9 Nonprofit Trends That Matter in 2024: Upskill in the Age of AI + New Tech

4:06PM Feb 5, 2024

Speakers:

Becky Endicott

Jonathan McCoy

Jonathan McCoy

Shereese Floyd

Keywords:

ai

tools

love

work

chat

gpt

nonprofits

donor

job

creating

nonprofit

team

upskill

good

pour

heard

organization

talking

great

tech

Welcome back to the Nine Nonprofit Trends that Matter in 2024. Sponsored by our good friends over at RKD Group, we love this value align partner that's helping nonprofits build long term donor relationships through next generation tech data and marketing strategies that are driving omni channel experiences and donations. Learn more at RKDgroup.com.

Hey, I'm Jon.

And I'm Becky.

And this is the We Are For Good podcast.

Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.

We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an Impact Uprising.

So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.

So let's get started. Becky, is that you are an AI bot over there?

It is actually me you would know because I'm going to talk forever, and I'm probably going to quip at the end of it. So you know, we gotta ask these questions.

I mean, this is gonna be a fun episode, we're talking about this uprising that's happening of AI. What do we do with that? How do we upskill in that, but you are joining us, my friends in the middle of our kickoff series of the year where we're talking about the nine nonprofit trends that we see that really matter out there, and we're breaking it down. This isn't your grandma's list, although your grandma's probably really cool and evolved. I mean, if this is a first conversation for you definitely go back and listen to our roll up episode of the trends. And it's gonna give you the bird's eye view of like, why we really see these things as driving forces in the missions that are showing up. And really making cutting through making impact in 2024. So today, we're going to deep dive into upskilling in the age of AI, B. Tell me about your passion for this.

Actually, I have to tell you, I am a believer, I have become such a believer in this. And for all of you out there like, I want you to just like shake your wiggles off any sort of preconceived notions you had about AI what you think it's going to do, because guess what, when you just loosened yourself up, that is what AI is going to help you do, it is going to help you do more with less. If you can lean into upskilling in the age of AI, if you can embrace this new tech, we're going to be able to lean in and learn things that we never knew about our donors. This is going so far beyond what someone has given to understand behaviors to understanding engagement signals. And with a growth mindset, anything is possible. So just understand that we're all trying to lean in and learn as fast as we can in a world where tech is moving faster than ever. So today, we really want to dive into knowing what the power of artificial intelligence can do for your mission. But we also want to know what are the ethical frameworks around it? How do we stay curious, and we have tips and tools on that. And we also want you to know that in this, you have a superpower in that you are a completely unique human being with unique skills, your emotions, your empathy, and your lived experience are going to elevate this to a new level. So how many times have you heard, I wear many hats in this sector, or I'm spinning all the plates when someone's describing their job and nonprofit. So this year, we really want to focus on how to upskill our workforce capabilities in response to the influence that technology and AI are having, not only on the sector, but on every part of our world, go into it with that growth mindset and know you have tools and a community behind you that are going to help you every step of the way.

I love that tone setting B, I mean, this is what got us excited about this. Because the power of just a growth mindset, anything is possible. And that mindset comes with just scheduling time creating a rhythm for how are you learning? How are what are you reading? What are you listening to? And we try to deliver that on the podcast a ton. And there's a lot of passionate people that are really taking into heart into mind, what are the values of our sector, our sector is so needed in our society. So we have to approach this with tenacity, but also with the ethical frameworks to make sure that we're doing this well. And we're not creating more harm. And so there is a lot of resources around the fundraising.ai movement that put together a framework that you gotta go check out. It's at fundraising.ai/framework. So thanks to the team there that is pouring into those resources. They're convening people, they're talking about this stuff, because we need to be really confident in how we're protecting donor information and protecting those that we're serving in the most important way.

But you know, we don't like to have these conversations in a silo. So we went to the community. Thank you everyone who poured in and answered these questions, because we wanted to know how you all were seeing it play out in your shops. So we asked our community what's your favorite AI tool that you're using right now? And some of these may be familiar to you and some of them may be new. We heard things like Canva and Grammarly, and Wordtune which is a lot like Grammarly, I throughout otter.ai, and there's a lot of people using that in terms of transcripts. And I can just tell you that Julie, our unicorn loves otter.ai. And we'll go in there and say, Hey, after we've just interviewed someone, yeah, hey otter, give me the five most impactful quotes, boom, it's done. We already have those pulled out for the show notes that another great one that Adam O'Brien threw out was jasper.ai. So a lot of resources out there and so many of them are free for you. So thank you to Kevin Kramer, Kathleen Rivera, Jennifer Molina, we appreciate your comments. But I wanted to lift two more because I thought these were really practical. Our friend Morgan Robertson over at Stop Soldier Suicide, said that chat GPT saves her so much time in writing. Because sometimes it's just hard to find those right words when you start, which as a writer, I can feel that so deeply. And then Kendra McConnell over at Camp Fire Samish, she said that she uses Canva, and chat GPT to help her build templates. So thank you to everyone who pours into that. We hope that gives you just a little bit of insight and maybe desire to go try one of them.

