It goes without saying that we are living in an age of digital disruption. Any fly on a coffee shop wall would tell you that when friends and colleagues gather, the conversation inevitably turns to artificial intelligence (AI), and more specifically to its relationship to our livelihoods. “ChatGPT has really helped me to save time writing grant proposals.” “John is leaving the nonprofit world to become a plumber. AI can’t take away those types of jobs!” “I’m afraid I’ll lose my competitive edge if I don’t jump on the AI bandwagon.”
There is ample reason for both optimism and apprehension as humans work alongside, and compete against, technology that can craft a compelling article or intriguing digital image in a matter of seconds. A report by Goldman Sachs found that up to 300 million mostly white-collar jobs could be lost to AI. The same firm also predicted a 1.5 percent boost to U.S. productivity if AI is widely adopted in the next decade.
So is the glass half full or half empty when it comes to this new technology? If you are an optimist who believes that artificial intelligence will enhance human ingenuity, rather than replace it, the best way to prepare for the future is learn how to incorporate AI into your existing work. In a field notorious for heavy workloads and understaffing, nonprofit professionals have much to gain if they can figure out a way to harness AI to their advantage.
Nonprofits are already utilizing generative AI to craft content in areas ranging from donor relations to grantwriting to communications. Large language models such as Open AI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft Bing’s Copilot (which utilizes GPT-4), and Google’s Bard, which respond to written requests or questions, can help nonprofits to generate social media posts, customize emails to supporters, or power chatbots that respond to common queries. Automating tasks like these (rather than entire jobs) can free up time for more human-centered activities such as phoning donors or organizing volunteers for your annual gala. Visual tools such as DALL-E 3 and Midjourney allow users to create images using a written description, enabling even the smallest nonprofits to break free from the constraints of stock photos and boost audience engagement.
So how can you upskill in an age of digital disruption? Even if you’re a newbie when it comes to AI, there are a number of online courses to help get you up to speed, focusing both on the nonprofit sector specifically and on broader applications.
TechSoup Courses
TechSoup has partnered with Microsoft to offer a number of tech-related courses for nonprofit professionals. (Microsoft also happens to be the biggest investor in OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT.) Their Exploring AI With Microsoft Tools track is a good place to start if you’re looking to learn the basics of artificial intelligence and how it can be applied to the nonprofit context. It features four one-hour courses: 1) Introduction to AI and Generative AI; 2) Ethics and Principles of AI; 3) Critical Thinking, Question Formulation, Prompt Engineering With Bing Chat; and 4) Common Uses for Nonprofits With Bing Chat and Bing Chat Enterprise.
One of the challenges of working with AI platforms like ChatGPT is formulating questions that are clear and deliver the answers you are looking for, otherwise known as prompt engineering. The third course in this series “[dives] deep into the art and science of prompt engineering so you can consistently get intelligent, nuanced responses from chatbots like Bing Chat.”
For those that are interested in leveraging AI tools in their nonprofit, but are unsure about its practical applications, the fourth course utilizes live demonstrations to illustrate common use cases across different areas of nonprofit operations, such as fundraising and marketing, and looks at how AI can be used to solve specific sector challenges and, perhaps most importantly, reduce workloads.
GrantStation’s TargetED Webinar Series
GrantStation’s new TargetED webinar series focused on AI for nonprofits is another good launching point for nonprofit professionals looking to dive into the world of AI. Taking place in the first quarter of 2024 and hosted by GrantStation President Alice Ruhnke, this series covers a number of practical applications for artificial intelligence. Upcoming webinars focus on using AI to write, edit, and review grant proposals, evaluate projects, and more.
These webinars are all about helping participants leverage AI to save their most precious resource: time. Using AI to Develop Grant Proposals aims to help participants use AI to streamline their grantwriting process, demonstrating how to use ChatGPT as a personal writing assistant to develop a first draft of a grant proposal. Using AI for Project Evaluation provides ideas on how to use AI to evaluate a nonprofit’s programs by speeding up tasks such as creating logic models and surveys or summarizing the answers to open-ended questions. The remaining sessions (Using AI to Edit Grant Proposals, Using AI as a Personalized Grant Reviewer, and Additional AI Uses to Support Your Development Work) outline strategies for using AI to edit and score grant proposals using ChatGPT, and to facilitate other aspects of your development work such as brainstorming for projects, finding data sources for your grant proposals, and streamlining your fundraising efforts.
Grantable’s AI Grant Writing Course
If you are looking to further hone your skills on using AI as a grantwriting tool, Grantable, an AI-assisted grantwriting solution, offers a free online course called AI Grant Writing. The course is aimed at grant professionals across all skill levels looking to utilize artificial intelligence to augment their work. Three modules are currently available (Fundamentals of AI, AI for Grant Writing, and Advanced AI for Grant Writing), with two more (Ethical and Responsible AI Use and The Future of Philanthropic Work and AI) currently in the works. The AI for Grant Writing module looks at some of the advantages and drawbacks of using artificial intelligence in grantwriting, and compares different AI tools, whereas the advanced module shares specific use cases for grantwriting using the Grantable interface.
Indiana University’s AI & Fundraising Course
For development professionals who focus on individual donor cultivation, in March of this year, Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy is offering a course titled AI & Fundraising: Revolutionizing Your Fundraising Efforts. According to the website, “This course is designed for individuals and nonprofits who are committed to ethical fundraising practices and eager to explore the possibilities that AI brings.” Over the span of three hours, it will cover topics ranging from the basics of AI and large language models, to ethics, fundraising, and workflow management using AI, culminating in the final session, “Practice and Case Studies for Using AI for Fundraising.”
LinkedIn Courses
If, after exploring these nonprofit-specific courses, you would like to look at artificial intelligence from a more generalist perspective, you can peruse the AI-related offerings from LinkedIn Courses. Though many of these focus on the technical aspects of AI, others may be of interest to those looking for an overview of AI technologies or to hone their skills in specific areas. Introduction to Artificial Intelligence explores fundamental concepts and provides a “high-level overview of the top tools in the field.” Another course of interest is Introduction to Prompt Engineering for Generative AI, which explains the basics of prompt engineering and provides demonstrations using text generation with ChatGPT, GPT-3, and JI, as well as image generation using Dall-E and Midjourney. Career Essentials in Generative AI by Microsoft and LinkedIn is a certificate-eligible series of courses that teaches participants the basics of generative AI models, explores ethical considerations, explains how to use AI for research, and discusses how to streamline work using Microsoft Copilot.
Coursera
If you are looking to dive even deeper in the realm of artificial intelligence, Coursera offers a veritable treasure trove of courses. Some of the most popular include AI for Everyone (by DeepLearning.AI), Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT (by Vanderbilt University), and Generative AI Fundamentals (by IBM).
To round out this article, it seemed fitting to consult with Bing Chat (which uses GPT-4) on how nonprofit professionals can learn more about AI. Of the four resources it recommended, three were outdated—two were from 2021 and one was from 2020, eons ago when it comes to AI. Here is the last one it recommended, which was much more recent: “How Might AI Impact Nonprofits and Foundations? Here’s a Crash Course,” published by Inside Philanthropy. This just goes to show that AI systems still need strong human oversight to make sure the information they are producing is relevant and correct (especially when it comes to AI hallucinations).
Hopefully AI can continue to serve as a tool to enhance job productivity, rather than replacing humans anytime soon. If you’d like to learn more about using AI to streamline your workload, you can sign up for one of the courses listed above.