AI and the Nonprofit Leader

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AI Readiness Checklist

A simple checklist for leaders assessing people, process, data, and governance before wider AI adoption.

Word (.docx)

Review the content here, then download the editable Word version if you want to adapt it for your organization.

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Use this to decide whether your organization is ready for a broader AI rollout or should stay in limited experimentation.

Leadership

  • Do we have one leader who owns AI decisions and can say yes, no, or not yet?
  • Have we identified one business problem worth testing instead of chasing many ideas at once?
  • Do we know what success would look like for a first pilot?

Staff And Workflow

  • Which tasks are repetitive, intern-level, or consistently not getting done?
  • Which staff members are already experimenting informally?
  • Where would AI save time without removing necessary human judgment?

Data

  • Have we named the kinds of data staff should never paste into public AI tools?
  • Do we know which workflows involve donor, client, health, HR, or legal information?
  • Do we understand whether our current tool plan has free, paid, or enterprise privacy protections?

Governance

  • Do we have a short acceptable-use policy or draft?
  • Is human review required before anything reaches donors, clients, or the public?
  • Do staff know when they need permission before trying a new workflow?

Pilot Readiness

  • Is the first use case low operational risk?
  • Can we test it in a way that does not affect public trust if it fails?
  • Can we measure time saved, quality improved, or backlog reduced?

Recommendation

If you answered "no" to several governance and data questions, stay with low-risk experimentation first. If most answers are "yes," choose one pilot and test it carefully for 30 days.