Nonprofits Are Facing Their Mass Extinction
By Kyle Behrend
Kyle Behrend empowers nonprofits to leverage AI and automations, streamlining operations and amplifying their impact through education, implementation, and community support. Find him on LinkedIn.
Amidst the sixth mass extinction, it's not just flora and fauna at risk; nonprofits are facing their own existential crisis. I can almost hear David Attenborough narrating it in the next Netflix documentary:
In the vast ecosystem of human society, the nonprofit stands at a critical crossroads. The world around them evolves, faster than ever before. Artificial Intelligence offers a lifeline—a chance to streamline, to grow, to survive. Yet, many remain hesitant, clinging to the past, too busy to embrace the future. And so, we watch. Will they adapt? Or, like so many before them… will they face extinction?
I have a newfound empathy with climate scientists—I also don’t want to be right about this. And yet, all of my personal experience and the research I’ll discuss in this piece point to one, undeniable truth: the nonprofit sector is perched on the cusp of a massive change. Some will be boosted to exponential heights while (many) others will be lost to the depths.
There are no shortages of challenges facing nonprofits. I should know; I have lived it. Thirteen years at a nonprofit sanctuary for rescued farmed animals gave me more roles than a startup. There was no ‘typical day’ and burnout was only one trigger away. There is never enough time, but more than enough passion to compensate. There is never enough funding, but more than enough ingenuity to overcome problems. There is never enough staff, but more than enough hope that one day that would change. Unfortunately, growth didn’t solve those problems, it only introduced more.
Certain moments can redefine our understanding of what is possible. For me, one such pivotal experience solidified a belief that I carry to this day: nonprofits are uniquely positioned to benefit most from AI. This technology can, and will, address numerous challenges the sector faces.
How AI can help
We never forget our firsts. I was sitting frozen in a state of awe. A rush of dopamine had just hit my brain and time started to slow. I wondered what to do with my hands next. I was speechless but I wanted to tell everyone about it. I had just experienced my AI Awakening—that magical moment when AI sweeps away your worries and fills you with a belief that anything is possible. In that moment, I realized that AI wasn't just a tool; it was a nonprofit's Swiss Army knife, Aladdin's lamp, and Pandora's box all rolled into one. It could adapt to any challenge, grant impossible wishes, and unleash a world of untapped potential—all with a simple prompt.
What made me feel this way? I had just asked ChatGPT to write a fundraising email for our nonprofit in the style of our founder. In less than ten seconds, it delivered. It sounded exactly like her. I had to share this, so I called my colleagues over, and we started giving ChatGPT more tasks. One by one, it did everything we asked. It felt like magic.
This experience was so powerful that it laid the path for starting my own AI consulting organization. I expected nonprofits to be queuing up for knowledge about this mystical technology that could help with so many of the challenges they face. But they didn’t. Ironically, most nonprofits are too busy being busy.
However, ignoring innovation only widens the gap between what is and what could be. AI isn’t just another item on your to-do list; it is the tool that helps you complete your to-do list. It’s not a last resort when all other options fail; it’s your first port of call. AI isn’t something you tack onto the bottom of a meeting agenda; it’s the secretary that records, transcribes, and summarizes those meetings. AI isn’t a task you delegate to an intern; AI is the intern, working 24/7 without breaks or complaints. And AI isn’t a luxury reserved for tech giants; it’s a necessity for nonprofits to survive. In fact, it may be the lifeline they need to survive the extinction.
Task automation
In the nonprofit space, there are two major pressures:
There is a disproportionate tasks-to-people ratio.
Staff complete a range of roles requiring diverse expertise.
Many repeatable tasks can be supplemented or fully automated using AI. For example, I worked with an organization that runs a large campaign for one month each year. During that month, they were mentioned over 4,000 times in online articles. Staff were manually updating a spreadsheet with the publication’s name, author, date, URL, and sentiment—a task that kept them working until 10 p.m. some nights. We created an automation that handles over 90 percent of the work, allowing them to knock off at 5 p.m.
Another organization had a dream come true: they went viral. But going viral isn't always a good thing, especially when you're a tiny team without enough resources to reply to the barrage of comments flooding in. We developed an automation which pulled in the post context and the comment. Leveraging the organization's FAQ, communication guide, and sample replies, it drafted responses to comments by the hundreds. The staff's job changed from one of creation to curation, a necessary shift to handle this influx. This solution was deployed in days, and the organization still uses it. It runs 24/7, is cost-efficient ($0.001 per reply), and requires no onboarding, 3-month trial, or monthly check-ins, although components of that are still true in prompt development and evaluation.
