Main Topics:
- Twilio’s 2024 State of Nonprofit Digital Engagement Report
- Independent Sector’s push for quarterly economic data on nonprofits
- Fearless Fund’s racial discrimination lawsuit settlement
- Voting rights restoration for felons in Arkansas
Key Insights:
- Twilio’s 2024 State of Nonprofit Digital Engagement Report:
- Digital Adoption: Nonprofits are increasingly leveraging digital technologies, including AI, to enhance engagement and operational efficiency.
- AI Usage: 90% of surveyed nonprofits use AI in various capacities, with 70% prioritizing personalized communications in 2024.
- Sector-Specific Uses: AI is being used to analyze data, improve service personalization, and streamline communications across nonprofit healthcare, education, and public sectors.
- Independent Sector’s Call to Action:
- Economic Data Gap: The government only releases nonprofit sector economic data every five years, which is insufficient for understanding the sector’s health.
- Advocacy Efforts: Independent Sector is pushing for quarterly economic data to better reflect the nonprofit sector’s impact, which represents about 10% of the American workforce.
- Fearless Fund Lawsuit Settlement:
- Legal Challenge: Fearless Fund faced a racial discrimination lawsuit for its grant program targeting Black female entrepreneurs.
- Settlement Outcome: The specific grant program ended, but the settlement does not restrict other charitable activities by the organization.
- Broader Implications: This case highlights potential legal challenges for foundations focusing on racial equity, especially in the wake of recent Supreme Court decisions.
- Restoration of Voting Rights for Felons:
- Arkansas Initiative: The Ouachita Foothills Youth Media and Arts and Literacy Collective is helping felons restore their voting rights.
- Importance of Civic Reintegration: This program emphasizes the importance of reintegrating formerly incarcerated individuals into the civic process, which is crucial for a healthy democracy.
Quotes and Statistics:
- “90% of surveyed nonprofits are leveraging AI in one or more use cases.” (Twilio Report)
- “Less than 0.5% of venture capital funding goes to businesses led by women of color.” (George Weiner)
- “The nonprofit sector represents roughly 10% of the American workforce.” (Independent Sector)
Closing Thought: The nonprofit sector is rapidly evolving with the adoption of digital technologies and AI, but it faces significant challenges, from legal battles over racial equity to the need for better economic data. These developments highlight the sector’s resilience and adaptability, underscoring the importance of continued advocacy and innovation.
Transcript
Non profit news for folks that are basically non profit geeks from non profit geeks. My name is George Weiner. I’m the chief whaler of Whole Whale. We’re a B Corp digital agency. And of course, Nick Azoulay, digital strategist at Whole Whale. I would love to start actually with a quick reminder to any non profit consultants listening.
We have got an awesome partnership with Nonprofitist, part of the Whole Whale Network. Nonprofitist is a great service. Amazing network of over 350 nonprofit focused consultants. And we’re doing an annual survey. How much should you charge? Do you charge, do you want real benchmarks? We have hundreds of responses already.
We are open until the end of September for anyone, any nonprofit consultant. Interested in finding out where they benchmark against the industry last year. For instance, the average amount that people were charging per hour was 141 per hour. Where do you stack against that? Well, you’ll get a free, uh, free access to the results of the survey.
If you are a participant, regardless, if, uh, if you are a member of the nonprofit dot IST nonprofit is network. All right. Clear shilling over. How’s it going, Nick? It’s going great, George. And I just want to call out, you can fill out that survey if you go to nonprofit. ist slash nonprofit consultant survey.
And we look forward to hearing from you. But I’m going, I’m doing great, George, I have a top story for you. And this one comes from nonprofit organization, Um, rather nonprofit agency, Twilio, and they did a report on digital. So real quick, Twilio has a foundation arm. Twilio is also an unbelievable API for building your SMS based tools.
