Many nonprofit and mission-led executives voice a well-founded concern: “Will AI make our community engagement program feel impersonal and well…automated?”
In fact, the opposite can be true! Leading nonprofits and social enterprises aren’t avoiding AI—they’re leveraging it to shift the balance of their time toward authentic, personal interactions with people who share their mission.
Becoming ‘More Human’
As AI systems become increasingly adept at performing both routine and analytical tasks, we face a new and surprising opportunity: learning how to become ‘more human.’ That is, we’ll have the opportunity to invest more time in the unique qualities that make us human—empathy, creativity, authentic storytelling, and meaningful presence.
This is a particularly exciting advancement for nonprofits and purpose-led companies that commonly struggle with small budgets, staff burnout, and limited time to carry out the mission they seek to address.
At the same time, supporters of mission-based organizations will be seeking more human interactions as they become increasingly surrounded by AI-generated content and automated systems. This creates a powerful opportunity for organizations that can authentically combine technological efficiency with genuine human connection.
Getting Started: Evolving Your Mindset and Strategy
Effectively leveraging AI tools to power mission-based organizations will be an ongoing and evolving challenge. To get started, here are three key steps to transition your thinking and strategy.
1. Focus on Your ‘Task Stack’
Avoid the temptation to focus on shiny new AI tools first. Instead, take a deep dive to understand your organization’s ‘task stack’ with your staff. This includes a detailed and honest look at each organizational function to understand how teams are carrying out their work, which discrete tasks are involved, and how long each requires. Start with time tracking, but follow up with one-on-one and group conversations to learn more about these tasks, what tools are currently used, and what staff love (or hate) about them.
Perhaps most importantly, ask staff members what tasks they are routinely not getting done and why. Take note of those job functions that are ‘human’ in nature but often neglected due to a mountain of other work.
2. Human Focus > Tasks: Redefining Roles for Maximum Impact
Regardless of whether organizations adopt AI tools, this technological revolution challenges each of us to reframe our roles in terms of our unique, deeply human contributions (versus the tasks we complete). This can spark a fundamental shift: Instead of defining success by task completion, we can define it by leveraging human capacity to advance the organizational mission. Consider these transformative examples:
Development/Fundraising Teams:
- Task Focus: Spend 60-70% of time on data entry, report generation, prospect research, and administrative follow-up
- Human Focus: Use AI tools to analyze supporter engagement patterns, identify major gift prospects, and generate personalized thank-you letters, freeing up 30-40% more time for relationship building—listening to supporter concerns, sharing authentic impact stories, and inspiring action around shared values
Program Directors:
- Task Focus: Overwhelmed by reporting requirements, data collection, and compliance documentation
- Human Focus: Leverage AI for data synthesis and report drafting, allowing more time for direct program delivery, community relationship building, and strategic program development based on personally-gathered data on community needs
Communications Teams:
- Task Focus: Constant content creation pressure leads to generic messaging and delayed responses
- Human Focus: Use AI for initial content drafts and social media scheduling, enabling more time for authentic storytelling, stakeholder interviews, and strategic narrative development that truly captures the organization’s impact
Executive Leadership:
- Task Focus: Buried in operational details and routine decision-making
- Human Focus: Employ AI for data analysis and operational summaries, creating space for collaborative strategic planning, developing long-term strategic partnerships, and high-level stakeholder cultivation
The key questions for your team:
- If you were to define your work in terms of mission impact versus task completion, what would that look like?
- If AI tools handled your most time-intensive routine tasks, how would you reinvest that time to advance your role’s core mission?
- What human-centered work are you currently unable to do because of administrative burden?
- How might your role evolve to create deeper impact if freed from repetitive tasks?
This isn’t about replacing human judgment or creativity—it’s about amplifying human capacity for the work that matters most. The goal is to create a workforce that’s more energized, more impactful, and more aligned with the organization’s deepest purpose.
3. Engage Your Supporters
Don’t reject AI tools—or hide that you’re already using them—based on assumptions or fears about your supporters’ opinions of AI. Instead, engage your supporters directly by sharing why the organization is considering integrating AI tools into your workflow, how you would go about it, and what your guiding principles are (and will continue to be). It’s essential that this communication matches your organizational tone and voice while feeling both personal and honest about what you’re thinking (and what you don’t yet know).
Your goal isn’t to focus on AI tools exclusively or sneak in mentions of AI-enabled technology. Instead, share with your supporters a vision of how AI may help you better deliver your mission and how you will invest your human capacity in this new context.
This supporter engagement campaign can be conducted through surveys, open webinars, and integration into existing events. As with any good engagement work, you must report the results of the feedback honestly and be ready to share what you are (or aren’t) going to do in response. This direct and meaningful engagement is so rare that it will attract attention and cultivate respect even among supporters who are wary or opposed.
In any case, you’ll learn a tremendous amount that will help your teams integrate AI tools with more confidence and creativity.
Moving Forward
The organizations that thrive in this AI-enhanced landscape won’t be those that adopt the most tools—they’ll be those that most thoughtfully leverage technology to amplify their human mission and deepen authentic connections with the communities they serve.