AI as a thought partner
Sometimes we forget that organizations are powered by diverse people with different skills. These people often take on additional roles and responsibilities to fill gaps, sometimes without the necessary knowledge. But by using AI as a thought partner, they can amplify their capacity by leveraging its expansive knowledge. This helps lift nonprofits to a level playing field. No longer should they suffer because they don’t have a full-time fundraiser to draft emails, a behavioral scientist to amplify campaigns, or an IT professional to troubleshoot WiFi issues.
The opportunity cost of ignoring AI is immense; the rewards of embracing it are exponential. AI empowers the people inside the organization so you can amplify the work outside of it.
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. It requires time, patience, and experimentation. I was about to deploy my first AI-powered chatbot to help an organization with over 600 resources on their website. It was the perfect use case—the bot answered users’ unique questions based on the knowledge on the site. But there was one problem: the chatbot would occasionally make up something that didn’t exist—most commonly referencing an article that led to that dreaded 404 error page. This is called a hallucination: The AI doesn’t actually know what is true or not and can make something up to please us based on pattern recognition. The pain of failure hit hard when the organization said they were not comfortable publishing the chatbot on their site. I understood. I agreed.
As a last-ditch effort, I connected the chatbot to their Slack account. They could at least use it internally to answer content queries. They did and started using it to draft social media posts. Amazingly, because it had access to their knowledge, it did a brilliant job, so much so that they still use it a year on. The irony is that it still hallucinates. Yet each imagined article shows a potential resource gap. Plus, AI can draft an outline based on other articles and knowledge.
The risk for the sector as a whole is that we won’t find these use cases unless we experiment. We need to adopt a curiosity-focused mindset. We need to welcome failure, revisit ideas, and pivot use cases. Sometimes AI is the hammer looking for the nail. And yes, we may hit our thumbs along the way.
How to get started
Here is your three-step action plan to get you started:
Develop an AI policy that sets clear guidelines for your team's use of artificial intelligence.
Sign up for a paid AI tool like ChatGPT and integrate it into your daily workflow, even if it feels uncomfortable at first.
Try new tools, techniques, and ideas. Share your successes and setbacks with colleagues, partners, or mentors.
Dream big and be ready to seize opportunities. AI is advancing rapidly, making today’s impossibilities achievable soon. If prepared, nonprofits can seize upcoming AI opportunities. Million-dollar campaigns will instead cost thousands, month-long projects will take weeks, workdays will have hours freed. Adoption takes time, and the reward is not just survival but thriving, efficiency, and effectiveness.
Don’t underestimate AI like those who underestimated social media. This isn’t a nice-to-have. We’ll view nonprofits that didn’t adopt AI like we view cash-only stores.
This is not to say that AI should be adopted without any oversight. On the contrary, the first thing organizations should do is create an AI policy. Chances are, individuals in your organization are using AI without you knowing it. A policy helps create a framework where individuals can feel empowered and supported from within.
It also helps bring people together to discuss AI—one of the most important things to do now. It allows people to express their views—what they like and dislike about AI, possible use cases, and future opportunities. Stakeholders like donors hold nonprofits to a higher level of accountability than for-profits. Transparency and authenticity are key, and donors will start asking about AI policies sooner rather than later. Begin by using one of the many templates available online. Even better, use this as an opportunity to have AI assist in developing the policy aligned with your vision and values.
Adopting AI after developing a policy creates a paradox of choice. Do you start with fundraising, operations, or communication? It’s not important; what matters is starting. Sign up for a paid ChatGPT account and set it to open in your default browser. Use it throughout the day. Every day. Allow it to be your assistant throughout the day. Ask it questions, any questions. Ask it to mimic a business coach, a fundraising expert, or the author of your favorite book, and leverage its knowledge. Start small, explore widely, and transform your impact.
Nonprofit leaders, it's time for some tough love. Your mission is too important and the stakes too high for 'too busy' excuses. Investments now will compound over time. Every day you delay adopting AI, you're choosing (dis)comfort over impact. The world is changing rapidly, and organizations that fail to adapt could become obsolete before the problems they're trying to solve. Don't let yours become a cautionary tale. Embrace the AI opportunity one prompt at a time. Or watch as more agile, forward-thinking organizations make the difference you could have made.
This is not only an opportunity for individual nonprofits to thrive, but a chance for the entire sector to rise. You deserve to have access to cutting-edge tools. You deserve to have time back in your day. You deserve to apply your efforts on creative and impactful campaigns. You deserve to be at the forefront of innovation. You deserve to not be burdened by administrative tasks.
You deserve to focus on what matters most: making a difference.
AI can help. All you need to do is ask.