RSMUS.comNonprofits are increasingly leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to overcome challenges and enhance their operations and improve service delivery to their communities. AI can amplify nonprofit missions by significantly boosting efficiency and effectiveness by automating routine tasks and surfacing valuable data insights.
While AI’s potential impacts are huge, integrating AI into your nonprofit requires a thoughtful approach to ensure responsible and ethical use that aligns with your organization’s mission and values. Read on or watch our webinar here to learn how AI can empower nonprofits ethically.
AI solutions for nonprofit challenges
Nonprofits are at a point of inflection, challenged to meet rising demands with limited resources, compounded by economic instability and tighter budgets. This is leading to increased employee burnout and difficulties in offering competitive salaries and benefits.
AI can alleviate some of these pressures and help your organization feel more like a fully staffed agency by automating repetitive tasks, freeing up staff to focus on mission-impact activities. For instance, AI can streamline simple data updates, such as address changes or donor information, ensuring accurate and timely communications. Additionally, this enhances operational efficiency and improves constituent satisfaction by reducing errors and delays.
AI can also assist in tailored interactions with stakeholders, meeting the growing expectations for hyper-personalized experiences that are increasingly the norm. AI-driven chatbots can provide real-time responses to inquiries, whether from major donors seeking their giving history or constituents needing assistance. These tools significantly enhance the user experience, making interactions more seamless and efficient. For more ideas on how AI can be viewed as a teammate, see our blog here.
Considerations when adopting AI
Adopting AI as a nonprofit presents some very real ethical concerns, including:
- Data privacy and security to protect sensitive and personally identifiable information in accordance with policy and regulations
- Bias and fairness in AI decisions
- Risk of losing the human touch in services
- Environmental impacts including the energy consumption of data centers
Nonprofits must implement robust governance and monitoring frameworks to ensure AI usage is transparent, accountable and aligned with organizational values. This includes clear policies on data usage, control over AI models and regular reviews of AI outputs for accuracy and fairness. Thoughtful and purposeful AI usage, such as prioritizing applications that provide significant benefits, can help mitigate costs and environmental impacts.
A framework for ethical AI
The following steps help ensure ethical implementation of AI and positive impact.
Establish a governance board with diverse stakeholders, including program leads, data teams, legal advisors and community representatives to guide AI usage. This board should develop clear policies for monitoring AI outputs, regularly review use cases and ensure transparency in AI decision-making processes.
Create feedback channels for your AI processes. Collecting feedback from internal and external users through forms, polls, focus groups and A/B testing helps continuously improve AI applications. Comparing AI-generated content with human-created content gauges the effectiveness and perception of AI tools. Follow a crawl, walk, run approach when implementing AI to start small, manage risks and scale AI usage effectively. Continuously evaluate the impact of AI tools, considering both technical and ethical costs, to ensure that AI applications provide value without compromising organizational integrity.
From burnout to breakthrough
AI offers nonprofits a chance to overcome their unique challenges, improve operations and better serve their communities. By implementing AI with a focus on ethical considerations, data privacy, and environmental sustainability, nonprofits can drive positive change. With careful planning and governance, AI can become a valuable ally in making a meaningful impact. Watch our webinar here to see our take on how nonprofits could ethically use AI to overcoming challenges.
Not sure where to start your AI journey? Contact us today to learn more.
Lou Bialon-Crane
Lou is a 16x certified Salesforce architect who provides Salesforce consulting services to public and nonprofit organizations. He has a background in nonprofit operations.
