This isn’t a post against AI. I’m not anti-AI. I’m grateful for all the work being done by people and organizations to help nonprofits understand AI, address risk and governance, and adopt AI where it makes sense.

But…

Please stop the fear-based messaging to nonprofits and funders around AI.

Maybe I spend too much time on LinkedIn (ok, yes, I do) but almost daily I see urgent messages about nonprofit AI adoption– here are some actual quotes:

• “If your organization doesn’t adopt AI it will be left behind.”
• “Your employees are already using AI.”
• “Your staff are wondering if their jobs will be replaced by AI.”
• “The sector must become more agile in funding and adopting AI.”

This kind of messaging amounts to AI shaming and is not helpful. Here are a few reasons why.

1. Daily we read stories about the nonprofit burnout epidemic, loss of funding, leadership turnover and other urgent threats to the sector. AI is not the solution to these challenges, and AI won’t matter if some of these challenges aren’t solved (or at least mitigated). So the use-it-or-die urgency around AI seems misguided, and telling already overwhelmed staff that they need to take on one more thing is, well, tone deaf.
2. Everything we tell nonprofits about technology planning, governance, implementation, change management, maintenance – the list goes on – applies to AI. Yet so many nonprofits are under-resourced when it comes to technology, and they often don’t have the staff or budget to properly tackle foundational technology needs. (Mention “accidental techie” at your next NTEN happy hour and see how many nods of recognition the phrase generates.) The hype tries to place AI at the front of the line for often scarce tech resources that might be better spent on core technology needs.
3. Foundations and other funders have not traditionally funded technology. There are exceptions, but we’re more than a decade into the “overhead myth” discussion and nonprofits still wrestle to get funding for non-program infrastructure, including technology. We can see movement happening, but the capacity and mindset to effectively fund technology won’t be built overnight.

We could go on– AI’s use as a catch-all term is not meaningful, AI product orgs are different from other types of orgs, fiscal sponsors don’t support nascent nonprofits’ tech needs, many nonprofits have been damaged in the past by tech vendor actions, and so on.

My focus right now is on tackling foundational technology and related organization issues, specifically around collaborative work management. I call it the “boring but important” stuff. Would love to hear others’ thoughts on these topics – feel free to comment on LinkedIn, where I’ve cross-posted this note.