FOMO vs skepticism: AI strategy for grantmakers who feel both

Episode Notes:

• Learn more about the Technology Association of Grantmakers (TAG)

• Explore the Chicago Community Trust

• See what cyber threats look like in the philanthropic sector 

• Go deeper on diversity statistics in the tech sector

• Get TAG’s AI Adoption in Philanthropy framework

• Explore Submittable’s research on what grantmakers think about AI

Transcript

Standardized testing first appeared in the United States almost two hundred years ago, and those tests were meant to be a tool to evaluate the quality of education that students received and help ensure equity.

Over time, though, something shifted. The tests were no longer just a tool. Instead, they became a goal. Today, teachers shape their curriculum specifically to help students do well on standardized tests.

School resources go directly to efforts to pass those tests, and most schools even have dedicated staff like testing coordinators. And in a few rare cases, the pressure to hit certain benchmarks has helped create cheating scandals, like the one in Atlanta in twenty thirteen where eleven educators were convicted for changing student answers to boost test scores.

Ask almost any student or teacher about standardized testing, and they'll give you a long list of its negative effects on creativity and critical thinking and mental health.

It's proof that when a tool becomes a goal, things can get wildly off track.

The important lesson here for grantmakers is that technology is a tool. It should never become a goal in and of itself.

Digital transformation should always be in service of a larger mission. So as we fold in new tools like AI into our work, we should keep that story of standardized testing in the back of our minds and never lose sight of what we're actually trying to achieve.

Welcome to Impact Audio. I am Sam Kaplan, Vice President of Social Impact at Submittable. Today, I'm joined by Jane Westrick, the new Executive Director of the Technology Association of Granite Makers, TAG for short, to learn how foundations and nonprofits are navigating this new era of tech.

Before taking the leadership role at TAG, Jean worked at the Chicago Community Trust for nearly a decade, and she got her start with the Joyce Foundation.

Leading TAG gives her a unique opportunity to bring grantmakers together and to help recalibrate the relationship that they have with technology.

What was intriguing to me about TAG, first and foremost, the role that technology plays in our work. Technology is ubiquitous. It's essential. It's becoming more and more, intertwined in our daily lives, but it's how we deliver the business of philanthropy, the mission of philanthropy, and it's how we scale impact.

And I think that there's ways that we can that we can make sure that it is really sort of playing a strategic role in moving our goals forward. And so thinking about it not as an afterthought, but as a forethought is something that intrigued me, and how could I I reposition technology as a strategic enabler? I think also too, being you know, I I mean, you've heard this term before, this this notion of accidental techie. And I don't pretend to to be a technologist, but I but I hope that I'm a, I'm a fierce advocate and a strong translator and someone who can help sort of, create a vision and create a process by which folks contribute to that vision, along the way.

And and as I've in my own career at the Chicago Community Trust and as I, you know, I've listened and learned to the TAG membership, the challenge that we face are not technical in nature purely.

In in fact, they're hardly technical at all. At the heart of these challenges is really change, and how do we make change happen for good? Philanthropists like to think of themselves as changemakers. Well, how do you make change, and how do you make it for good and scale that change for greater benefit and make the world ready to receive that change.

You know, there's an there's there's change is, is inevitable, but it's also it comes fraught with a lot of anxiety and challenges in and of itself. We know that investments in innovation are are really key to scaling impact and delivering our promise. In fact, tech savvy nonprofits are four times more likely to achieve their mission than those who are not. So it is not just a nice to have.

It's an essential.

Grantmakers know that they can't stay stuck in old ways of working, but efforts to evolve have to be balanced. Foundations are dealing with a variety of challenges, and they can't afford to focus on only one at a time.

First and foremost, a lot of digital transformation is going on. You know, organizations are having to invest in system upgrades and replacing a lot of aging legacy systems and and other things like that, just to recognize that what they built, you know, a decade or more ago is no longer serving, serving their needs. And so that, you know, that that's a challenge for folks that takes a lot of resources and takes a lot of effort to go through that. So that certainly is a top of mind for a lot of a lot of organizations.

I think another thing that's very top of mind is cybersecurity.

