AI Won’t Fix Nonprofit Burnout—But It Might Teach Us Something

Nonprofit leaders are being told that AI is the solution to their overwork. Automate your reports, streamline your emails, and let ChatGPT write your grant narrative! (Yikes!)

I’m a strategist—and I love a good tool—but I’m here to tell you: AI can only optimize what already exists. If your organization is built on overextension, urgency, and exhaustion… well, it’s just going to get faster at burning out.

What AI can teach us, though, is to pause. To ask: What’s worth automating? What’s worth humanizing? And to design programs, meetings, and systems that reflect the real pace and care our teams deserve.

Next step: Try using AI to reduce your cognitive load, not increase it. Ask it to summarize meeting notes. Use it to draft a rough outline. Then, step away and discuss with your team. The strategy still needs your voice.