The power of AI for nonprofits

AI offers nonprofit organizations massive benefits, helping teams streamline operations, analyze data, and predict donor behaviour. It can even generate things like grant applications and marketing assets.

The only problem? Because we don’t know where they pull data from, the free AI tools can produce biased, inaccurate, or copyrighted content. And that could open your organization to anything from getting “canceled” to being sued.

The answer as we see it is custom-built software powered by AI. It offers all the benefits of free AI tools—but gives you control over the data it pulls from and how that data is used, giving your nonprofit all the benefits of free AI tools without all the risks.

Read on to learn about the profound impact AI can have on nonprofits. And how your organization can leverage it with custom-built software.

What is artificial intelligence (AI)

Before AI: The Dark Ages

To understand AI and why it’s been so impactful, we need to give you a brief history of computer programming. (We promise to keep it simple!)

Before AI, what we computer nerds call “programming logic” was all about following specific, pre-defined rules. You could think of this kind of programming as writing a cookbook for someone who had no idea how to cook—without a precise recipe, the recipe would fail and the food would taste awful. Because the machines “couldn’t cook,” programmers had to write incredibly specific instructions on how the software should behave for every possible scenario.

This worked well for straightforward tasks—but the pre-defined nature of these rules created an inherent lack of flexibility in the resulting software. It couldn’t handle unexpected situations or learn and respond to new data. Without a recipe, it was completely lost.

Enter AI: The game changer

AI is the answer to the flexibility problem we defined above. With it, machines can learn from data and make their own decisions. We are essentially teaching them how to think—or cook—all on their own, instead of blindingly following someone else’s rules and steps.

For programmers, this changes everything. Now, instead of manually coding every rule we want machines to follow, we feed the AI many examples of scenarios (If the oven doesn’t work, check the power. If there are eggshells in the bowl, take them out. If you don’t have turnips, use carrots.) and then let it find patterns.

The benefits of AI for nonprofits

For nonprofits, AI has a few massive benefits:

AI increases efficiency

AI allows you to automate routine and repetitive tasks like sorting emails and processing donations. This frees staff up to focus on more impactful work and allows your team to concentrate more on your primary goals.

AI adds personalization

By including personal details and recalling their history with your organization, AI can create tailored experiences for donors or beneficiaries. This can make their interactions with your organization’s communications more engaging and effective.

AI provides critical insights

AI can analyze vast amounts of data, helping your nonprofit unearth trends and insights that inform better decision-making on marketing, donor behaviour, and more. With this information behind your decisions, you can allocate funds to different projects more easily (and confidently).

AI makes technology accessible

AI makes technology more accessible and technology can be used to streamline work, helping nonprofits with limited resources achieve more with less. (This is critical since nonprofits are famously underresourced and overworked!)

AI helps with fundraising

AI-powered predictive analytics tools can provide insights into the donors most likely to contribute to your organization again (or next). This information can make your campaigns and outreach efforts more precise which may help you save staff hours and better allocate funds!

Ethical considerations of AI for nonprofits

AI has tons of benefits but free tools like ChatGPT have inherent risks, too. And it's important to be aware of them before you jump in head-first.

AI may worsen biases

AI is inherently biased by the people who program it. Any biases in the data that AI pulls from could spill over into the assets it produces for your organization.

AI raises privacy concerns

Sharing data with AI systems can pose privacy concerns for nonprofits, donors, and the people they serve. To counter this, your nonprofit should develop a policy for acceptable usage of AI.

AI could open you up to IP lawsuits

Increasing concerns (and lawsuits) are being raised over intellectual property in the AI space. This is because many generative AI tools have incorporated copyrighted text and artwork into their databases without permission from the original creators.

AI poses reputational risks

Tools like ChatGPT also bring reputational risks, especially if people don’t carefully review the text they generate before sharing it, because the results can be insensitive and offensive.

An article by Forbes reported that “Nonprofits enjoy a greater level of trust than most other sectors—trust that can be undermined when a donor receives an artificial-sounding letter or learns that sensitive personal data was shared with a third-party vendor.”

The benefits of AI-powered custom software

Custom software is a gift that keeps on giving to your organization thanks to benefits like:

Customization

You can tailor your software and AI tools to meet your organization’s unique needs and optimize the tech to help your team overcome challenges by understanding the specific nuances of your data and business goals.

Control

With custom-built software, you have complete control over the AI tools you use, the data AI pulls from, and any updates to it. This control can be crucial for meeting specific regulatory and compliance requirements.

Data privacy

Related to control, owning your software helps ensure that sensitive data doesn't need to be shared with third-party vendors.

Integration

Custom AI solutions can be more easily (or better) integrated into your existing tech, systems, and workflows, providing a more seamless operation and user experience.

Creating custom software is easier than you think

We know “custom software” can sound like a big (and expensive) undertaking. And sometimes, it is. But thanks to existing software models and pre-set AI solutions, it doesn’t have to be.

Google and Amazon provide tools that make artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) much easier to use. These tools can help you set up, automate, and improve your software. And, they can help you explore different uses for AI like creating content, predicting trends, tailoring experiences to individual users, and analyzing images. Amazon Web Services (AWS) ensures these tools follow industry rules and encourage ethical AI use, helping you stay innovative and grow effectively with reliable and proven setups.

With tools like these available, building custom software—and integrating AI into that software—is relatively simple.

How our clients are using AI-powered custom software

Each year, our clients, 1% for the Planet, have thousands of donations that need approval. The approval process is tedious and involves validating receipts by checking them against entered data. We’re using AI to help them streamline it! Specifically, we set them up with Document AI which extracts key information from images and PDFs. And, we programmed AI software to read different receipt formats and languages. This will speed up the process tenfold and free up tons of staff time.

Our clients, AgSafeBC, needed our help designing an app to reduce workplace injuries among temporary foreign agricultural workers in Canada. The innovative app enhances workers’ understanding of health, safety practices, and rights. Content is offered in English and Spanish, and new courses are added regularly.

This is a government app—but we wanted to ensure it wouldn’t have a sterile, bureaucratic feel that could overwhelm or (we’ll say it) bore the user. So we proposed the use of fun illustrations instead of images. To keep costs down and continue generating these images as new courses are added, we suggested they be AI-generated. This helped us create images that depicted safety-related topics relevant to BC farms perfectly!

Custom software minimizes risk and maximizes reward

AI offers incredible benefits to nonprofit organizations—there’s no doubting that. However, free AI tools can expose nonprofits to risks, so they must be used intentionally and in line with organizational policy. And, the assets it produces should always be reviewed for accuracy, clarity, sensitivity, and potential plagiarism.

On the other hand, integrating AI into custom-built software lets us design with intention, saving you time and money while keeping you in control of everything else—including the data your AI references. This way, we can give your nonprofit all the benefits of AI without the risks.