Yeah. And it's like, we love seeing teams get really curious about this. And when we reached out to our friends that are really thinking about AI all the time, we're like, who are some organizations that are doing this well, like in real time, they're not just talking about it. They're like putting it into practice. And so I followed this thread with Brad Quiring this past week out of British Columbia, he's with this organization, Mennonite Central Committee. So they use chat GPT in three different ways. One was helping them classify like a long list of data that would have taken a long time internally to do. And then secondly, this is what we do a lot at We Are For Good using it to summarize a lot of qualitative data. It's like how could you upload a transcript or a story to pull out the the hallmarks, but then three, using chat GBT as a tool to help humanize like their robotic voice. So like, they are really great at writing, like really specific copy, but it's like, Hey, could you help me make this a more friendly tone? Can you use some of the best practices of to make it more punchy and better call to action? I love just like the conversations that we're having. And I'll link this up in the show notes, because this post people are chiming in and even questioning some of the ethics around them that of that as like, is it okay, to upload a donor, you know, an ID and I'm like, this is the kind of conversations we should talk about, because a solution came about in the threaded comments below that was simply okay, instead of uploading your donor file, what if you had chat GPT, write a script that could actually run that report, right in your own database. So it never that it would never leave the database. So like, this is what it looks like when you get crew curious in real time. And people are helping each other find solutions that are protecting like the integrity of our work.

One of the one I really want to live because I'm just so geeked out about it is Kids Help Phone in Canada. And this is a teen crisis hotline for youth. They're flexing this plan AI to recognize key words and speech patterns from these young people who reach out. And they have so many busy counselors who are trying to zero in on what everyone needs and tailor their support. But the AI is going to lift these trigger words or phrases such as I feel helpless, or I think I want to die. And it will put that conversation at the front of the line to speak with a counselor. And it's just helping, I mean, does that not just make you feel good, you all like these are the hallmarks of the way that AI can help us in real time. So don't be scared, we hope that these against samples really give you some bravery to try to go for it.

And so as we round out, before we bring on our amazing guest, Shereese to the conversation today, I wanted to give you a few pro tips that are top of our mind. And one is just inventorying a list of your routine activities. You know, I mean, this could be writing copy or you know, figuring out data or pulling out summaries of like what the donor surveys are telling you, like get curious about what there are those tasks that take you a long time. And is there a tool already because there's probably a tool that can help you pour into that. And then just never start from a blank page as much as this artist friend, me, in your life loves a blank page. Most of us need like an outline to get started. We don't have to start from scratch, we can start with a great outline, whether you're planning your next board meeting, or whether you're just trying to break down a project into meaningful steps, like use AI tools like Chat GPT to help you do that. So there's a couple pro tips and there's more coming with Shereese I'm so pumped.

It is our great joy to bring in our expert today. Shereese Floyd, she is the founder over at SShereesefloyd.com. And she is also the incredible brain dress behind this really cohort of individuals who are AI consultants for nonprofits. So if you're struggling through this right now friends and impact sector, I hope you feel like your nervous system settles because Shereese is about to take your hand. She's also a professional speaker specializing in topics on women's leadership, storytelling, AI, team building and culture and one of the great quotes she has that I love so much is it It's not about stepping into the future. It's about managing right now. She's here to bring all of that wisdom and expertise around how we can upskill our teams in the age of AI and new technology. Shereese, get into our house. We are so excited you are here.

That is such a welcome. Yes, I am here, roll out your roll out the red carpet. I appreciate that. Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

We want to get to know you as getting being someone on the podcast for the first time. Like, take us back. Let us get to know Shereese growing up. How did she get into this work?

Oh, my gosh, I mean, I'm asking Shereese of today, how did did she get into this?

Right! Existential kind of question for all of us.

My background is in nonprofit marketing, I actually did stumble into the world of nonprofit, it wasn't anything that was on my to do list. I landed as a membership coordinator at a botanical garden. And I was like, Okay, this is the job. I answered the ad I'm here. But there was a marketing director who was there who said, You know what, you have a knack for this. You have a knack for the creative. Always had a flair for the dramatic, always loved writing. And she took me under her wing and kind of taught me the ropes and that one nonprofit job led to another led to another. And I've been in this industry for a while. And I've always had a tech background I used to do. I say I say tech very easily when I talk about AI. But I used to do Facebook ads for nonprofits. And it's just evolved over time. And here we are sitting here talking about this, this tool that all of us can't stop talking about in yeah, here I sit.

