Description

Carolyn Woodard covers a question many nonprofits keep putting off: how do you create an AI policy when you are short on time? Whether your organization is embracing AI or has decided not to use it at all, you need a written policy, because AI is already arriving inside the tools you pay for.

First, two news items with nonprofit connections. The Gates Foundation has committed $1 billion to AI for health workers, farmers, and teachers, including work to make AI tools function in languages that are poorly represented today. Carolyn looks at why some tribal and small language communities see AI as a way to preserve their languages, while others are rightly skeptical about who owns their data and culture. 

Common Sense Media also named former Google trust and safety leader Tom Siegel as executive director of its Youth AI Safety Institute, funded in part by Anthropic and the OpenAI Foundation.

Then Carolyn walks through practical steps for building a policy, and explains where Community IT stands: we support nonprofits that choose AI and nonprofits that choose not to, and we want any use to be secure.

This episode covers:

• Why every nonprofit needs an AI policy, even if that policy is that you do not use AI. Microsoft, Google, Zoom, your CRM, and nearly every other tool keeps adding AI, and staff need to know what to do when an update arrives.
• Tips to build a policy: designate an AI owner, a person or small team with an executive champion and a board connection, and hold listening sessions with staff, leadership, and the board to surface opinions, skill levels, ideas, and mission-specific concerns before you write anything.
• What a policy outline should cover: principles, examples of what you will and will not use AI for, approved uses and tools, a process for resolving questions and revising the policy, and standards for disclosing AI use.
• How AI connects to cybersecurity through two risks and one benefit: better scams and deeper fakes coming in, oversharing through free AI tools going out, and AI that can help a small team find security gaps when used carefully.
• Why training and review matter as much as the document: common scenarios, a light quiz that confirms staff know who to ask, a culture with no dumb questions, and a revisit at least twice a year.

Resources Mentioned:

• SNL Weekend Update, Dario Amodei sketch
• Gates Foundation $1 Billion Equitable AI Commitment
• Tom Siegel Joins the Youth AI Safety Institute, Common Sense Media
• Template, Acceptable Use of AI Tools in the Nonprofit Workplace, Community IT
• Mission Aligned AI Adoption Model for Nonprofits, Community IT
• Blog: Three Filters for Mission-Aligned AI Decision Making, Community IT

New every Tuesday.

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Start a conversation :)

• Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/
• email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com
• on LinkedIn 
• on reddit/r/nonprofitITmanagement
• on the Community IT website

Thanks for listening.