Your Staff Are Already Using AI. The Question Is Whether They’re Using It Together.
In most organizations, there isn’t one AI journey… there are dozens of individual AI journeys happening at once:
Your staff are trying to do what social impact professionals have always done: find ways to serve their missions more effectively with limited time and resources.
And according to new Blackbaud Institute research, these individual staff members are leading the way. While 85% of social impact professionals report using AI at work, only about one-third believe their organization is using AI very effectively. In other words, individual adoption is accelerating, but organizational readiness is struggling to keep pace.
The good news? Leaders don’t need to become AI experts overnight to address this challenge. One of the most important steps organizations can take is much simpler: ensure everyone starts with the same foundation.
AI Isn’t Coming. It’s Already Here.
For much of the past two years, conversations about AI have centered on whether organizations should adopt it.
That question is increasingly irrelevant.
The reality is that staff members have already begun integrating AI into their daily work. The Blackbaud Institute found that not only are most professionals using AI at work today, but half report using it more than they did the previous year.
For leaders, this changes the conversation.
The question is no longer: “Should our organization use AI?”
The more pressing questions are:
- Do our staff understand how to use it responsibly?
- Are teams approaching it consistently?
- Do we have a shared understanding of opportunities and risks?
- Are we building toward organizational outcomes or simply enabling individual experimentation?
Those questions matter because adoption alone does not appear to be enough.
The Danger of Uneven Knowledge
Imagine trying to implement a fundraising strategy when every member of the team has a different definition of stewardship.
Or trying to improve data quality when no one agrees on what good data looks like.
AI presents a similar challenge.
In many organizations today, staff members have vastly different levels of AI knowledge. Some have spent months experimenting. Others are just beginning. Some understand concepts like prompt design, data privacy, human oversight, and bias. Others have only used a chatbot a handful of times.
When everyone operates from a different level of understanding, conversations become difficult.
Policies become difficult.
Governance becomes difficult.
And scaling successful practices becomes nearly impossible.
The Blackbaud Institute’s research identifies this as part of a broader Infrastructure Gap, where individual adoption is outpacing organizational readiness. Organizations often have enthusiastic users but lack shared practices, common understanding, and coordinated approaches to implementation.
Why Shared Learning Matters
When leaders think about AI training, it’s tempting to focus on a small group of power users or technical staff.
But what the sector needs right now is broader than specialized expertise.
It needs shared literacy.
A common foundation helps teams develop a shared language around:
- What AI is and isn’t
- Appropriate use cases
- Responsible use practices
- Human oversight
- Data quality and readiness
- Organizational policies and expectations
Most importantly, it creates better organizational conversations.
Instead of debating AI from wildly different starting points, staff can engage in more productive discussions about where AI can support mission delivery, improve operations, strengthen fundraising, and reduce administrative burden.
Training becomes less about learning a tool and more about creating alignment.
Closing the Gaps Starts With People
One of the most compelling findings in Bridging the AI Effectiveness Gap is that the organizations reporting the strongest outcomes aren’t simply the organizations with the highest levels of AI usage.
They’re the organizations that have paired adoption with intention.
The research found a small group of organizations, classified as AI-Adaptive, that have moved beyond experimentation toward more coordinated and strategic implementation. These organizations are more likely to have governance, accountability, data readiness, and transparency practices in place. They also report stronger outcomes related to productivity, fundraising performance, donor retention, and organizational confidence.
What’s notable is that none of those capabilities start with technology.
They start with people.
They start with a workforce that understands the fundamentals well enough to participate in conversations about strategy, governance, trust, and responsible adoption.
A Practical First Step for Leaders
Many social impact leaders are asking the same question right now:
“Where do we start?”
The answer doesn’t have to be complicated.
Before investing in sophisticated tools, drafting complex policies, or launching ambitious transformation initiatives, consider whether your team has a shared understanding of AI itself.
Do they speak the same language?
Do they understand the same principles?
Are they entering AI-related conversations from a common foundation?
If the answer is no, that may be the most impactful place to begin.
The free AI Certification for Social Impact was created to help organizations establish that foundation. Designed specifically for professionals across the social impact sector, the certification provides baseline knowledge about AI, responsible use practices, and practical applications relevant to mission-driven organizations.
Because the goal isn’t simply to create more AI users.
Most organizations already have those.
The goal is to create a shared understanding that helps individuals become a team, teams become aligned, and AI adoption translate into meaningful organizational impact.
Ready to Build a Shared Foundation?
The Blackbaud Institute’s research makes one thing clear: the organizations seeing the greatest value from AI are not necessarily adopting it faster. They’re adopting it more intentionally.
If your staff are already exploring AI, now is the time to ensure they’re learning together.
Enroll your team in the free AI Certification for Social Impact and take the first step toward creating the shared foundation that effective AI adoption requires.