Oh, my gosh, I love hearing a little piece of your backstory, because I mean, marketing really exists that it's always evolving. You know, it's like one of those parts that it's like you have to be studying, I just think of just like Meta and Facebook ads alone, it's like, just that changes multiple times a year. So in this space, you have a comfort level with AI that a lot of us do not. So I want to just so glad to have you in as our expert today. What's just some like wisdom, you could share, like how should our teams or nonprofit teams, our leadership teams, just pour into learning about these emergent technologies? And like, what is the what some kind of tone setting I guess, as we think about how do we work smarter and not harder?

Yeah, I would encourage everybody, I would encourage everybody but specifically in the nonprofit space to stop and take a breath. Like, just take a breath, no one's behind. You haven't missed anything yet. Take a breath. This modern AI that we're talking about. Specifically, these generative AI tools are a little over a year old in the way that we know them. launched in November of 2022. AI has been in our life for a quite a while, right? Our banking, our phones, our email, our Netflix, these things have been powered by some form of AI for a long time. So I would encourage everyone to stop first and take a breath. But when we're talking about putting these tools into place into nonprofit organizations, our first order of business should be about what is the goal that you want to use them for? Right now there is somebody in almost every nonprofit who knows what Chat GPT is, or what Bard it is, and all of those who's either using the tool in secret, or is the only person on the team who's using the tool, or there's one group of people that's using the tool, but it's not being used across an organization. So I would say first, in order to set the tone for this, we have to know why you want to use it, take the tool off the pedestal, it's okay. It's just like any other tool that you will use in the organization. It just has more power. And we can use it in a lot of different ways. But first, we have to stop and ask ourselves, why do we want to implement these tools? Because then and only then can we set a strategy that will get us there versus creating more work for an industry that is already burned out?

Thank you for that centering. It can be very overwhelming because there's tools coming in all the time. And technology is changing so rapidly. And we are not the sector that really embraces change in a very quick manner. And so I think one of the great things that I value so much about what AI has done for We Are For Good is it's allowed us to reclaim some of our time back. And so I want you to talk a little bit about how upskilling is really something that helps us work smarter, not harder. And so walk our listeners through that where they need to start placing their focus like how or what they need to do to start optimizing that time. I think that'd be a good starting point.

Yes. So I encourage, I like to encourage nonprofit leaders to start to think about implementing AI in the way that a consultant would. So start organizationally, again, rather than one person and one department because this is really how time is claimed across the board. And not just you know, the team that gets to go home at two o'clock while everyone else is still there at five, if there is such a thing that exists in nonprofit world. But like when you're when you're talking about working smarter, I always like to tell nonprofits to train AI models in the space where a human should be, but there isn't one right now. So train it in the space where there is resistance. For instance, if you don't have a grant writer on your team, train the model in the space that a grant writer should be. If you are, you don't have a full time marketing person on your team, and someone is doing the work of two or three different jobs, you want to be able to train these tools in that space to free up people's time. But in order to free up people's time, we have to know where the time is spent. And right now, the thing that people are using this tool for the most is social media management. And I want to say to you very pointedly, if social media management is the only thing that you're using this for one, you're doing it wrong. And two, that is not freeing up your time that is adding more unnecessary stuff to your plate.

Are you saying Shereese for like content creation, or actually just like the scheduling of social but like, it's actually the creation of the posts themselves, too.

It's the creation like I have been running up against people who are creating a year's worth of content, who in their right mind knows what's happening in a nonprofit in a year in our life.

Especially this year, any year, in the last four.

If you have annual events, I get that like those events that you do every year and you're creating content, but to seriously sit down and do a content calendar for 365 days where you know what the caption is and what your stop.

Thank you.

Just because you could doesn't mean should.

Jurassic Park quote, I love it. Yeah.

Well, I love that example. I mean, in your opinion, what are the untapped, yu know, technology resources that nonprofits really good use to support their teams? What are some of those tools that are out there?

