7 Steps To Accelerate AI Adoption At Your Nonprofit

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👋🏾 Hey! I’m Sid and this is The Philanthropy Futurist, a weekly advice column preparing you for the future of the nonprofit sector. Each Friday, I tackle reader questions about measuring impact, driving growth, and managing your nonprofit.

This Week’s Newsletter at a glance:

• 7 Steps To Accelerate AI Adoption At Your Nonprofit

• Philanthropy News From This Week

• Sid’s Book Recommendation

7 Steps To Accelerate AI Adoption At Your Nonprofit

So… about today.

I know many of you are expecting the ‘public directory of AI tools’ to drop today. But truth be told, I’m not fully satisfied with it yet. I want it to be exceptional, so I decided I’m going to push the release to Friday, September 5th.

Please pardon the delay.

In the meantime, I’ve got something I think you’ll find equally valuable: 7 steps to accelerate AI adoption at your Nonprofit, inspired in big part by Peter Yang. These are practical, tactical moves your team can start thinking about... kinda like a bit of “pre-homework” so when the directory is released, you’ll be ready to start putting things in motion.

1. Show… Don’t Tell. Set Expectations

Let's move past the “we should use AI” speeches… instead, lets replace that with hands-on, tactical examples of how and why AI can help your teams. The orgs that succeed will provide specific tactics/examples that teams can follow to meet your expectations. This means… consider recording quick demos of AI drafting a grant outline, summarizing impact analysis, conducting HNW donor research, etc. Make it easy for people to see exactly how they can use any tools you may propose.

2. Measure and Celebrate Wins

Don’t just implement AI tools… track them. Log hours saved, costs reduced, funds raised thanks to AI-powered work, and this list goes on. Document whatever you deem as relevant. Then share those wins in team meetings, board updates, and with other relevant stakeholders. Public recognition amongst your team/s is going to reinforce adoption much faster than policy memos ever will.

3. Remove Friction

If AI experiments require a 5-step approval chain, that will only slow things down and your chances of adoption will decrease. Please don’t get me wrong, I want you to get the proper approvals before implementing, because AI responsibility is absolutely essential. But my point is… it should not take months or quarters for you to start testing out new tools. Just set clear guardrails (like data privacy do’s and don’ts, etc.), then give your team the green light to try tools without bureaucracy slowing them down.

4. Turn Early Adopters into Coaches

Identify your AI power users and enthusiasts— like that one Program Manager who’s obsessed with the Gemini features inside your team’s Google Suite, or that Comms Lead who uses ChatGPT for all their grammar checks/edits. Give them the mic and get a better understanding of their depth of knowledge. Then… if its a good fit, let them lead training sessions, whether live or pre-recorded.

5. Start With High-Impact Work

Don’t make AI a side project. Apply it to your biggest pain points first… like high-volume, repetitive tasks that take a lot of time to complete. I’d also recommend setting up a ‘test environment’ and using ‘sample data’ when it makes sense. That should be your rule of thumb when practicing and when leading trainings, etc.

6. Build AI into Existing Workflows

If AI lives in irrelevant pockets of your daily and weekly workflows, its simply going to collect digital dust, lol. You’ll want to instead incorporate it into the tasks/workflows your team is already doing— like notes for team meetings, analysis for impact reports, video editing for content, etc. This approach should help make adoption feel more natural, and hopefully create less friction.

7. Commit from the Top

If leaders treat AI like an optional experiment, that’s exactly how your team will see it too. You have to model the behavior you want to see. That means… share how you personally used AI this week (in your personal and professional life), encourage creativity, set adoption goals, and make it a standing agenda item in leadership and board meetings.

Remember… change doesn’t have to be overwhelming… it can instead be empowering.

As a last reminder, the new release date for the public directory of AI tools will be Friday, September 5th.

This resource is designed specifically with Nonprofits in mind, and it covers everything from easy-to-use automation tools all the way to advanced, agentic workflows. Whether you're just getting started or already testing AI on your team, this directory will hopefully give you a clearer map of what’s possible across your day-to-day use cases.

In addition to the open-source directory, I’m probably going to throw in a bonus as another way to make up for the delay but I need to think more about what that might be, lol. If you have any ideas, please reach out by email or LinkedIn. I’m all ears!

Until next time y’all! ✌🏾

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Philanthropy News From This Week

• Top 10 Storytelling Mistakes Made by Foundations and Nonprofits

• Creators Raise $12+ Million in 18-Hour TeamWater Charity Livestream

• Ally Financial commits $150 million for Workforce Development efforts

• Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife donate $2 billion to fight cancer

Sid’s Book Recommendation

Each week, I recommend a book or film that has impacted my life in a positive way. My recommendation this week is:

Team of Teams by General Stanley McChrystal

This book explores the dramatic transformation in leadership and organizational structure required for success in rapidly changing, complex environments. It’s a solid read. Learn more.

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