We know that there's been a real uptick in cybercrime, especially for for organizations in the social sector. Educational organizations, universities, NGOs, think tanks, foundations have all been in the crosshairs of of the cybercriminals, and these cyberattacks are are serious. They risk not only your ability to execute your mission and and the cost associated with them, but they also threaten your reputation as well. And so those sorts of risks are are, I think, top of mind for for folks in this space.

We're also hearing a lot about staff transitions and retirements. All those baby boomers born in nineteen sixty four or nineteen sixty, they're sixty four now. You know? So they're they're of retirement age or looking at that, and so the ability to find quality, experienced staff who can step in and fill these leadership gaps is really top of mind for a lot of organizations.

I think also too in this space is not a technical issue, but I think technology is maybe a correlating factor, the growth and role of technology, And then I would say that is, an erosion of of public trust, the proliferation of misinformation, threats to democracy, challenges to different, DEI efforts that have that have gone underway, those are all real top of mind, challenges. These are not technical challenges, but as technology becomes more and more intertwined in our life and information moves faster and faster, we know that risk and anxiety grows, and that is all sort of like eroding that public trust that is so essential to our work. We're in a business where trust is our currency.

That's how we do our work. That's how we deliver our mission. And so it's really critical, and I think that there's there's ways that technology can certainly play a really pivotal role in in trying to counteract some of those pieces.

Part of earning trust for grantmakers is ensuring that the people doing the work are actually connected to the communities they serve. And that means prioritizing diversity and inclusion.

We know diversity remains a challenge for the technology sector.

Only fifteen percent and I'm not talking about in in in philanthropy tech, I'm just talking about technologies generally. Only fifteen percent is racially diverse.

Women, gender diversity is is about twenty percent to about fifty percent for other other jobs. We do need to make sure that we encourage diversity at all levels and inclusion.

And I and I think it's not just racial and gendered diversity. Diversity of experience in all forms is really important, and I'd also like to, you know, make sure that the that the field thinks about people with disabilities.

Eventually, the entire population, everyone will at one point be a person with a disability, and so adaptive technologies and thinking about how to solve problems that meet the needs of the majority of people, or the maximum amount of people that you want to serve is really, really critical. And so the more diversity, the better. We know that diverse teams, they just do better.

They do better at decision making, process information more effectively, more objectively, and they deliver better results as a result of the fact that there's more diverse voices and experiencing helping to define that solution. And so I think it it it's core to not only our us being able to deliver as on our promise, but I think I think that diversity can be our superpower.

Efforts to make grant making a more diverse and equitable space should extend to every facet of the work, including how you approach technology. In fact, the unique experiences and perspectives people bring to their roles will help funders avoid the trap that standardized testing has fallen into.

I think that the sector you know, we're we're entering into we're just at the start of the era of AI, and that is on everybody's, like, lips, this you know, what are we gonna do with AI? What are we gonna do with AI? How do we deal with it? And this is a powerful tool.

And diversity is is critical to make sure that we're leveraging this tool in order to solve the challenges that we face creatively, and and that we're applying it appropriately. Inclusion, I think, also has to be addressed and and baked into professionals who who go into philanthropy go in for the same reason I did. You know, we share optimism about a better future. We have a duty to a mission first, approach.

We have a desire to make a positive impact. We're not just technically we don't just have the technical skills. We have, the culture.

We want we wanna be part of a culture that supports that those skills.

And so building strong inclusive cultures requires intentionality.

I believe breaking down those silos between the programmatic and the operational staff and the technical staff so that we can create the sort of collaboration that makes really powerful big things happen. I think by doing that, we're not only going to help stoke that environment, that inclusive culture, but we're gonna create the sort of connective tissues and the commitment and the job satisfaction that's gonna bring about better impact. And by doing that, with technology, we're gonna be able to execute our mission in in new and innovative ways, and harnessing the true sort of power of AI for good.

This is a powerful tool. It shouldn't just be about sort of increasing the bottom lines of of big tech. It should be harnessed so that we improve the conditions for humanity, so we address our vexing challenges and leverage it for good. And I really do think that technology can be an enabler and accelerant for positive impact.

So by fostering, this collaborative, inclusive culture, leveraging the assets within your organization, your technologists, and your technical staff, bring them into your mission, you're gonna be able to harness these tools more effectively.

