Every week I talk with nonprofit leaders who feel the same way about artificial intelligence: curious, a little overwhelmed, and not sure where to begin. If that sounds like you, I have a resource worth your time.
Bloomerang’s free eBook, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and You: A Nonprofit’s Guide to Understanding and Getting Started with AI, is a clear, practical primer. There’s also a clever twist: it was co-written by a human and ChatGPT, and the authors invite readers to guess which one wrote which parts.
What’s inside
The guide opens with a short history of AI, from Alan Turing’s early work to the 1956 Dartmouth conference that named the field to today’s tools. Then it gets practical with four questions every mission-driven organization should be asking:
How are nonprofits using AI today? Donor insights, volunteer matching, program evaluation, disaster response and more.
How do we prepare? Assess your readiness, clean up your data, build AI literacy across staff and board, and start with small pilots.
What’s our role in keeping AI safe? Nonprofits have a voice in pushing for transparency, fairness and accountability, especially in areas like healthcare, criminal justice and finance.
Can AI help keep donors? Yes. Think spotting donors at risk of lapsing, sending timely and personal thank-yous, and learning which channels your supporters actually prefer.
Why it matters to me
Donor retention is the quiet engine of a healthy nonprofit. Keeping a donor costs far less than finding a new one, and the relationships we build over time are what sustain our missions. Anything that helps us listen better and respond faster deserves a look.
What I appreciate most is that the guide is honest about the limits. AI should enhance human connection, not replace it. It should help us show up more thoughtfully for the people who believe in our work, and it has to be used with care for donor privacy and trust.
Where to start
The guide’s advice comes down to this: start small. Pick one well-defined problem, such as thank-you notes, lapsed-donor outreach or survey analysis. Test it, measure it and learn from it before you scale.
You don’t need to be a tech expert to begin. You just need to be willing to ask good questions.
👉 [Download the free eBook from Bloomerang]
I’d love to hear how your organization is thinking about AI. Are you experimenting, waiting, or still wary? Share in the comments.