So there is a twilio. org, which is a foundation arm of Twilio, twilio. com, which is, uh, absolute leader for any type of APIs and buildings that you want to do with SMS short message system stuff for phones. Thank you for that clarification. You could see me trying to do that in my head. And, uh, I did the somersault, but you stuck the landing.
But I’ll take us into it. Twilio’s 2024 State of Nonprofit Digital Engagement Report. Just came out and it highlights the increasing importance of digital engagement for nonprofits in achieving their missions. So the report reveals that nonprofits are embracing digital technology, including AI at potentially a faster rate than the private sector.
Granted, based on the people that they surveyed, um, they focused on nonprofits seeking to improve end user engagement, operational efficiency, and mission impact. Despite facing challenges such as budget constraints and data privacy concerns, nonprofits are investing in technical talent and personalization strategies to enhance their digital capabilities.
We’re huge on personalization here at Whole Whale. Um, some interesting numbers, 90 percent of surveyed nonprofits are leveraging AI in one or more years. Use cases, and 70 percent of organizations say that personalized comms are its hot priority in 2024. However, there’s a gap in perception of personalization between nonprofits and end users.
Whereas nonprofits think they’re being very personable and end users, the donors might say otherwise, which is kind of interesting. George, what stuck out to you from this report? Well, I think it’s important to note that this is for organizations over 50 people in, um, in size. So over 50, so we’re already in a bit of rare air.
So I always want to acknowledge who all is in the room when we’re talking about survey results. What’s more is that Twilio, and frankly, if you’re using Twilio and its various APIs to build more complex communication systems, you’re already probably on the more technical end of the spectrum. That said.
This is the highest rate of use for leveraging AI I have seen in any nonprofit focused survey, full stop. And I think it is very clear that you watch what the most technical organizations, the smartest folks in the room dealing with technology, the ones with, uh, many software developers on staff, what are they doing?
What are the smartest people in the room in terms of nonprofits doing when it comes to tech? Surprise, not surprise using AI. So there, um, their results here are interesting to see because you can tell where the rest of the market’s going to go. As you see the, the leaders sort of forge the paths, they have nonprofit healthcare sector use cases inside of here.
And some of the top reasons and uses inside of there are as follows. Analyze patient data to understand needs and pain points, a patient experience, transcriptions, call notes is a big one. Um, and then to answer patients quickly with, with chatbots, uh, they also see improved satisfaction rates and, uh, improved market segmentation and targeting that is for nonprofit healthcare sector.
They also look at. Public sector and education sector. And in the education sector, they’re looking at things like, uh, the top response use case for AI, analyze student data to understand needs and pain points, ensure data security, privacy, personalized service recommendations. Those are the three current AI uses for education and then public sector, the top.
Use cases are for AI constituent experience, transcriptions, and call notes, answer constituents questions quickly with chatbots and personalized service recommendations. You see some very clear trends. And I think if you are toe in the water, it’s very clear that call transcriptions, meeting transcriptions, AI summaries of all of this information is just going to save you so much time that it is, uh, it’s It’s too useful to ignore, I’d say.
And as a, as a good entry point, as you see the, you know, more advanced uses, which you’d have to know how to build for the call transcription, the AI transcriptions and summaries are all built into the tools that you are probably using or have access to use right now. And I think, uh, Twilio did a good job of, of summarizing this for the more technical organizations.
Yeah, George, I think that that’s huge. And I think that those, those are such good examples, right? Cause those are. Entry level things that you can use these tools for and it’s already available, right? You can just get started on that right away. Um, speaking of data within the non profit sector, I want to take us to our next story.
And this is a interesting one. This is a call to action, if you will, from non profit advocacy group, Independent Sector. And as it turns out, George, nonprofits are getting the short end of the stick when it comes to economic data about the health of the nonprofit sector. Um, so it turns out that the government does, you know, releases quarterly economic data, um, but only does Only releases data related to the nonprofit sector every five years.
So independent sector has put together, um, resources to try to change that, to get quarterly economic data broken down by sector specifically. for the nonprofit world, um, which I think I last time I checked was like 10 to 15 percent of the American workforce, something like that, um, vital part of the American economy.
