Community IT Innovators Nonprofit Technology Topics

Nonprofit AI: Resources on Workforce Changes and Training Courses, Project Evident Library of Use Cases

• Community IT Innovators • Season 7 • Episode 23

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In this Nonprofit AI Podcast midweek check-in, Carolyn tackles the anxiety around AI and the changing labor market. While it can feel like AI is everywhere, a recent report from Anthropic shows we are nowhere near 100% adoption—but the roles most likely to be impacted are the white-collar, management, and knowledge-work positions often held by older, highly educated women in the nonprofit sector.

The conversation covers the gap between using AI tools and actually having a policy for them, and why wishful thinking isn't a substitute for a training budget. Carolyn discusses:

  • Who is actually exposed to AI: Why seasoned nonprofit leaders and managers in roles like fundraising and strategic planning need to pay attention and stay engaged in the way their job descriptions are shifting to incorporate AI literacy. 
  • The Governance Gap: Only 19% of organizations have formal AI policies—maybe even lower in the nonprofit sector. But organizations without AI governance run considerable risks. The time to start is now.
  • Why AI literacy is the new job requirement in nonprofit work: Moving beyond entry level tricks like drafting emails to using AI as a strategic partner for mission-driven work has huge possibilities. The nonprofit sector is uniquely positioned to use AI in innovative and impactful ways.
  • High-quality training that won't break the budget: A rundown of free and low-cost certificate programs specifically designed for nonprofits.
  • Evidence-based use cases: Look at how peer organizations are using AI for  mission delivery, not just office productivity with Project Evident's library of nonprofit AI use cases.

As AI literacy becomes a baseline skill, Carolyn encourages nonprofit boards and executive teams to prioritize learning—ensuring staff have the time, tools, and training to navigate this shift safely.

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Carolyn Woodard

Hello and welcome to the Community IT Innovators Midweek Nonprofit AI check-in. My name is Carolyn Woodard. I'm your host. And

Carolyn Woodard

I'll start with my usual disclaimer. I'm not an AI expert. None of us are. If somebody tells you that they know everything about AI, they're not telling you the truth. But uh nonprofits are very interested in these tools. They're very interested in the ethics of it, they're interested in the productivity gains, using it for mission. So we wanted to have this conversation weekly and just check in on a news item or resource or something that can help you out with understanding more about AI and how it can help you. And

Carolyn Woodard

I know there's a lot of anxiety around technology. There's a lot of anxiety around AI. So hopefully we're going to all get smarter about it together and uh go through this journey together. So thank you for listening. Um,

Carolyn Woodard

I wanted to talk this morning about this new report from Anthropic. It was released released in early March. Uh, it's called The Labor Market Impacts of AI: A New Measure and Early Evidence. And this study discusses observed exposure to AI tools. And it it does a you know kind of statistical thing of trying to uh put in a measure of where they think the AI tools are going to be likely to be implemented. So maybe not implemented yet, but has a high potential. So some of it is kind of statistical, and uh they you know they use some scientific methods to try and get at um estimates of what they're trying to get at. But

Carolyn Woodard

They also tried to uh talk about the demographics of the most impacted roles and jobs. And so they show in this report, which I will share the link in the show notes, they show a graphic of these different, you know, sectors like healthcare and education and small business and office jobs, mechanical, engineering, uh, factory jobs, all of those sorts of things, labor uh areas, sectors. And it's a very interesting graphic.

Carolyn Woodard

They do say there's some caveats with the data because, as I said, uh some of it they're kind of making estimates. But uh the interesting,

Carolyn Woodard

One of the interesting things that came out of this study is that, you know, some of us feel like AI is everything everywhere. And then uh in this study, they found that that's not true. It's nowhere close to 100% of jobs are using AI, have heard of AI. Uh, so there's it's made a big uh impact in the consumer market. It is making a big impact in uh the labor market and in business roles and jobs and job descriptions in some sectors like technology, coding, more than other sectors.

Carolyn Woodard

Another thing that was very interesting in this report that they talk about is that what they predict the most impacted roles will be um older women, higher paid, and in management. So a lot of those white-collar jobs that women have made a lot of inroads into and have uh seniority and uh do those roles in offices may be some of the jobs that are most susceptible to AI impacts, and whether that's being replaced by AI or just having your job description change a lot of kind of knowledge management, what you're doing and what the AI is doing with you. Uh, so that's very interesting. And

Carolyn Woodard

The way it relates to nonprofits is of course, that kind of describes a lot of the nonprofit workforce. Our uh women are uh in like very white-collar jobs doing um data management, uh, knowledge management, uh, management, um, strategic planning, vice presidents, executive directors. Uh, so the the idea that these are the roles and the people that will be the most impacted by AI has a lot of impact.

Carolyn Woodard

I think it's something that we in nonprofits and nonprofit offices have to think a lot about. Um, so I'm gonna talk a little bit more about what that might mean for us in terms of training and upskilling, as I have talked a lot about uh taking training really seriously, really budgeting for it and thinking strategically about it, and making sure that you are taking some other tasks and roles off of the plate of your trainers. If you have internal trainers, uh just making sure that you're prioritizing that are all going to be things that are gonna be really important.