Yeah, well, Chat GPT btw is phenomenal. Even with the free version, it is incredible. I think what I have seen is that the strategic way that these tools can think and technically they're not thinking they're like guessing the next word, but they're very good at strategy, they're very good at seeing around the corner in a way that our one mode of human intelligence is not able to see. They're brilliant in that space. And so when you're looking at implementing something to help save time, and to save the sanity of your people, you can't get away from one of these generative tools, whether it's Chat, PT, or Claude or Bard, and they all respond differently. But generally, they do the same thing, creating something from nothing. And once they are prime, like they have vast amounts of knowledge, but they don't know anything about you specifically, and they don't know anything about your nonprofit, once you have primed them, meaning giving them information where they can make more focused decisions and give you more focused outcomes. That is where the magic in them really shines. So when you take one of those tools and use them strategically, that can cut down on a lot of the consultants that you hire, though, you know, not trying to get rid of my own job, but still win when you know how to use them in a broad way. That really is where the magic of them really come in from your strategic planning to capacity building.

I would love for you to kind of take this and run with how technology and these tools can help us build deeper connections. They can help us cultivate loyalty, they can help us inspire more giving. So talk a little bit about that and how people can like seize the moment.

Yeah, and seizing the moment is truly where we are right now. It really is. Like I said, it's not about the future. It's about preparing for right now. We are in a space. I think rolling out of this pandemic. We miss ourselves, I like to think like, we like to hear our names, we like to know that we're important. We like to know that we matter. These tools can help you personalize fundraising and donor relations and just volunteerism in a way that really, truly make people feel like their existence on this planet is important, not only to you, but to the planet in general, and nonprofits are always tasked with doing more with less. But these tools now have put something in front of us where we can do more, without doing more, if that makes sense, right?

100%

Really, really put our arms around people and put our arms around the mission in a way that is, so I hate to use the word revolutionary, because that's one of those AI words.

It is evolutionary and revolutionary, though. I get you.

And transformative and all the things yes. But we're in a space right now where AI can take care of the grind. And we as the people can get out and deliver the mission. And that is where the value of these tools really come into play. Because our industry, as much as we love it, excuse me, I touched on it before about the burnout, it runs on our passion. And our passion doesn't turn off it, it runs on us being fueled by the things that matter to us. So let our passion run, AI can keep up. And that way that we cannot burn out the human capital that matters so much because these tools don't run without humans, AI is not going to take over our jobs. Now somebody who knows how to use AI might take over your job. But AI specifically isn't taking over your job.

There's a challenge for everybody. Amazing.

Well, I think it's like I'm just reflecting this is a moment when we're getting this opportunity to have more ease. It's like, don't just automatically refill that with just stuff. You know, it's like, love, like, what is that open up as a result of that time saved? I'm loving this so much that I wonder if you would take us into a case study. I mean, you get to work with really cool organizations implementing this. What's an org that's really seen some huge advances, but just harnessing this tech?

We started working with the organization in October, we were called in it was a youth empowerment organization. And this organization specifically was very clear, they were having a high turnover. And after they've had so many turnovers, they realized that it's not them, it's you, right. It's something that's not quite working here. And they brought us in to kind of look at the time management and how AI could help in this case. And we're talking about the admin position that was just admin for all of the people in the organization that I think there was about six people and they were functioning for all the people. This was a person or a position that this person was answering messages at three o'clock in the morning to try to keep up with the demand of this job. But we we came in and with every client that we do AI integration with we do AI readiness assessment. So that just lesson to know what is your starting point, and it always goes back to your data. What is your data look like? And what is your time look like? And what is the infrastructure that you currently have in place to be able to support these tools? Well, because she was working that hard. She didn't know what her time actually was. And so we had to spend time with her to really time track. Where is the time going? And why is she doing certain tasks? And what tasks is she doing over and over and over? And where could we build in some ease to Jon's point. And so what we found was that using Chat GPT and at that time, there wasn't the customs ups that we are aware of right now. But I've always been training in the way in where there is resistance. So technically, we need an another set of hands. So what we did was take the admin work that she had, and we started training Chat PT in terms of being able to speak for her in terms of being able to write in her voice when she needed to write emails and things like that. So we took Chat GBT was the base and then we connect it to a tool called Zapier, which is the automation and so she was able to through the paid version of Chat GPT, $20 aa month guys, upgrade to save you. Some of you it will save you for the extra $20 a month and we were able to connect those two pieces were now those routine tasks that she was doing every day was just a button, and all the other pieces would would go into place, whether that was sending, updating a Google doc sending it to the team member that needed to sign off on it. We even set up where Chat GPT could function as her personal assistant and update her calendar, we had to go in and say this is what her time is, this is how much time she has in a day. This is the amount of time that she would like to spend on each of these and have chat, Chat GPT create the schedule, here's the things that she has to get done every day, and then connect it to her calendar where it's automatically populating on her calendar. So once the custom GPTS came out, then we were able to go in and drill down even more to customize a GPT that really spoke to her voice. And then we created a virtual team for her where there was one team that was admin, there was one team that was personal assistant. And when I say team, it's it's I'm talking to chats that are functioning, they're automated, I'm looking at them in my head. And then there was also a grant writing team member that we built as well. So now she's got this group of AI team members, after the last time that we checked in with them, because we built check ins at three months, six months and a year. She was no longer doing the 3am calls, which was great.

