How to Enable Smart, Fast, and Ethical AI for Nonprofits and Government Agencies
In May 2025, Exchange Design partnered with Forum One to host a webinar on Smart, Fast and Ethical: Bringing AI to Life in Nonprofit and Government Work. This first webinar in our series on Artificial Intelligence (AI) for mission-driven organizations explored the unique funding, technology, and opportunity landscape of rapidly changing technology.
The content of the webinar and this post are also summarized in this explainer video, created by NotebookLM.
Why AI Adoption Looks Different for Mission-Driven Organizations
Unlike corporate entities focused primarily on profit, nonprofits and government agencies operate under a different set of pressures when considering AI:
Impact over Profit: Their primary focus is on generating impact, not just financial returns.
Tight Constraints: They often face tight technical and budget limitations.
High Ethical and Privacy Standards: There are strict requirements for ethics, privacy, and data governance, especially when dealing with vulnerable populations or sensitive information.
Procurement Bureaucracy: The fast-moving AI space can clash with slower, often annual, procurement cycles.
Dynamic Risk Profile: Traditional IT operated on predictability, but AI is dynamic, probabilistic, and fast-moving, introducing new legal and reputational risks.
This means organizations must adapt their mindset, not just their toolset, to succeed.
Webinar slide on waves of technology advancement by Brian Graves of Forum One
The Three Pillars of Successful AI Adoption: Smart, Fast, and Ethical
Christopher Neu, the CEO of Exchange Design, a mission-driven organization with three years of experience in AI and data science adoption, emphasizes three core pillars for sustainable solutions:
Smart: AI solutions must create new value, not just introduce new risks, and leverage existing domain expertise while making continuous improvements. This also involves focusing on data quality and AI readiness, recognizing that "AI problems are really three data problems in a trench coat".
Fast: Organizations need real-time insights and accelerated workflow automation to solve problems now.
Ethical: Prioritizing transparency, accountability, and bias mitigation is crucial. The focus should be on serving the people who serve the partners, empowering them rather than replacing them.
A key belief is that organizations should not be locked into any single solution but should be able to leverage the best available AI developments. Additionally, AI capacity strengthening and support are vital, as every organization will need to incorporate AI, and teams must be upskilled.
The Drive for AI: Why Organizations Are Adopting Now
Despite the unique challenges, there are compelling reasons why mission-driven organizations are embracing AI:
Alleviating Overburdened Staff: Many individuals are already using AI tools to reclaim time, refocus on strategic thinking, and combat stress.
Audience Expectations: Commercial experiences have set a high bar for personalization, with audiences expecting instant chat and tailored recommendations. Failing to meet these expectations can lead to disengagement.
Tackling Difficult Tasks: AI can significantly accelerate processes like user-centered design, research analysis, and ideation, making complex tasks more efficient.
Fear of Being Left Behind: There's a growing pressure for organizations to start prototyping with AI, driven by the recognition that not adopting AI could leave them at a disadvantage.
A Twilio.org 2024 report indicated that 90% of nonprofits are already leveraging AI in one or more use cases, significantly higher than for-profit organizations.
Webinar slide on AI enabling organization outcomes by Beth Watson of Forum One
Common Blockers to AI Adoption
A poll conducted during the webinar revealed several top challenges organizations face:
Concerns over ethics and risk.
Lack of in-house technical expertise and difficulty understanding risks and tradeoffs.
Limited team capacity and alignment on how to use AI collaboratively for business value.
Difficulty with rapid prototyping due to uncertainty about what's safe and ethical.
Data not being ready.
Lack of leadership buy-in.
Integration with existing IT systems and compliance considerations.
Moving AI Strategy Forward: A Mission-Aligned Approach
To overcome these challenges, Beth Watson, Forum One's Director of Strategy, suggests a structured approach:
1. Align with Organizational Goals: AI must be an enabler of existing goals and objectives, directly advancing the organization's north star or mission. If it doesn't, it's a distraction.
2. Identify Frictions: Teams should surface existing pain points and bottlenecks within programs, departments, or digital products.
3. Unblock Value: Determine where AI activities like prediction, content/code generation, or classification automation could resolve these frictions.
4. Prioritize and Prototype: Develop lower-risk prototypes for the most impactful use cases and test them with users to gather feedback and iterate.
Key Use Cases for AI in Mission-Driven Work
The webinar highlighted five common categories where organizations are finding success with AI:
Unblocking Efficiencies: Automating repetitive tasks like data entry, content tagging, reporting, and streamlining workflows to free up team capacity for strategic thinking.
Accelerating Value to Audiences: Delivering personalized experiences, creating relevant content and connections, and providing 24/7 service through chatbots. An example is the AP Livability Index, where AI could generate localized content and personalized recommendations for community engagement for every zip code. Another is user-centered design processes, where AI can rapidly generate interactive prototypes, allowing teams to test more hypotheses with users in a shorter timeframe.
Building Strategic Foresight: Surfacing trends, synthesizing data, generating predictions, and even assisting leadership teams with scenario planning to navigate uncertainty.
Amplifying Resource Generation and Storytelling: Enhancing grant writing, donor engagement, and automating tailored messaging to build trust and inspire action.
Expanding Reach and Inclusion: Removing barriers like language, literacy, or geography, and making content more accessible to ensure broader participation.
Slide from webinar on phases of AI adoption by Christopher Neu of Exchange Design
AI as a Strategic Shift, Not Just Tools
It's crucial to view AI as more than just a set of isolated tools; it's a major shift in technology and organizational capabilities. Successful adoption requires collaboration, cross-functional considerations, and ensuring the user remains at the core of all decisions.
First Steps for Moving Your AI Strategy Forward
Experts recommend several actionable steps:
Think Partnerships, Not Product: Instead of trying to buy a single solution, focus on stitching together the best available technology and building internal support to manage these solutions and workflows.
Continue Experimentation: Lower the friction for experimentation, allowing individuals to explore tools and discover benefits. Evaluate effectiveness later.
Facilitate Workshops: Bring teams together to identify their biggest problems and blockers, then brainstorm AI use cases that could address them.
Test and Iterate: Set up low-risk prototypes, test them with users and teams, gather feedback, and continuously iterate.
Embrace a "Trust-First" Approach: Acknowledge that AI tools are new and risks are often passed to organizations. Prioritize accountability, transparency, and brand reputation.
Cultivate Curiosity, Not Confidence: Avoid overconfidence in a single solution; the AI space is rapidly changing, and continuous learning is key.
Refresh Your Strategy: Recognize that AI will change resource allocation and potentially organizational objectives, necessitating regular strategic reviews.
For organizations seeking a structured path, offerings like the AI Accelerator from Forum One and Exchange Design combine strategic workshops, rapid prototyping, and AI expertise to help mission-driven organizations move from idea to working AI prototype quickly and responsibly.
The AI wave is here, and for nonprofits and government agencies, the challenge and opportunity are primarily in adopting it smartly, fast, and ethically to drive meaningful impact for the communities they serve.
