There is a lot of talk about AI and what it can do for charities. There is also confusion and, frankly, stress around digitization, which is a little strange. Most charities have been managing websites and technology for more than 25 years, you’d think we’d get it by now!
But there are still many misconceptions about the power of a good website, the need for social media, what any of it can actually do for you, and what it absolutely cannot do for you. If you look at how many thousands of clicks, likes, shares and “love hearts” you need to gain one member, one donation, or even one inquiry, social media and the internet can be quite daunting for a charity with 253 followers!
20+ years ago, I used to write and deliver presentations on strategic planning for charities that were going into a capital campaign or starting some kind of new project. Part of what I used to do to help charities understand communication strategy, and the perceptions other people may have of them, was to ask them to “Google themselves”. Then, Google their cause and mission without using their charity’s name and come back and report on what they found. This was at a time when online ratings were just starting to matter and online giving was still very new. I remember one hospital foundation I worked with where a board member was absolutely apoplectic that the hospital itself had some bad reviews online. Now, we all know that can be quite normal, especially for hospitals. If there is one thing that “X” and Instagram have taught us it is that people usually do not go online to say their colonoscopy was timely and pleasant.
At this board retreat, it took a long time for that conversation to move away from trying to manage other people’s opinions or wanting to seek revenge for those opinions. (Smaller centres are never anonymous.)
We came away with some useful lessons: do the best job you can, own your image where possible, and remember that your reputation is shaped not just by you or your donors, but by what Google says about you. For a long time, that was what people found when they went looking.
But it has changed.
Recently, at the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians, where I serve as Executive Director, we have been looking at how to increase our impact. We are a small organization that punches above our weight, but making the most of limited resources takes considerable time. This has led us to examine our digital presence and how technology can better serve people who are blind, Deafblind and partially sighted.
We also know that AI can reinforce ableism and stereotypes and can do a real disservice to people underrepresented in the programming, the datasets, and the algorithms.
So, for that reason, our organization created an AI use policy. AI can be one of the most liberating technologies for people with disabilities. Dictation, text-to-speech, image description, and devices such as Alexa or smart glasses allow people to access parts of the digital world that would have been much more difficult not that long ago. But our members and leaders know from lived experience that something is not automatically good just because it is useful, and it is not automatically dangerous just because it is new. This is where charities get a bit stuck.
We are also doing succession planning and strategic planning and a colleague, Abby McIntyre, wrote an article on LinkedIn on AI, its use, and how it is helpful for self-identification. That immediately brought me back to work I was doing 20 years ago! The tools have changed – we need to understand how AI interprets our organizations, not Google.
There was a recent statistic that said that about 60 percent of people only look at the AI answer from a search, and don’t go to websites, don’t click the links, and don’t read more deeply. They look at that AI summary and form an opinion. While that can be useful for quick searches, it may not help us.
So, I asked each of our board to ask a very generic question about our organization, something like “Tell me about AEBC,” or “Why should I donate to AEBC?” or “What does AEBC do?” I also gave them instructions to try to do this in a free or anonymous way, so the results were not shaped by previous work they may have done for us using AI. Then I asked them to do the same thing again but make up their own questions.
Our board took this task to heart. We got results from about six different AI tools, and one of our board members went very deep, explaining their personal situation, talking about medical diagnosis, and asking very specific questions, which was extremely useful because that is the kind of thing people actually do. Most people who scroll don’t ask clean, policy-related questions. They ask personal questions. They ask questions when they are frustrated, or scared, or trying to figure something out. And that’s when people try to find us, or at least the stuff we do.
So, what were the results? AI was pretty accurate about what we have done, but not what we are currently doing. Accurate about our history and the basic information on our website. It seemed very generic, and a little vanilla. Everyone was glad the information was right, but the disappointing part was that when people asked about our cause, our organization didn’t appear. It was only when we mentioned our name that we showed up.
And this is similar with Google. If you type in our initials or our organization name, yes, we are at the top of the Google search results, which is completely opposite from the several dozen emails I get every day from supposed SEO experts telling me that we do not appear on Google, but that is beside the point.