Thank goodness.

And yes, and according to the executive director, as we were have been time tracking, if the trend holds, they're looking at saving about 75k annually in staff time if the trend holds and we're in, we're in it. So we don't have a full full knowledge of what it's going to be until we get a year in. But at last track, she was feeling better and she was no longer on the fence of at least you know submitting her resume, she was willing to give this system a chance. And that is that's the type of work that we're we're looking for to save people from leaving jobs because at some point, while your passion may not burn out, your body will at some point, either you are going to decide to leave or your body is going to shut down on its own.

Shereese, my jaw is on the dang floor

We haven't stoped gasping.

I mean, I have not yet heard anyone on this podcast talk about AI as a means for capacity building like you literally helped, gave her a virtual team. And the integration we're huge fans of Zapier here too. is so smart. And I just like want to hug that woman find her and say you just sit on the couch and watch you some Sweet Magnolias or a movie or something and like go to bed at a reasonable hour. And I mean, I just think that we can talk about the tech benefits. We can talk about the efficiencies, we can talk about the money coming in. But the benefit to the body and to the human and to the culture in the workspace. I just think there are so many reasons why we need to stop being fearful of this tech and really just start to dip our toe in the water and try one little thing. So which gets me to our last question, which is what is your one good thing? What could you offer to people? You know, as it relates to this topic, as a piece of counsel, maybe it's a place to start?

Yeah, aside from just, you know, taking a breath and taking the tools off the pedestal first. You know, in doing that, I would recommend that if getting into these tools is and clearly you wouldn't be listening to it if it wasn't something you wanted to do, know specifically where you need that extra hand because we all know we've all been in the chair, even the consultants that work with me, we all worked in nonprofits, we've all been a team of one. We all have been in that chair and like oh my God, I wish I had an assistant or I wish I had this person or whatever it is that you're wishing for. And I promise you if Chat CPT or a generative tool cannot do it. There is a tool that can relieve resistance for you. I promise you that there is and that is really all you have to start just just somebody saving you an hour a day feels great. Now the challenge is you have to save the hour and not pour more stuff on top of the hour. The idea is to get you up out of your chair so maybe you can go out in the community. The idea is to have AI taking care of the realities of the job while you can go out and take care of the meat of the job. That is the idea. So wherever you're feeling that tension wherever, you know, you wish that there was a second hand or an assistant, build that as the virtual team, and then save that time and then go out and serve the people.

Yeah.

I heart you.

Yeah. I mean,

I really do.

this has been such a fun

You're so great.

I know, we've talked about AI a lot of different times. But I just think your sensibilities coming in here, your relatability. And just like the simple ways to integrate this into every shop, we all have something right now that we could gain ease from, and we're just too busy to stop and take stock and really figure that out. So Shereese just such a fan of your work. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for pivoting into this so deeply. And I wonder if you'd tell our community today, like how can they work with you? How can they follow you? How can they check out your amazing website? By the way, link is up to all the things?

Yeah, absolutely. I am on LinkedIn. So you can find me at Shereese Floyd, my website is ShereeseFloyd.com. And if I may, since you asked how can you work with me?

Heck yeah.

This work is so very important to me, we haven't talked a lot about the ethical piece of it. But there it's you know, there is Congress isn't doing anything about it right now. So

We can.

We got to. Exactly. And so because of that, my we are in an accreditation process right now where we have built a curriculum around AI and nonprofit leaders. And our goal is to certify people in this work so that you can own your AI expertise in the organization so that you are the expert in AI in the organization. And then we will support you in giving you the tool, we'll test all the tools will tell you how to use them. But this is a time where especially in our industry, we have to be really, really thoughtful around how we're using these tools. And we have to be thoughtful about the people who are going to be charged with using these tools. And let's just you know, let's just go out here and create some magic.

Let's do it. I mean, I feel like we started out with that powerful message that Shereese has on the front of her website. That's, but it's really about she's out here advocating for everyone to stop auditioning for your value. So please go check out what she's doing. Get your mind your heart and your operation centered. Thank you, my friend for being here.

It was delightful. Thank you so much.

Thanks so much for being here friends, and you probably hear it in our voices. But we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before.

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