Working the Four Steps

Welcome to the AI Sprint! You are joining an amazing group of nonprofit organizations who are committed to exploring ways that safe, Incremental AI can help better serve clients, staff, and the overall mission.

These are challenging times for the social sector. We need every tool and all the help we can get. And efficiency is a moral imperative.

This page lays out the four straightforward steps that AI Sprint Liaisons will take to bring their colleagues along the program:

Confirm Participation

You are probably here because you are already your organization’s AI Leadership Fellow. If not, click the link in your invitation email and you will be all set.

Share AI Use Survey

It is vital to understand how your particular colleagues view AI, how they are already using it, and what their concerns might be. Sending a survey is also a gentle way to invite input and socialize the idea that the organization is taking on an AI learning project – the AI Sprint.

Once we have a statistically useful number of responses, we will deliver a report comparing your staff to our larger sample of 2,000+ survey responses.

Here is language you can send to your staff. We’ve learned (the hard way!) that this works best when you send it as a dedicated email (not in a longer HR newsletter), with a short deadline (a week or less), and a final reminder note early on the day of the deadline.

 

5-Minute Survey: (How) Are you using AI at work?

[Refer to your onboarding emails for your AI Use Survey link.]

We all know there is a lot of conversation about “artificial intelligence” in many different contexts, especially since ChatGPT was released in November 2022.  There are big-picture implications, and nobody really knows what happens next. But one relatively unexplored area is how staff at nonprofits are using off-the-shelf AI tools at work – and we know for a fact some of our colleagues are doing interesting things.  So we’d like to better understand if you’re already using it, how you’re using it, and/or whether you’re interested to learn more.

This anonymous survey is administered by the AI for Nonprofits Sprint at the Fund for the City of New York. It should take no more than 5 minutes of your time. Thank you!

 

 

Develop Interim Guidelines

Because we know that 50%+ of staff at every nonprofit we have surveyed are already using some AI tools, sharing clear guidelines is a must-have, ASAP. For some nonprofits, especially those operating in a highly-regulated space, it can (and should) take longer to develop a formal policy. But in that case it is all the more important to issue temporary Interim Guidelines right away. 

If you already have guidelines or a formal policy please share them with the Sprint through your cohort’s AI Policy Survey in your onboarding email. You can indicate whether we should keep it private, or if it is ok to share within the AI Sprint Community to help others.

If you do not yet have guidelines or a policy:

 

Promote the Webinar

The AI for Nonprofits Sprint was launched to democratize AI literacy. Whether or not any individual staff person will choose to make use of AI in any particular way, our organizations will benefit when we all have a common vocabulary and understanding of this new technology.

The AI Sprint offers our popular and much-praised AI 101 Webinar for all nonprofit staff. Please share the language below with your staff on a monthly basis, updating for the most recent calendar.

Please Join: Getting Started with AI to Support Staff and Serve Mission

As many of you know, we are exploring the ways that new technology, including AI tools like Microsoft Copilot or ChatGPT, can help us better accomplish our mission in challenging times.

We are partnering with a nonprofit effort called the AI for Nonprofits Sprint, operating out of the Fund for the City of New York, to provide a very practical training to all staff: from program to finance, administrative to fundraising and beyond.

This one time session is for staff who may or may not have a tech background or be using AI tools already, and would like to better understand what many colleagues are already doing with AI. 

A 60 minute presentation will be followed by an optional 30 minute Q&A.

Please register for one of our upcoming dates:
[Session dates to be shared.]

 

 

Identify Your AI Team

Congratulations! At this point you have good data on staff AI use, you’ve given them guidance for how to engage with AI tools, and all of your staff have been given the chance to learn the basics with an online training.

Now it’s time for deeper longer-term engagement with a smaller group of staff.

Organizations in an AI for Nonprofits Sprint Cohort have access to facilitated peer learning meetings and direct live support from AI Sprint staff.

Organizations in our Virtual Cohort have online resources available to support your AI Teams within your organization.

 

4.1 Identify the members of your AI Team. A successful team is diverse across function (finance, fundraising, programs etc) and seniority. In addition:

  • Team size can range from 5-10 depending on the size of your organization.
  • Team members commit to using AI for real work, ~2 hrs/week and participating in monthly Peer Learning Groups

 

4.2 Ensure that all AI Team members have access to a paid “frontier-level” model of an AI tool.  

  • You might already have access through your organization’s Microsoft or Google accounts.
  • Check with your AI Sprint contact, you may have access to free upgrades as part of your cohort.

 

4.3 AI Team members will register for monthly Peer Learning Sessions, with the chance to learn from others in their functional area. 

 

4.4 All Team members have access to our Video Library of Nonprofit AI Use Cases and may have the opportunity to be PAID to share their own 3-7 minute video.