Lessons from Nathan Chappell, Senior Vice President at DonorSearch Ai

AI is advancing faster than anything we’ve ever seen in human history. This can lead to feelings of overwhelm for leaders, with many thinking, “I don’t know what the future holds if I use AI, but I do know what it looks like if I don’t.” The general sentiment is that we know we have to do something with AI, we just don’t know what that is.

If this sounds familiar to you, tune into this episode of Chasing Impact. Chris Meyer zu Natrup, Managing Director at MzN, and Nathan Chappell, Senior Vice President at DonorSearch AI, discuss:

  • What AI can do for nonprofit organizations, not tomorrow, but today.
  • The difference between predictive AI and generative AI, and how NGOs can use both to serve their mission in a much more strategic and precise way.
  • Nathan outlines the steps every leader needs to take with AI – “I wouldn’t look at AI as this umbrella thing that could solve all my problems, I would get very specific on one gap or challenge that I have in my organization and then and only then would I look at the types of AI technologies.”
  • Why Nathan believes that AI is the only scalable solution to reverse declines in charitable giving. In most developed nations, there has been a concerning decline in the number of people who are giving to charity. However, Nathan has described two effective ways in which AI can work towards reversing this trend.
    • It can create so much efficiency that an organization can now offload mundane tasks and instead spend more time human to human.
    • By using AI at scale, nonprofits organizations will more intimately know their audience by using thousands of data points and will be able to identify those donors who will have the greatest lifetime value.
  • Could AI actually make us more human and more empathetic by cutting through the dead digital overload that we are exposed to every day?
  • What responsible AI looks like for humanity, and the outsized responsibility that the nonprofit sector has for ensuring we prioritize safety over scalability.

Resources

The Generosity Crisis The Case for Radical Connection to Solve Humanity’s Greatest Challenges, by Nathan Chappell, Brian Crimmins and Michael Ashley.

More on Nathan:
Nathan Chappell is a Senior Vice President at DonorSearch AI, where he leads AI deployments for many of the largest nonprofit organizations in the United States. With over 10 years of experience in nonprofit leadership and fundraising, he is a co-author of the award-winning book, The Generosity Crisis: The Case for Radical Connection to Solve Humanity’s Greatest Challenges. He is also an inventor of multiple AI patents and a certified fundraising executive.

Nathan is passionate about the responsible use of AI for social good and the ethical implications of AI for philanthropy. He is the co-founder of Fundraising.AI, a collaborative initiative that aims to guide best practices and accelerate the impact of AI on advancement. He is also a frequent public speaker, a Forbes Technology Council member, and a recipient of the 40 Over Forty Award for his contributions to the nonprofit sector. Nathan’s mission is to reignite generosity and transform the future of fundraising through AI.