Image: Generated by Deepai.org with the prompt:
“a symbol for artificial intelligence reflecting a library of tools that can be used by nonprofits”
The goal of this Guide to Usefulness of Existing AI Solutions in nonprofit organizations is to provide a starting point to those embarking on their AI journey. It focuses particularly on generative AI tools, with a range of available solutions and some cautionary advice. By no means is it a complete list - rather, we want to encourage nonprofits to try out the solutions on offer, to understand their functionality and limitations, and to assess what benefits their use may deliver, as well as hold risks in mind.
Recent consumerization, such as ChatGPT, has increased AI’s popularity. Generative AI can create content – text, images, video – based on what is has “learned” from data that is, for example, freely available on the internet. This creates a wide range of potential applications where Generative AI solutions could help individuals and organizations in the nonprofit sector to be more efficient with those processes that today require from-scratch creation of documents and communications, lengthy research, or detailed scrutiny.
This new type of AI also comes with new concerns. On top of those risks that are already well known – risk of bias, lack of transparency – there are now also questions about topics such as proprietary rights, data privacy, and “fakes”. Nonprofits need to be mindful of these risks when embarking on their Generative AI journey and have mitigating measures in place.
To support nonprofits in navigating the risks of AI use, NetHope has published many other resources on AI, including the AI Suitability Toolkit for nonprofit organizations, and the AI ethics for nonprofit organizations toolkit.