Carolyn Woodard

Another article uh report that came out in January is from the Infotech Research Group, which is AI Trends 2026 and Data Priorities 2026. These two reports highlight the gap between AI adoption, 58% that they found. And again, there's always caveats. Does that mean you used one tool one time? Does it mean you've heard of AI tools? Does it mean that you're using AI tools daily? Where's that 58% from? But they said, you know, as we have said, as we're finding with our clients, as we're finding with ourselves, uh,

Carolyn Woodard

There is a 58% AI adoption, people using it, but only 19% formal governance. That's not just nonprofit specific, that's across employment sectors. I would think that that sounds high to me. 19% having uh policies is uh sounds high given our experience. And how many people are interested in learning about policies, and how many nonprofit executives are trying to figure out how to prioritize making a policy, what the policy should be, how this is going to change their organization. Uh, and I think in nonprofits, that's something that we're thinking a lot about, but I would find it hard to believe that a 19% of us have formal governance. And so

Carolyn Woodard

This uh report also from the infotech research group also highlights the workforce readiness barrier, which I know a lot of nonprofits probably listening to this do work in workforce uh development or in education and are thinking a lot about well, what do the jobs require? So, how can we help people be more matched to the jobs that are hiring? Uh and

Carolyn Woodard

So if you're not looking at AI, like you have to be looking at AI because AI literacy is going to be on job requirements uh and not just for people who are trying to get hired, but of course for people who are already hired and at risk of um becoming unemployed because they're not AI literate. So uh finding ways to provide those literacy options and opportunities to your own staff and to maybe uh the communities that you're working with are going to be really important in 2026 and going forward. Um

Carolyn Woodard

I wanted to, you know, kind of stay on that topic of training and mention some good uh resources for AI training, uh, some very uh low-cost or free uh self-paced training that you can look at that have come out. Uh,

Carolyn Woodard

One is a uh resource that I shared earlier, but I want to just come back to it. It's the nptechforgood.com, and they have a lot of certificate programs. They have an AI hub and they do give a certificate in artificial intelligence for marketing and fundraising for nonprofits. Um, so this is uh something that's pretty low cost. The total cost for the certificate program is $229. Um, so that's pretty affordable for a lot of uh nonprofits uh to put into fundraising and uh automating fundraising workflows, um, major donor programs, donor retention, using AI to increase your strategic thinking, um, and of course, using AI to work on your data, your marketing, of course, using mark uh AI for marketing research and to automate maybe your marketing as well. So just a lot of ways, low-cost ways that nonprofits can use AI tools in those two specific domains, the uh marketing and the fundraising. So that looks like a really good resource. I've not taken this certificate course myself, but uh it comes recommended.

Carolyn Woodard

I wanted to pass along uh two other free certificates actually uh that are on AI fundamentals for nonprofits. One is from NetHope, which is a membership organization for NGOs, nonprofits working in humanitarian uh development and conservation sectors worldwide. And this organization, NetHope, is partnering with a platform called Kaya to offer this Fundamentals of AI for Nonprofits course. It is a flexible, self-paced learning journey tailored for busy professionals in those sectors. Uh, it is uh free. You have to make a Kaya account, but then it is a free certificate that you can get. Uh, it tells you all about it. I will include the link in the notes, but uh it looks like a good intro course, of course, uh put out by NetHope, so that's a good starter point.

Carolyn Woodard

There's also a course on uh AI Skills for Nonprofits by data.org. I will share that link in the show notes. Also, also partnering with NetHope, who is uh very concerned that the people in these in this sector have access to understand the ways that AI is transforming and will transform this sector, and then also have the introductory skills to be able to use AI tools uh safely and understand how they work. And then

Carolyn Woodard

Another skill center that you can check out, as I mentioned previously, Claude by Anthropic, is really making a play for the nonprofit AI sector. I've been very impressed with Claude so far as I've been using it. Kind of as you start using it, it doesn't take as much prompting and energy and use on your part for it to get up to speed quickly, I guess is what how I would compare it to Gemini or Copilot.

Carolyn Woodard

So if that is interesting to you, also they have been making this play that they're of the big AI firms, they are concerned with ethics, they are concerned with transparency, uh, have a lot of values that they're trying to market to nonprofits as aligned with nonprofit values. So

Carolyn Woodard

They have a course through the Anthropic Academy that is free called AI Fluency for Nonprofits. And this course empowers nonprofit professionals to develop AI fluency in order to increase organizational impact and efficiency while staying true to your mission and values. So I will share that link in the show notes also. This is for staff across some different domains, fundraising, communications, program delivery, operations, and leadership to build practical AI collaboration skills.

