Eighteen years ago, when Dr Prahalathan KK went to teach children in an orphanage, no photos were taken of the event. Today, an image of a person that looks uncannily like him can be created in a similar setting, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI). “It protects the privacy of the children and the generated image can be used for any communication purposes,” says Dr Prahalathan, co-founder of Bhumi, a Chennai-based non-profit which aims to drive social change by fostering an environment where young adults and children learn, lead, and thrive.
Bhumi is using AI to help streamline their activities. “We are still using it at a very basic level, such as for image creation. We also use an AI note taker, which is able to organise information and highlight points, and volunteers and Bhumi fellows use AI to create lesson plans,” he says.
How can the non-profit sector use AI?
AI is being used across sectors and industries to make job processes more efficient. But are Indian non-profits open to using it? According to an article, even as (AI) surges in popularity, with 73% of internet users in India exposed to it in some capacity, the social sector is still at a nascent stage when it comes to using AI.
GivingTuesday recently conducted an AI readiness assessment to investigate the deployment and usage of AI in the non-profit landscape. It highlights how nonprofits in India are utilising it, their comfort levels with various AI tools, and the challenges they experience.
Among the surveyed organisations, 55% had used generative AI to write text or create images. In contrast, 30% of organisations had never used any form of it.
Benefits of using AI
Nonprofits can use AI to streamline many of their processes, including fundraising and generating reports, says Irfan Bashir, co-founder, DaanVeda, an AI-powered fundraising intelligence automation and payment platform for nonprofits.
“There are two types of fundraising – individual giving where people, philanthropists or high net worth individuals donate money; and institutional giving, which includes grants given by foundations, corporate CSR, etc,” says Bashir.
The entire fundraising journey involves several steps. “The first is discovery, where you have to look for opportunities, then comes prospecting where you try to understand if the opportunity is relevant to your NGO or not, then lead generation once you identify the relevant opportunity you want to know the details of the key decision makers in the organisation and their contact details,” says Bashir. After that, you have relationship building and cultivation where you reach out to the donor, and then proposal building where you write and submit proposals.
“Later, you get the donation, close it, look into compliance, and then comes reporting and renewals as you need to give personalised reports to donors about how their money has been utilised, and, if they are happy with it, there would be renewals,” says Bashir, adding that nonprofits face different problems at all of these steps. “They may not know how to identify funding opportunities, which are relevant to them or who the key decision makers in donor organisations are. Personalised reports are also very resource intensive and an added burden on the programme team.”
That’s where AI comes in. “Once you have more donor intelligence, it should be easy to find relevant donors. We have built a huge database of donors,” says Bashir. “We also use generative AI solutions to create proposals, donation appeals and personalised reports,” says Bashir, whose organisation has 35 paying clients.
“AI is a good tool for the nonprofit sector. Non-profits get stuck in operational loops. A Harvard study revealed that non-their profits spent 18% of revenue on fundraising operations. Our goal with AI is to bring the cost down from 18% to at least 10%,” he says.
Organisational capacity is not a strong predictor of readiness, says study
According to GivingTuesday, high-capacity organisations are better positioned to improve their AI readiness and would benefit more from such improvements. But overall, organisational capacity is not a strong predictor of readiness.
Early adopters of AI tended to be larger organisations with greater resources and infrastructure. These were predominantly located in urban areas, had more staff, and demonstrated higher levels of data collection and technical capacity, which helped them experiment with and implement AI in more advanced ways. These organisations were also more likely to have formal data-use policies, cloud-based data storage, and technical personnel such as IT staff or MERL experts—all of which contribute to their ability to adopt AI more effectively.
In contrast, late adopters of AI were smaller organisations with fewer staff members and constrained budgets. Only 10% of late adopters expressed interest in using AI for applications beyond generative AI. The current data use of early adopters remains manual and tabular, which suggests that they have a long way to go when it comes to AI adoption, says the IDR article.
Indian organisations more open to using AI
Compared to the global average, Indian organisations were more comfortable using AI at work—29% gave it a score of 10 on a scale of 0–10, says the survey. They also focused more on the benefits of AI and had fewer concerns about data protection/privacy issues. So, they are more likely to share data without having data-use or sharing agreements in place compared to the global average. The research suggests that this might be because in India, the culture and legislative landscape around data protection regulation is at a nascent stage.
“Our early testing users crossed 50 NGOs, including Bhumi. And we now have 35 paying customers,” says Bashir.
The study suggests that nonprofits should first explore AI’s relevance and potential use cases for their own organisation. It is important to provide targeted support to smaller, resource-constrained nonprofits that wish to adopt AI. However, it is also necessary to establish safeguards as the vast majority of those using AI are using technology products managed by others. Understanding the nuances in current AI adoption and knowledge is integral to achieving equitable and beneficial AI adoption for the social sector, says the IDR article.
Apprehensions about AI
Indian organisations also have some concerns regarding the use of AI. While non-profits were hopeful that AI can bring efficiency and productivity to their work, they also fear that it could lead to dependency, skill gaps, and job displacement.
Respondents were optimistic about the role of AI in facilitating data analysis and decision-making within the organisation. But they were concerned about the lack of knowledge and training with respect to AI, as well as issues around data privacy, security, and bias and fairness. A few non-profits were also worried that AI might impact human creativity and originality. And also apprehensive about the ethical implications of leveraging AI in everyday operations and its broader societal implications.
“The bigger NGOs are more concerned about the use of their data. We do source some data from the NGOs but it’s mostly that they have already put out in the public domain,” says Bashir. “The smaller nonprofits are not very concerned about these issues; they are more worried about raising funds as they don’t have exclusive fundraising teams.
Ground realities: How some nonprofits are using AI
Smile Foundation has been using AI in our educational initiatives. Mission Education, our flagship programme, has provided education to 200,000 children so far.
To create an enabling learning environment, as part of the initiative the Foundation has improved the infrastructure in their centres by providing green infrastructure & digital classrooms including solar panels, smart class installation, learning software and educational tablets.
“Education technology and digitization of education has given us an opportunity to reimagine the teaching-learning process within the Mission Education initiative,” says Seema Kumar, Deputy Director of Education Programme at Smile Foundation. “Education technology and digitization of education have the potential to transform the way we approach education by enabling personalized learning, expanding access to education, and promoting collaboration and creativity. These will play a crucial role in the future of education, and it will likely continue to evolve and shape the way we teach and learn in the years to come.”
“Application of AI (artificial intelligence) in the areas of personalization of education and experiential learning in the near future will bring exciting outcomes,” says Santanu Mishra, Co-founder & Executive Trustee of Smile Foundation. “Government-corporate-civil society collaboration in the area of education is going to be more synchronized and need-based in the coming days as child education will continue to remain a common cause and one of the national priorities.”
Smile Foundation is also using AI in our healthcare intervention programmes. Two new technology platforms have been integrated in the healthcare programme. ReMeDi, an integrated telemedicine solution, enables teleconsultation where doctors are remotely connected to see patients, talk to them, and access past medical records. The device enables doctors to conduct over 30 point-of-care diagnostic tests in real-time. Results from these tests are transmitted automatically to the EMR. Doctors can prescribe medicines and also refer for follow-up visits and continuous care.
Health Cube, a state-of-art portable diagnostic system, provides results in three to 30 minutes for over 30 tests across various parameters. The system allows smart diagnostics and artificial intelligence to facilitate the rapid screening of patients.