This year has been a turning point for artificial intelligence. It's no longer just theoretical. Real AI tools exist that can help grantmakers make their programs more equitable and more efficient. As exciting as it is to have these capabilities at our disposal, it's essential that AI strategies stay connected in the human aspects of the work.

You can almost feel like a FOMO, a fear of missing out because there seems to be all this sort of attention around AI. I think it's it it this is a a sociotechnical challenge in so many ways, and there are certainly, I think, some lessons from the way in which technology has impacted our life that we can take with us from the past that we can help sort of think about what we want the future to look like. Number one, focus on the challenge you wanna solve. AI is a tool. It is not it is a tool.

And and so what do you want to to solve is really important. Getting at the heart of that is sometimes hard for people, getting at the essence of the problem and being able to articulate it. Once you have that in in mind, it's really important to be evaluating solutions with a human first valued approach framework. Tags framework for responsible adoption is a great place to start. It's really important not to know when AI isn't gonna be right for you.

Just because you can build a better mousetrap or whatever, it doesn't mean necessarily that you should. If there's a better solution than AI, an easier solution, a less technical solution that can solve the problem as well or better, do that first. There's a lot of change happening, and this landscape is evolving quickly. And what you know today is already gonna be outdated tomorrow, it seems.

But this is compounded by or this almost is a you know, a symptom of the times in which we live in. The last few years have brought such dynamic change and a lot of critical challenges, you know, from a once in a lifetime global pandemic, you know, efforts to subvert submerge democracy, not just in the United States, but across the globe. We've got widening structural inequalities. We've got impacts of the climate change crisis that are that are fast on on our on our tails, and and those are just a few things.

I mean, there's a lot there's a lot of really dynamic change and challenges. Taking on these tough challenges isn't just core to the mission of philanthropy. It is our calling. It is our duty.

And technology technology, and the people who can harness technology for good are gonna be critical to meeting these challenges in these in these tough times and being able to scale impact.

And so, you know, thinking about AI mindfully, putting humans first, mission first is critical, but also to recognizing that change is coming.

And that as change makers, as the philanthropic sector, we have a duty to use our influence to maximize the benefit of technology committed to the greater cause.

And so, you know, I welcome the leaders, the builders, the doers, and the dreamers to be focused on, you know, recognizing the power of technology, seizing it for the power of good. So I hope that I hope that that's in the future of AI, and we cannot compromise our commitment for the sake of speed.

Intentionality and purpose must be our guide.

For organizations looking to harness the power of AI today, there are already great examples of grantmakers leaning into the technology. Again, the key is getting clear about where you see AI fitting into your mission rather than shifting your mission to incorporate AI.

We define AI adoption within philanthropy as as in sort of three three areas.

Individual adoption, you know, those are the folks who are using ChatGPT to draft correspondence, for example, but those are not organizationally provisioned tools.

We think about organizational uses, which which are really addressing trying to in in improve efficiency, so things like turning on your transcription service during during meetings and such. But when we get into some of the more interesting things, those would be the mission focused use cases, and a lot of those would be custom tools that are being built. I know of a couple of foundations that have built their own chatbots, and they're using those in order to basically use it to evaluate their own grant making and use it as a repository to basically query their own data so they can think about that as it applies to their mission going forward.

There are some custom AI, Gen AI examples where they're developing some content using their own content, these are closed AI systems to generate content or to summarize things. And I think then the last one is some natural language search tools. So those are things that are happening in the philanthropy space. There are also some know, really incredible things that are happening in the nonprofit space. And so as we know that philanthropies, yes, have to think about how it's gonna impact their work, but they also are in a position where they're funding some really interesting innovations of of AI as well. And so I'm excited about that too because a lot of the things that we see in the in in the for profit space of leveraging these tools to do use predictive analytics, could be really powerful to think about using predictive analytics to direct different health interventions or other types of social interventions to help improve lives and and impact communities.

When I think of where grant making has been and where it's going, I'm so glad we have organizations like TAG and leaders like Jean helping to blaze the trails.

Because the last thing we want is to be looking back five or ten years from now and wishing that we had stepped toward this new technology with more intention and clarity.

That's all for me today. Thanks for tuning into Impact Audio, produced by your friends at Submittable. Until next time.