Carolyn Woodard

So not just using AI as a kind of parlor trick for, you know, write my email or draft this marketing email, you know, analyze my database, but uh really to start using AI tools as strategic partners to understand the concepts and understand how to use them better. It's specifically adapted to nonprofit context where limited resources are an issue and there can be multiple stakeholders, and the work is mission-driven. So acknowledging that the work of nonprofits does not have a profit motive. So the adoption of AI tools and the AI tools that are interesting to nonprofits are going to be different. So that is another resource that you can use.

Carolyn Woodard

And then a final resource I wanted to connect you to is the this organization called Project Evident. Uh, they are a friend of the of Community IT. We've done several webinars with them. Uh, they do really high value research, uh, it's very reputable. Um, they are very involved in AI and they have been for three or four years. So since AI was really coming out and hitting the mainstream, they've been on it since the beginning. They have a lot of experience. They are Project Evident, so they are evidence-based, data based. They've been doing these research projects. And

Carolyn Woodard

I wanted to point you towards a URL on their website where they have uh multiple case studies of nonprofits that are using AI not just for these productivity games, not just for efficiency in their day-to-day office work, but actually using the AI as part of their mission. So it may be changing their mission, it may just be taking their mission and delivering it more efficiently. And some of the pitfalls and some of the success stories that they have in using AI, you know, chat bots or AI data sets or uh AI to help, you know, analyze data sets for where constituents may be. Uh, so

Carolyn Woodard

Very interesting case studies there that you can look through all of them. Uh, there's too many to go into right now. There's five or six of them in depth, but uh, it's just a great resource. So if you've been looking for that next step of not just, well, how do I prompt better, but how are nonprofits using AI tools in the field with what they're doing, with what their mission is, uh, this is a great resource. It's uh projectevent.org and it's the highlighting equitable AI adoption. So I'll share that link with you as well.

Carolyn Woodard

So that's what I have for you this week. Um, I hope those resources are useful. Again, I just want to kind of recap to make sure that you are really taking training seriously and thinking through what that means for your organization? How are you going to do it? Uh, is your executive team prioritizing, not just talking about AI and like kind of, you know, informal, like, oh, I used uh Copilot and it was so easy and I had it do this thing.

Carolyn Woodard

That is really good and that's really helpful to get people comfortable with trying the tools, especially tools that you already have, uh, and sharing how they could be useful. Like

Carolyn Woodard

I just realized the other day I use Asana, and Asana has a built-in AI tool. It's not always great. Like it just gave me some uh timestamps today for some tasks that I had already completed, and it told me I had completed them in the future at 7 p.m. tonight. And I was kind of asking the AI, where did you get these timestamps from? You know, I've already done that, uh, and so it's not the built-in uh AI is not perfect, but if you're using Asana, uh I'm sure Monday has one too, or the other uh productivity platforms uh that you can use to manage your time. Uh, you know, just look for that uh AI and um it can

Carolyn Woodard

For Asana, it can give you, you know, the tasks that you still have that are overdue and it can help you prioritize them. You can uh I didn't know how, and it taught me how to add a time estimate. So now I can ask the AI and Asana, I have you know an hour left to work today. Can you give me some 15-minute tasks that I could knock out? So just really useful in like adding that extra layer of like an executive assistant. Um, so

Carolyn Woodard

I would encourage you to keep sharing those types of uh tips with each other informally, but as an organization, I think it's very important to sit down and talk about being able to make this a priority for your organization for the rest of 2026.

Carolyn Woodard

How are you gonna do formal training on these tools? How are you gonna make sure everyone is up to date on what your AI policy is, that you need to log on with your work email, your work account is how you should be logging into these. If you want to try a tool, you should be, where possible, getting the enterprise tool that you pay for because you get what you pay for. Uh, all of those different policy pieces.

Carolyn Woodard

So making sure you're talking about those and talking about how you need to transform how you do business, and that is going to take change management and training your staff. So don't just expect it to happen by osmosis or by wishful thinking. Um, make sure that you have some formal priorities set around it, at least that you're talking about it in your monthly all-staff meetings, that you have uh formal time when you share learnings and tips and prompting tips and what tools you're using, all of those good pieces. So make sure you're prioritizing training.

Carolyn Woodard

Make sure that you are, if you're interested in use cases, that you're looking for those and looking for reputable ones. And I would say attending webinars online is one of the places where you can get those examples and use cases. There aren't a lot of nonprofits - if you look, I've looked, there aren't a lot of nonprofits that are publicizing like on their website. "Here's how we used AI, and here were our, here were the pitfalls, and here's where we made mistakes, and here's where we had successes." They're not really publishing that yet. Some are, but um, like the case of Project Evident, uh, are doing case studies with partners that are practitioners that are doing it. But um, yeah,

Carolyn Woodard

That's another good way that you can find out what your peers are doing and how they are looking at AI to transform, how they deliver services, how they find their constituents, how they are going about. Uh somebody joked that you could use AI to fight the data centers and their environmental impact. So you could use AI tools to do that in this kind of circular pattern.

Carolyn Woodard

So those are my two tips for this week. Uh I hope they were helpful. And uh you can hear me again on Friday with my regularly scheduled uh technology topics podcast, and then next Tuesday again with an AI topic. So take care.