Community Connections weighs AI paperwork tools after $494,000 OpenAI Foundation grant

An OpenAI Foundation grant is meant to give rural disability caseworkers more time with clients. But Community Connections is still deciding what to build. In an October 17 Colorado Sun interview, CEO Tara Kiene described a discovery phase focused on practical paperwork fixes, with implementation details still being worked out.

The award supports a partnership with the Durango-based Center for Rural AI, which will provide technical help. Its October 8 announcement puts the grant at $494,000 through the foundation’s 2026 People-First AI Fund. The Colorado Sun gives a different figure, $495,000; the partner’s dated release and Community Connections’ own account both specify $494,000.

Community Connections is Southwest Colorado’s state-designated Medicaid case management agency. It helps people with disabilities and complex needs access long-term care benefits and coordinate services. Across all its programs, the nonprofit serves more than 1,500 people annually in Archuleta, Dolores, La Plata, Montezuma and San Juan counties.

The immediate pressure falls on 22 case managers. Elizabeth Fabrey, the nonprofit’s vice president of case management, told The Colorado Sun that each manager has a caseload cap of 65. The organization’s children’s case manager has a caseload of 80. Fabrey described the agency as consistently operating at capacity.

Their work involves government systems that do not connect, repeated documentation and time-consuming reporting requirements. Kiene and Fabrey describe an administrative load that cuts into time with clients. Fabrey warned that burnout can drive case managers out, leaving the people they support with less of the help they are entitled to receive.

Tasks that used to take 15 minutes now take two hours, and then you have to wait overnight for systems to connect in order for you to be able to do the next step

Tara Kiene, Community Connections president and CEO, quoted by The Colorado Sun

Kiene’s examples are specific to that daily workload. Staff will help decide which solutions would have the greatest impact, while the Center for Rural AI will identify options that are relatively quick to design. The discovery work includes considering whether tools could:

• Flag missing signatures. Case managers mail service plans out for signing; an alert could tell them when a signed plan has not come back.
• Reduce repeated data entry. Kiene wants to explore ways to avoid entering the same information in multiple places and make information easier to find.
• Help complete assessments. Another possibility is using a client conversation to populate responses in an assessment form when the case manager returns to a computer.

The nonprofit’s broader list of possibilities also includes an internal knowledge assistant intended to give staff consistent, accurate information. Connecting fragmented administrative systems and automating routine workflows are other areas it plans to explore.

A possible client-facing portal would address a different problem: understanding and navigating services. In its account published by The Pagosa Springs Sun, Community Connections described potential features including voice-to-text, translation and simplified reading formats. The intended users include people with intellectual disabilities, visual impairments, literacy challenges and other communication barriers.

The grant provides unrestricted support, giving Community Connections flexibility to advance its mission while exploring the technology. The award was one of 163 selected from nearly 1,700 applicants across 35 states, according to the Center for Rural AI.

AI also played a role in finding the money. The center says its Grant Writing Assistant identified the opportunity. The center itself was ineligible to apply, The Colorado Sun reported, so founder Andrew Aitken approached Community Connections on June 19. The organizations worked together to submit an application about a month later.

The partnership’s ambitions extend beyond one agency. The center says all solutions developed through the initiative will be made publicly available for other rural nonprofits and case management agencies to adopt. That is a commitment about future access, not an announcement that those tools are available now.

Community Connections says accessibility, privacy, data security and accuracy will guide the work, alongside staff training and community input. The proposed client tools would be designed with input from the people who use its services, giving them a role in shaping how the technology is used.