprofits don't need more tech stack and they don't need more people.

A lot of times they need to do more with the people that they have.

And so what I like to do is think about how we can put a playbook, a founder's playbook in place, but build folders as agents to do the work.

The work like getting intake, building context, writing drafts, keeping a human in the loop for reviews, but building these processes in a way where we can architect this securely on folders, on the assets, on computers owned by the NonProfit and Connect AI to help us walk through these processes.

But use AI to build, determine.

What I mean is to write code and structures and folders with prompts that can do the work of this monotonous tasks that happen, these recipes that happen over and over.

I have found that we can do that with folders and through the teachings and learnings that I have of context engineering, so that people in non profits can really focus the people, work, be the best people they can, and work with great people in the community to spread mission.

So for a lot of people, we'd look at the CRM, we'd look at grant writing and reporting.

I think there's a lot that happens from first drafts and documents and research, coordinating volunteers, event operations, things from voice AI and questions, bringing all those questions and things together to understand what, what information is getting asked most and how we can get back in a timely manner.

And that's all with a human touch, with human intervention, but using the data and AI and automation to make that easier.

And then things like board packets, information, annual reports, these are things that are important research on donors, grants.

These are all very important things that need humans involved.

But we've got to automate a lot of the busy work tasks that go along with these.

So since 2025, I've been running Laimen AI and doing this for companies and doing this for businesses and automating things in my own business and also trying to keep a finger on the pulse of AI.

And it's a tough thing to do, but that's where my time and attention is dedicated right now.

And so what I'm thinking, would be the most beneficial for a lot of nonprofits that I want to work with is doing what we call an, an automation use readiness assessment, which is not as an audit of how your organization is running.

Do that, do that hard, you know, that hard.

Interview the chat, look at your tools, look at what you're doing, ask the hard questions and get a readiness report so we can understand if working together with me with Laimen is a good fit, is a good match, and if not, that exercise is still going to provide massive amounts of value.

And so what I'm looking to do is get three to four partners as clients.

But I really want to get back to this, focus on purpose and get clients that I can work with these seats, that as paid partners, I'm looking to do a fractional arrangement as essentially the AI guy.

Right.

But when I say AI, it's really about automation.

How can we look at what you're doing as a nonprofit?

How can we assess the tools you're using, the processes that you already have in place?

Where can we automate so that those things are just happening?

And we've got tools and secure tools at that to do this?

And how do we free up your time to be more human, to be out in the community, to have breakfast, and to grow your mission?

That's what I'm looking to do.

So please shoot me a note.

Mark at Laimen dot AI, reach out to me if you're seeing this in social.

find a way to get a hold of me comment.

But again, that's my email.

I'm looking forward to connecting with you or somebody you may know in the nonprofit space that's struggling, that's buried in tasks and paperwork.

I really feel like we have an opportunity right now to make the most of, this movement and use AI and automation for good.

It doesn't have to be doom and gloom.