AI for Nonprofits: 3 Ways to Accelerate Your Mission

Budgets are tight. Time is short. The mission matters. In the swirl of day-to-day priorities – both urgent and important – new tools can often seem like a distraction. And often, they are.

Depending on who you ask, AI may be a distraction, a party trick, a tool to accelerate our work, or something that’s going to transform everything.

After spending more than 20 years in nonprofit settings (from education to churches, an NGO to journalism - not officially a nonprofit, but it could have been!), I know time is precious, the mission is crucial, and resources must drive work forward.

As leaders, we ask: Can this help my team? How can it empower rather than distract? Individual contributors face similar questions.

While there may not be enough time to experiment extensively, there are several ways AI can help you gain clarity, accelerate action, and make better decisions. Here's how to use AI effectively in a non-profit space.

First, Avoid These Mistakes

When we first try AI, it's typical to stare at the blank prompt box and type in basic commands. This often leads to three common challenges:

AI as a Party Trick: "Write a song about not finding what you want at Target." "Create a picture of a carrot and the Empire State Building dancing in a park." These might be requests from my household while showing my kids what AI can do, but they also represent how many first approach the tool. Something that can do anything can distract from the ways it can do certain things well.

AI as a Simple Search Engine: One question, one answer, and we’re done. This approach misses AI's potential and is the reason many give up after a few minutes. It's using the wrong tool for the job. Instead of using it like a search engine, engage it collaboratively. Share context, ask for analysis, request summaries, and dig deeper.

AI as Your Replacement: This represents the opposite extreme. If you're using AI to create your implementation plan, write your emails, and develop project strategies from scratch, you're likely replacing your unique contribution. Before engaging with AI, be clear about your role. What insight do you uniquely bring? What are you here to do? Start with your own thinking – don't let AI map the whole strategy. If it's doing what you're here to do, we're missing your insight and impact!

Instead of these approaches, here are three suggestions for how AI can truly accelerate your mission – serving as a collaborator, an expert at synthesis and pattern recognition, and a coach to refine your work.

1: Collaborate to Improve Your Thinking and Strategy

AI can be a great thought partner, helping you brainstorm ideas, uncover insights, critique your work, and identify gaps in your thinking.

The key is to INFORM your thinking, not REPLACE it.

If I ask ChatGPT or Claude to write a LinkedIn post on leadership, it will give me something that makes sense and is even reasonable — but also average. (Please don't "start a post with AI" – Sorry, LinkedIn. First, consider: What are you trying to share? Who's it for? Why will it matter? How will it help?)

Instead, think of generative AI as a thought partner that can ask questions, refine your thinking, and provide feedback. Rather than asking it to create a strategy or write a project plan, share your work and ask it to act as a board of directors. Upload documents and ask AI to identify gaps and ask you questions to help fill the void.

Providing your AI "teammate" with specific data leads to better results. Think of it as narrowing the scope from all human knowledge to your specific domain. AI is almost always better when processing, building on, and critiquing your information rather than starting from a general question.

One important note: Generative AI systems generally aim to please. They tend to be agreeable when giving feedback. Specifically request that they challenge your assumptions, argue opposing viewpoints, or critically improve your ideas. Try assigning personas: "You're a board member with expertise in X. Show me the strengths and weaknesses of my points.”

2: Clarify, Synthesize, and Simplify Complex Data

A recent study showed that when physicians used AI, they performed no better than physicians without AI in diagnosing a series of patients. The surprise? When AI analyzed cases independently, it outperformed both physicians and physician+AI combinations.

Our cognitive biases can interfere with AI collaboration (and honestly, with all collaboration). The study found that physicians accepted AI advice when it confirmed their existing assessments but tended to discount insights that challenged their beliefs.

Another key finding: doctors used AI to ask questions rather than providing comprehensive data for analysis.

AI is at its best is when given the complete picture, drawing out themes, insights, and summaries to inform decision-making. This is great news – it becomes a powerful tool for summarizing meeting transcripts, making sense of piles of PDFs, identifying cross-document themes, and spotting data trends.

Here's an example: "You're an expert qualitative researcher skilled at identifying themes from text responses. Below are participant responses from a life coaching boot camp about their experiences with instruction and supervision. Please analyze these responses, report common themes, and highlight any outliers.”

You can also use AI to surface relevant perspectives from your existing work. Instead of "Write an article on leadership," try: "You're an expert in organizational change and leadership development. Here's my dissertation. Identify five unexpected insights that could create compelling articles for executive leaders on team selection and change management.”

This approach works particularly well with data analysis. Over the weekend (what do you do for fun?), I analyzed 990 tax forms from ten local nonprofits using ChatGPT to compare their approaches and identify successful strategies versus struggling organizations. While this financial analysis has limitations, it revealed fascinating insights. (I'll share more about this project in my next post.)

Remember: Specific documents lead to better insights. Without concrete information to work from, AI defaults to generating most likely responses, producing average rather than insightful perspective.

Hallucinations remain possible, and it's worth dipping into the information to confirm any data-specific analysis, but I've found staying close to provided information typically yields reliable results. And if you're brainstorming or surfacing themes, hallucinations are even less likely.

3: Refine Your Output and Communication

Finally, AI excels at enhancing your existing work. Once you've developed your insights and strategy, use AI to polish, challenge, and clarify your communication.

Don't rely on AI to write your entire strategy, but once you have one, let it help refine and improve it. Simple prompts like "You're a world-class copyeditor. Please review this team note and edit it for clarity, style, and flow while preserving my voice" can provide valuable feedback. Or try: "You're a project manager specializing in financial management and team empowerment. Review this goal and timeline, highlighting gaps and suggesting improvements."

Knowledge work often centers on getting information back to others. If it helps you move more quickly to get to 80% and let AI give input, go for it! Get your work to your audience faster. But start with your own sharp thinking and insights. Then let AI help refine it. Include your work and contextual documents, then ask questions like: "What am I missing? How can I simplify this? How can I make this clearer for a busy executive?”

Bonus: Have Kids? Double Check Your Homework Help

I haven't taken algebra in a while. AI tools like ChatGPT can now analyze photos of math problems and provide step-by-step solutions (try "Explain it to me like I'm in 8th grade"). This helps not only verify answers but understand the underlying process – a game-changer for subjects you may not have considered in years.

We're in a season where this technology, and its capabilities, changes almost daily. It can seem overwhelming. But even dipping a toe in the water and using AI as a tool to inform a few tasks or projects can help you and your team understand its potential. It's easy to ignore it, but the longer we wait, the more it takes to catch up. Plus, we miss out on the benefits new technology can provide.