Responsible AI Strategy for Nonprofits

This unit explores how nonprofits can responsibly adopt and scale AI by studying real-world case studies, identifying benefits and risks, and applying ethical, privacy, and governance frameworks. Students will move from understanding bias and security concerns to creating practical 12-month adoption plans, partnership strategies, and staffing approaches for sustainable AI impact.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze case studies to identify and compare at least three tangible benefits and three risks of AI adoption for nonprofit programs, including community-driven and collaborative development examples
• Evaluate sources of bias and harm in AI systems and apply at least two advanced bias-detection and mitigation techniques to sample model outputs, documenting expected changes in equity outcomes
• Apply responsible AI governance principles, privacy and security best practices to draft a 12-month AI adoption and governance plan for a nonprofit that specifies roles, risk controls, compliance considerations, and partnership opportunities
• Demonstrate a scalable implementation roadmap by producing a plan that contrasts build vs. partner options, outlines revenue or impact-generating AI application ideas, and defines staffing, training, and evaluation metrics for sustainability