{"id":12228,"date":"2025-01-21T14:40:14","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T14:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teamheller.com\/?p=12228"},"modified":"2026-01-13T21:29:55","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T21:29:55","slug":"will-ai-eat-the-nonprofit-world-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teamheller.com\/resources\/blog\/will-ai-eat-the-nonprofit-world-in-2025","title":{"rendered":"Will AI eat the nonprofit world in 2025?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spoiler: Not completely, but our clients are taking a byte.<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

The dazzling improvement of generative AI platforms<\/a> in the past year has led to increasing comfort among technologists. 67 percent of tech leaders<\/a> surveyed by Salesforce reported prioritizing AI, with a third calling it their first priority.<\/p>\n

Despite the buzz, nonprofit-specific use cases have been hard to come by\u2014and have mostly been in the direct service realm. At Dreamforce in September, nonprofit leaders touted Agentforce mostly to reroute service calls, which will surely increase capacity for some organizations. However, many nonprofits feel that the technology is not ready for client-facing applications; and one tech leader told us that they are reticent to adopt an agent<\/a> for something as complex and sensitive as their crisis line.<\/p>\n

But what if I told you some of the best nonprofit AI use cases are in operations?<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>Nonprofit back-office applications for AI<\/h2>\n

Heller has been working with clients who want to leverage AI tools predominately for operations\u2014accelerating some of the time savings we\u2019ve already seen with automation. Our clients are implementing generative AI for operations in these ways:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Precision fundraising<\/strong>: Analyzing giving patterns to identify and surface potential donors who are most likely to contribute.<\/li>\n
  2. Personalized engagement<\/strong>: An AI can help marketing and communications teams understand constituent behavior and preferences, which allows the teams to tailor messages for the best results.<\/li>\n
  3. Streamlined reporting<\/strong>: Platforms can autonomously collect, process, and present information, giving leaders real-time data to make decisions.<\/li>\n
  4. Automation<\/strong>: It can take on routine administrative tasks including data entry, scheduling, and follow-up communications.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Our Microsoft and Blackbaud Practice lead Karen Harris Melendez<\/a> said Heller clients were already leveraging AI capabilities in Development and Program areas.<\/p>\n

    For example, she knew a food aid nonprofit that leveraged AI to generate personalized asks via the org\u2019s donation page that was in line with what donors could afford, based on previous giving.\u00a0 The result was a breathtaking 30 percent jump in donations.<\/p>\n

    AI also had a critical role in securely analyzing multiple data points already in an org\u2019s CRM and surfacing information, such as high net-worth\/high affinity constituents, for planned giving campaigns.<\/p>\n

    Karen said another use case was in service delivery. A nonprofit working to end food insecurity leveraged AI to optimize staffing and food distribution based on previous outcomes. Their AI-powered systems could predict shifts in need that help them run programs more effectively, she said.<\/p>\n

    In 2025, nonprofit leaders would be prioritizing the groundwork for AI projects, focusing on the interoperability of their tools and developing data governance that cleared the way for the tools to securely access the institutional knowledge of the whole organization.<\/p>\n

    Karen, for one, couldn\u2019t be more excited about the applications.<\/p>\n

    But she stressed that AI was a tool to supplement an organization\u2019s most valued resources\u2014their staff. She said the nonprofit tech leaders she was talking to didn\u2019t want any part in downsizing their teams but, rather, were intrigued at the prospect of leveraging AI to emancipate staff from drudgery, freeing them to do higher-level work.<\/p>\n

    \u201cYou can\u2019t lose the human touch and still achieve your mission,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

    How to build your nonprofit AI program<\/h2>\n

    Michael Tjalve<\/a>, a nonprofit AI specialist, says it is time for tech leaders to get started on a generative AI proof of concept.<\/p>\n

    In a webinar for threshold.world<\/a> last month, he outlined his methodology for AI in nonprofit tech:<\/p>\n