Carolyn Woodard covers a question on many nonprofit minds right now: is AI coming for our jobs? Headlines are full of tech layoffs, and recent graduates are finding entry-level work harder to land.
For nonprofits the picture is more complicated, both for workforce development organizations training people for jobs that are changing and for the rest of the sector, where funding cuts seem more responsible for reshaping who gets hired than AI.
Carolyn starts with recent layoffs at HubSpot, Salesforce, and Microsoft. These are three companies telling three different stories about AI's role, and their restructuring could change the support your nonprofit gets from the tools it pays for.
She then looks at how workforce nonprofits are responding. Per Scholas has shifted its training from coding toward AI skills. Coalitions including the National Skills Coalition, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP, and the ACLU are pressing for worker protections, bias testing, and fair access to reskilling. States are stepping in to regulate AI in workforce decision making.
This episode covers:
- Why for-profit companies tend to see AI as a way to do five people's jobs with one agent, while nonprofits more often see AI as help for one person already doing five jobs in an understaffed/under-resourced nonprofit.
- Why you should watch your support experience and talk to your account rep when a tech vendor restructures customer support.
- Why administrative and clerical roles, held mostly by women, are among the most exposed to generative AI, in a sector where about 70% of staff are women.
- What the CEP State of Nonprofits 2026 report shows: 30% of nonprofits have cut staff since January 2025, 73% of CEOs report rising demand, and 57% say foundation grants are harder to get.
- Why nonprofits and funders still have agency. Leaders choose how to respond to funding shifts, and funders can pay for AI training, pilots, and the workforce development organizations that will need support most.
Resources Mentioned:
- AI for Workers and Learners 2026 Survey, Jobs for the Future
- Generative AI, Occupational Segregation and Gender Equality in the World of Work, ILO
- State of Nonprofits 2026, Center for Effective Philanthropy
- Challenger Report, September 2026, Challenger, Gray & Christmas
- Per Scholas
- Artificial Intelligence, National Skills Coalition
- Civil Rights Letter to the House Democratic AI Commission, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
- Ensuring Representation and Eliminating Bias in AI, NAACP
- AI Literacy Training and Employment Notice, U.S. Department of Labor
- Newsom Signs Slate of AI Workplace Laws, KQED
- How Worried Should We Be About AI Coming for Our Jobs? PBS
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