AI for Nonprofits: Three Ways to Do More with Less
If you work in the nonprofit sector, you already know demand for your services keeps climbing while your budget stays flat or shrinks. Your staff are stretched thin, burnout is real, and there never seems to be enough time or money to do everything that needs doing. The common phrase I have heard over my decades-long career comes to mind, “how do we do more with less?”
In 2024, eighty percent of Ontario nonprofits saw demand for their services increase, while half reported flat or declining revenue and eighty percent faced higher expenses. Even more concerning, forty percent of organizations said they face significant risk of closing within three years.
At the same time, there's a tool that most nonprofits are not using yet. According to a 2024 report, less than 5% of Canadian nonprofits were using artificial intelligence, and less than one percent of their workers were in technology-related roles.
AI isn't about replacing people with machines or chasing the latest tech trend. It's about finding practical ways to free up your team's time so they can focus on the work that actually matters - building stakeholder relationships, delivering programs, and serving the community.
Here are three ways small to medium nonprofits can use AI right now to address their workflow challenges.
1. Managing the Admin Work with Greater Results
The Problem: Your team spends hours every week on tasks that don't directly serve your mission, like: Grant applications, meeting notes, data entry, email drafts, donor acknowledgment letters, and progress reports. The list goes on…
Two-thirds of nonprofits struggle to recruit and retain their staff, often because of burnout and/or low pay. When you're already short-staffed, every hour spent on admin work is an hour not spent on your actual impact work.
How AI Helps: AI tools can handle many of these routine tasks. They can draft your grant proposals based on information you provide. They can turn meeting recordings into organized notes or board minutes. They can update your stakeholder database when new information comes in. They can write first drafts of emails, social media posts, and reports. With human-in-the-loop oversize, AI tools can improve the workflow.
Organizations using AI for these tasks report that staff can redirect 10 to 20 hours per week away from paperwork and toward relationship building and program delivery.
What This Looks Like in Practice: Imagine a program coordinator who used to spend Monday mornings typing up notes from Friday's team meeting. Now, AI handles the transcription and creates a summary. That coordinator uses Monday morning to review the summary, and check in with program participants experience related matters. The development officer who spent hours customizing donor thank-you letters can use AI to generates personalized drafts based on each donor's giving history, freeing the officer to make phone calls to major donors.
This isn't about cutting corners - it's about using AI to handle the first draft so your staff can spend time on the parts that need human judgment, creativity, and personal connection.
2. Finding and Keeping Donors in Tough Times
The Problem: With half of nonprofits seeing flat or declining revenue, you need to make every fundraising dollar count. If you're like most small to medium nonprofits, you don't have a research team to analyze donor data or predict who's likely to give. You might be sending the same appeal to everyone and hoping for the best.
How AI Helps: AI tools can look at your donor database and spot patterns that would take a person weeks to find. They can predict which past donors are most likely to give again. They can identify which lapsed donors you should focus on winning back. They can suggest the right time to reach out and what message might work best.
AI can analyze donation histories, forecast future donations, and help you group donors so you can send more tailored communications and create more targeted fundraising strategies.
What This Looks Like in Practice: The American Cancer Society used AI to figure out which of their digital ads were actually bringing in donations.
For smaller organizations, this might mean discovering that donors who give in December are likely to give again in June if you send them a specific type of appeal. Or learning that former volunteers are three times more likely to become monthly donors if you ask them in a certain way. Or identifying which supporters have the capacity to make a major gift but haven't been asked yet.
One organization is using AI to look through community data to find potential donors and improve their direct mail results. This is especially helpful where urban neighbourhood gentrification is happening.
This doesn't replace the personal relationships that drive fundraising, instead it helps you focus your limited time on the right people with the right message at the right time.
3. Proving Your Impact and Improving Your Programs
The Problem: You know your programs work - you see it every day. You also see the increase call from funders for data, and demonstrative impact. Eighty-three percent of Toronto nonprofits said demand for their services went up in 2024, but only fifteen percent can fully meet that demand. This underscores that you need to make smart decisions about where to focus your limited resources.
