Having less resources and sometimes less predictable funding than private and public sector organizations means that nonprofits are incentivized to explore every possible tool and opportunity to improve efficiency. This has become especially important in the current landscape of reduced federal funding for nonprofits with a nonprofit labor crunch. These factors have made it critical for nonprofits to find ways to do more with less, which is a major reason why so many are enthusiastically adopting AI tools.
For mission-driven organizations, AI has enormous potential, allowing them to sidestep labor shortages and hit their goals without the need for massive funding increases. However, as these tools proliferate, many organizations have reported a significant gap between the promises made by AI tool creators and reality. The enthusiasm to adopt AI may have overshadowed its limitations, and this has led to deeper questions about whether the shift to AI tooling is actually worth it.
Here’s how you can determine if AI is a good fit for your mission-driven organization:
Potential versus reality
The excitement around AI has led to widespread adoption of a number of different AI tools, including “agentic” AI, which is designed to automate large portions of an employee’s tasks. However, research has emerged asserting that AI can offer limited to no benefits. One MIT study showed that 95% of organizations get zero return from AI spending, pointing to significant issues in the way AI is being used and assessed.
None of this is to say that AI is useless, rather that the potential benefit of AI may be less than what was promised, and that it may be better suited to specific use cases rather than total workforce automation, as some AI boosters have promised. It also points to the issue of measurement, as not all organizations can easily reduce their work to a set of numerical benchmarks, which makes any assessment, as one critic described it, “fuzzy”.
The risk of AI maximalism
The promise of AI and the excitement around it has led to a cycle of FOMO, or fear of missing out. Many organizations buy into AI products because they believe in its potential or they see competitors and peers using it. There is an implied risk to not using AI, and many worry they will be left behind as these tools automate more and more of the economy. While the excitement is understandable, there is not yet evidence that AI can operate effectively at scale, let alone automate entire jobs.
Uncritical adoption carries plenty of risks as well, as successfully integrating AI tools and, more importantly, doing more efficient work has proven less straightforward than expected. The downsides —team burnout, lost productivity, perceptions of job insecurity and so on, can overtake the positive benefits. Finally, there is the risk of adopting tools which may not be sustainable in the long run, as even AI leaders admit the technology is in the midst of a hypergrowth bubble that may not last.
The growing skepticism of AI has led some organizations to disentangle their approach to AI from the hype that has surrounded it for the last couple of years. Rather than accepting the promises of AI marketing, they’ve begun to take a more critical approach which relies more on measurable impact. For a nonprofit with more limited resources, taking a measured approach can make more sense, even for a technology as powerful as AI.
AI as a tool, not a replacement
One way to approach AI is to assess it as you would any other tool, through iteration, objective assessments and user feedback. There may be specific use cases where an AI tool is extremely useful and can save time, but may also require some training and supervision of outputs in order to correct any mistakes. If, for example, your organization frequently has to translate content, an AI translation tool might help to automate large pieces of this process. However, as some have pointed out, AI translators can struggle with the nuances of language and fail to capture idiomatic or highly contextual content. In this use case, AI could be a useful, but not flawless, time-saver, and one which augments the work of existing team members rather than replacing them.
Avoid “fuzzy” assessments
Many workers report being frustrated by AI, with one in six reporting that they pretend to use AI because their managers expect it. This is a broken feedback loop that makes honest assessments difficult, if not impossible. Approaching AI cautiously and iteratively could also mean building out non-judgmental opportunities for feedback from users and team members.
Because much of the marketing around AI has focused on replacing workers, there is an understandable level of concern that may lead some to be less enthusiastic adopters. Giving your team the chance to speak openly about these concerns and to register any issues they experience using an AI tool can help you decide which ones are worth investing in and which may not live up to their promises. It can also help ease your team into feeling more comfortable using AI as a tool, rather than seeing it as a threat to their position in the organization.
It can also be difficult to assess the impact based solely on personal experience. One recent study found that software developers are 19% slower when using AI tools, but the developers felt that the tools were making them faster. Taking an empirical, goal-driven approach over one based solely on the reported experience of AI users can provide a more thorough and actionable assessment of performance.
About Us
For more than 40 years, 501(c) Services has been a leader in offering solutions for unemployment costs, claims management, and HR support to nonprofit organizations. Two of our most popular programs are the 501(c) Agencies Trust and 501(c) HR Services. We understand the importance of compliance and accuracy and are committed to providing our clients with customized plans that fit their needs.
Contact us today to see if your organization could benefit from our services.
Are you already working with us and need assistance with an HR or unemployment issue? Contact us here.
The information contained in this article is not a substitute for legal advice or counsel and has been pulled from multiple sources.
(Images by Frolopiaton-Palm and Shutter2u)
