While technology expert Lucy Bernholz counsels foundations and nonprofits to avoid AI platforms altogether (“Agentic AI is not your friend,” she noted), almost all of my interviewees expressed the strong view that we must engage, taking the lead on AI policy. In the representative words of Chantal Forster, who consults with foundation CEOs on AI, “We as a sector need to recognize that engaging with AI doesn’t equal endorsement. We must engage and … shape an equitable future for AI.”

I came away from these interviews with the view that learning about and engaging with AI should not just be a priority for our sector. It must be a priority for CEOs. “There’s a real need for more than keyboard warriors to understand AI,” explained Alicia Morrison, Mercy Corps’s interim Senior Director, Technology for Development. “Executives will need to make decisions about AI, and it’s not doing them any good to hide from it. There are huge opportunities and huge risks.”

On the opportunity side, for example, Mercy Corps has the ability to shift from reactive to proactive mode when disasters loom. In fact, it is already doing so. When war broke out in Sudan in 2023, the organization acquired 10 years of satellite imagery showing the health of the country’s crops in each of those years, based on how plants reflect light in different wavelengths. Then they used AI to compare real-time crop health with those historical patterns. “Our Sudan team could instantly see, in red, the areas where people were most vulnerable,” explained Morrison.

AI gave Mercy Corps the ability to deploy its resources where they were needed most — before disaster struck.

On the risk side, my interviewees helped me see that three major threats are already upon us.

Inaccurate and Biased Results: According to philanthropist and technology entrepreneur Bill Shihara, all AI companies — even the ones structured as nonprofits or B Corporations — are prioritizing speed over accuracy. “They are creating platforms that are only as smart as the data they have access to, and so much of the data they’re internalizing is deeply biased,” he said. “I predict that dynamic is going to get worse, not better.” To mitigate this risk, nonprofit leaders must keep “a human in the loop.”

Read the full article about nonprofits taking the lead on AI policy by Lowell Weiss at The Center for Effective Philanthropy.