How AI Helps: AI can process all the data you're already collecting - participant feedback, outcome surveys, service records - and help you see patterns you might have otherwise missed. It can show you which program elements are working best and where others need your attention. It can flag clients who might need extra support before a crisis happens. It can help you write stronger grant applications by pulling together your impact data in new, compelling ways.
AI can process participant feedback, outcome data, and community needs assessments to identify improvements that help you better serve people.
What This Looks Like in Practice: A youth services organization might use AI to analyze which program activities lead to the better outcomes for participants. They discover that youth who attend three specific program combinations are twice as likely to meet their goals. Now they can structure their program to encourage those combinations.
Consider a food bank that uses AI to predict when demand will spike based on factors like weather, local economic data, and past patterns. They can stock up in advance and make a call out to volunteers before they're desperate.
AI can look at years of data and surface connections and patterns that humans might miss, giving organizations new insights into their operations and impact.
This kind of analysis helps you serve people better, shows funders you're using their money wisely, and helps you make the case for continued support.
Getting Started
It starts with a transformational leadership mindset and the dedication of time and mindshare.
The good news is that you don't need a technology expert on staff or a huge budget to begin. Many AI tools designed for nonprofits offer free trials or scaled pricing for smaller organizations. Some free options can handle basic tasks like drafting emails or summarizing documents. The key is to start small, learn what works for your organization, and grow from there.
The sector is facing real challenges. Demand is up, resources are tight, and staff are exhausted. AI won't solve all these problems, but it can give your team more time to focus on the work that only humans can do—the relationships, the creativity, the compassion, and the community building that make nonprofits essential.
If your organization is unsure with where to begin on your strategic and responsible AI integration reach out to KDP Consulting Inc. for an AI Readiness Assessment and Strategic Plan.
Sources and Further Reading
Key Research Reports:
Ontario Nonprofit Network. (2024). 2024 State of the Sector – Technical Report. https://theonn.ca/publication/2024-survey-technical-report/
Ontario Nonprofit Network. (2024). 2024 State of the Sector – Policy Report. https://theonn.ca/publication/2024-survey-policy-report/
Toronto Foundation. (2024). State of the Sector. https://torontofoundation.ca/vital-signs-2024-state-of-the-sector/
Imagine Canada. (2025). What trends will impact charities and nonprofits in the second quarter of 2025? https://imaginecanada.ca/en/360/what-trends-will-impact-charities-and-nonprofits-in-the-second-quarter-of-2025
AI Resources for Nonprofits:
Microsoft Canada. (2024). AI for Community Impact: The Power of Generative AI for the Non-Profit Sector. https://news.microsoft.com/source/canada/features/sustainability/ai-for-community-impact-the-power-of-generative-ai-for-the-non-profit-sector/
SAP Insights. (2024). How Nonprofits Use AI to Find and Keep Good Donors. https://www.sap.com/canada/insights/viewpoints/how-nonprofits-use-ai-to-find-and-keep-good-donors.html
BetaKit. (2025). Government-backed program aims to help Canadian non-profits adopt responsible AI. https://betakit.com/government-backed-program-aims-to-help-canadian-non-profits-adopt-responsible-ai/
Human Feedback Foundation. (2025). Canada Launches Landmark National Program to Equip Nonprofits with AI for Social Impact. https://humanfeedback.io/canada-ai-program-nonprofits-social-impact/
KDP Consulting Inc. (2025). Nonprofits Getting Started with AI. https://www.kdpconsulting.ca/blog/strategic-imperative-for-canadian-nonprofits
Social Work Portal. (2024). 5 Ways AI Can Help Your Nonprofit Thrive in 2024. https://www.socialworkportal.com/ai-tools-for-nonprofits/
CCS Fundraising. (2024). AI in Fundraising. https://www.ccsfundraising.com/insights/ai-in-fundraising/
Dataro. (2024). Artificial Intelligence for Nonprofits: Complete Explainer. https://www.dataro.io/blog/artificial-intelligence-for-nonprofits-complete-explainer
