This is a guest blog.
Like most nonprofits, your organization is probably determining the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in its marketing and content strategies.
A Twilio study found that 90% of organizations surveyed in the nonprofit, education, and healthcare sectors leverage AI for one or more engagement and marketing use cases, representing widespread adoption of these tools.
However, a large portion of the general population has real concerns about the widespread use of AI. 61% of people around the world are wary about trusting AI systems. Your organization must balance the benefits of AI with its risks to maintain audience trust.
This guide explores the pros and cons of using AI to build your nonprofit website’s content strategy. Remember that every organization is different; what represents a major concern for one nonprofit may be less of an issue for another. It’s up to you to evaluate these benefits and disadvantages with your unique audience in mind to chart a path that works best for you and your stakeholders.
Pro: Speed and automation potential
Leveraging AI solutions can significantly speed up the content creation process. Generative AI tools can help manage some of the more routine aspects of content creation, including:
Blog post ideation and outlining
Copy editing and proofreading
SEO optimization
You can also use AI to support other writing efforts, such as grant writing. Identifying grants to apply for and creating tailored applications for every opportunity can be time- and resource-intensive. AI can help you research grants, outline written applications, and put the finishing touches on your materials. As a result, you can greatly reduce your application timelines, giving staff members more time back in the day to focus directly on furthering your mission and supporting your programs.
Con: Bias concerns
In one study, researchers found bias in up to 38.6% of “facts” presented by AI. As quoted in a USC Viterbi article, Ninareh Mehrabi, a Ph.D. candidate at USC-ISI who worked on the study, said, “We studied different groups from categories like religion, gender, race and profession to see if the data was favoring or disfavoring them, and we found out that, yes, indeed, there are severe cases of prejudice and biases.”
BWF’s guide to responsible AI recommends taking these three steps to combat bias in AI outputs:
Be aware of any inherent biases that may be present in the AI tools you’re using.
Use AI tools and models that are trained using a diverse, representative dataset.
Regularly audit your AI outputs to identify and correct instances of bias or prejudice.
Ultimately, eliminating bias from your AI-generated content will require a degree of human oversight. This can reduce some of the time-saving benefits of these solutions, so you’ll have to keep that in mind when implementing these tools into your content generation strategy.
Pro: Cost-effectiveness
The key to a cost-effective content strategy is driving a high ROI with the tools, platforms, and messages you use. You must balance the cost of creating marketing materials, sending them out on various communication channels, and reporting on their success with the fundraising potential of these efforts.
As generative AI becomes more widespread and readily available, the price of using these tools has become more accessible to nonprofits of all sizes. Using AI solutions to help draft blog posts or develop creative image ideas can significantly reduce the burden of content creation costs, especially for small nonprofits.
For example, ChatGPT offers a free plan, with paid options starting at just $20 monthly. The online graphic design platform Canva offers a free AI image generator and an AI content assistant tool as part of its Canva Pro plan. Verified nonprofits can receive free access to Canva Pro, making this an even more cost-effective solution.
Con: Copyright and privacy issues
Your nonprofit should consult with a legal representative before implementing AI for two main reasons: copyright and privacy issues.
Copyright law is catching up to AI advancements. Because AI tools use existing content to generate new material, they risk intellectual property infringement in cases where the AI platform doesn’t have the necessary licensing to use preexisting materials.
Privacy issues are another critical risk of AI use, especially for organizations that deal with sensitive stakeholder data, like healthcare nonprofits. Kanopi’s healthcare content marketing guide recommends creating a clear privacy policy for your website that outlines exactly:
How you collect audience data
How you use the data in your content strategy
Security measures you have in place to keep the data safe
Ways for audience members to opt out of their data being collected and used in marketing
Carefully vet any AI tools before using them to understand their approach to information sourcing and data privacy.
Pro: Brainstorming support
Generative AI can help your marketing team with a familiar problem: writer’s block. Every content creator deals with writer’s block at some point, especially when writing on similar topics.
With the help of AI, you can brainstorm ideas for everything from new storytelling techniques to creative ways to present impact data in an engaging infographic.
You can also provide AI solutions with the content ideas you already have and ask the tool to develop creative or unique ways to present the information. For example, you could ask ChatGPT, “What is a creative idea for formatting and designing my nonprofit website’s testimonial page?”
Con: Risk of generic outputs
Generative AI solutions like ChatGPT don’t create their outputs out of thin air. They review web content and process it into coherent answers to queries.
While this process helps make AI outputs more accurate, it can lead to generic content. If you use AI-generated content without editing it or adding a unique spin, you risk repeating the same tired lines readers have heard from other organizations before.
Generic content isn’t just boring for readers—it can also diminish your SEO results. Search engines like Google prioritize helpful and original content with a strong, unique perspective based on your organization’s authority and experience.
In other words, AI solutions don’t know what it’s like to train volunteers to become your nonprofit’s future leaders or have a breakthrough moment with a community member in need. But you do, and those are the moments your audience wants to hear about. Using AI-generated outputs without editing risks losing the compelling human aspect of your content.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Navigating the world of generative AI for nonprofit content can be challenging for organizations just getting started. Consider working with a nonprofit web design professional to help you develop a unique strategy for your organization’s needs. In addition to design advice, nonprofit web designers offer experience working with generative AI solutions, and they can make recommendations for whether your organization is ready to adopt AI tools. They can also help determine the safest and most effective way to implement these solutions into your content approach.