The biggest takeaway was simple: if you know us, you can find us. If you do not, we are hard to find. Many charities face the same problem. We communicate from our own perspective, while larger organizations with more resources, content, media coverage and history dominate the digital space. That was a problem with Google, and it is now a problem with AI.
We are starting to find out what would help us show up better in AI searches, but we also need to know our audience. What are the questions our audience asks? What are the questions potential volunteers might ask? What are the questions from people who may be interested in the work we do, but do not yet know our name? We advocate for the rights of blind, Deafblind, and partially sighted Canadians and ensure they have the same rights, access, and liberties as other Canadians. But if someone does not know our name, then our language, our content, and our digital presence have to do more work to get noticed.
But AI is not a panacea. It is a tool. And what we learned was that the tool is only as good as the content put into it and the prompt used. That was a big realization for our organization: that the skill of the person asking the question matters as much as the search engine or AI tool itself. The way a question is asked changes the answer. The level of detail changes the answer. Whether someone knows the right terms (jargon) changes the answer. And that is a problem for charities that want to reach people who may not know the system, the language, the acronyms, and may not know who does what.
It also forced our organization to understand how deeply entrenched AI is in our lives. We had one board member say that they did not use AI, did not know how to use it, and were suspicious of it. Another member pointed out that this same person used Alexa frequently and Alexa is an AI device. That simple exchange showed us the vast range of AI, from Grammarly to Word’s own spell check and grammar check, to ChatGPT, Copilot, and others. It is everywhere, and pretending it isn’t is not helpful for a charity.
Most of our members use it. Funders may use it to ask questions about us. Potential employees and future employees will find us through the curated lens of an AI app. We need to understand that this is now part of how we do business as a national organization; just like email, just like electricity, just like time zones. It affects the way we communicate, the way people find us, and the way people decide whether we are relevant to them.
There have been other outcomes for us. We have recently created a policy which requires a board and staff to indicate if they are presenting AI-generated content, or content altered by AI. We ask they acknowledge, “I asked GPT this, and this is the result.” That is helpful because people understand what they are looking at. It does not need to be dramatic. It does not need to be a whole philosophical debate every time. It is just transparency. “This came from AI.”
“This was edited by AI.”
“This was drafted by AI and then reviewed by a person.”
We have also begun to feed our own information into AI, at least into my own paid version of the programs I use. I provide instructions on how to use person-first language, on phrasing, and on how not to use ableist language, phrases, or solutions. It is taking a long time, and I constantly need to repeat myself, but the program I am using is learning.
If charities want AI to understand us better, we need to consider what we put into the world: our language, websites, public documents and what others say about us. Most importantly, does that content reflect who we are today, rather than five or ten years ago? We need to stop complaining and start being who we want to be online.
Perhaps this is a practical place for charities to start: not with huge AI transformation projects, not with a consultant selling them a package of magic words, but asking basic questions. What does AI say about us? What does it say when people ask about our cause but do not use our name? What does it say when someone asks whether we are worth donating to? What does it say when someone asks for help? We need to be clear about who is responsible for fixing what needs fixing. Is that the communications manager? Is that the executive director? Is that the board? Is it the website manager? Or is it incumbent on all of us?
That is probably where the next step takes us. Not being afraid of AI and not pretending it will solve everything. The solutions include keeping your website current, writing in plain language, being clear about what you do, making sure your public materials reflect your current work, and understanding that people are not finding you by walking you through the front door anymore or just using search engines. Sometimes they are coming through a device sitting on their kitchen counter.
Lee Pigeau brings over 30 years of leadership experience in Canada’s not-for-profit sector, with a strong track record in fundraising, governance, and strategic growth. As an adjunct instructor at the college level, he authored Ontario’s college-level e-learning fundraising curriculum and he has consulted for both grassroots and global charities on governance, donor stewardship, capital campaigns, and more. He is active in his community as a mentor, volunteer and competitive martial artist. He used Word’s strictest settings and the free version of the Hemingway App when writing this article.