So, uh, yeah, go to independencehunter. org slash policy, um, uh, to learn more about their efforts to get this data on nonprofit employment from the Department of Labor. Seriously, the LBS labor bureau statistics, like it is so critical to understand how, uh, the health of the market depends on frankly, labor in the sector, that is the indicator that we can be looking at for health.
And the fact that we get like a five year snapshot is absurd. Also, the fact that our 1. 8 million, roughly speaking, nonprofits, 501c3s in the U S represent roughly 10 percent of labor in America. How are you ignoring 10%? And by the way, probably growing of our data. We need to have this information. I love.
I love the folks at independent sector trying to do this for the market and send out, I already filled it out. Take a second, go fill that out and, uh, you know, send your voice to the Biden administration. Maybe we can get a quick little executive order there to make, make folks do their jobs to help us understand these jobs and just, you know, have the soapbox.
I’m here. I am so bullish on the long term importance of the nonprofit sector for jobs. In the wake of AI and the automation of so many things, I still am of firm belief that we cannot automate empathy. We cannot throw an AI into empathetic situations that require the face to face on the ground, community driven work that nonprofits do.
That is where I think the labor gap gets filled. There is no shortage of work. The idea that AI is going to take all the jobs is a joke. And you know what? If you want the answer to that joke, you walk into any nonprofit and say, Hey, do you have enough staff to tackle the monumental issues you are trying to deal with right now?
I know the answer. And the folks that work at nonprofits are probably laughing right now because they’re like, yeah, of course we need more folks. That’s where our jobs are going to come from. And the labor statistics should be giving us these data because that’s where the jobs are. Need to be analyzed and understood.
All right, uh, and end soapbox. Is that how that works? Yeah. No George. That’s fine It’s not like anything important happened in the world. It’s not like anything important happened in the world over the past five years
All right, I have another one this is an interesting one also on the This is a topic of philanthropy, I guess, a little bit more macro macro level for the sector, but the fearless fund and fearless foundation have settled a racial discrimination lawsuit with the organization American Alliance for Equal Rights regarding fearless strivers grant contest for black female entrepreneurs.
Essentially, the lawsuit alleges that. That there was racial discrimination in opening up a contest exclusively to black female entrepreneurs. Um, the settlement, again the settled, ends the specific grant program but doesn’t restrict other charitable activities or investments by the organization. And we can go through all of this.
The Council on Foundations and Independent Sector filed an amicus brief supporting philanthropy’s right to donating to causes aligned with their values. So, uh, sensibly able to donate to, uh, um, non racially blind, you know, uh, admissions pools, applicants, that kind of thing. But, George, I think this is actually, again, it’s, it’s, settled.
So I don’t want to kind of extrapolate this across the whole, um, the whole sector, whole industry. But as the Supreme Court last year struck down affirmative action, um, you have lawsuits like this one. I think you are going to start seeing this more and more as a topic. Our racial, our organizations, Foundations, large philanthropies, many of them which have reoriented towards racial equity and racial justice giving, especially since George Floyd, are they even going to be allowed to do that?
Or at least using the language and framework of racial justice?
The reason we put this in here, obviously we’re, we’re talking about a venture firm that used race as a selection criteria, which against the rubric of law failed, right? It failed to pass. And one of the strategic moves they did was not bring it to the Supreme court based on the current, uh, yeah, the current trajectory of the decisions in the Supreme court where that hits philanthropy is clearly in, uh, that type of, uh, Promotion of filtering based on race and race alone may run into these types of legal challenges.
And it, you know, with a bit. Uh, a bit of success here. The American Alliance of Equal Rights probably has a clear list of other places to be going after. And so it’s important to keep that in mind. The, the painful hypocrisy is that, you know, racism is fine. As long as you don’t put it on the masthead, you know, the quick stat is that literally venture capital funding less than 0.
5 percent goes to businesses led by women of color one more time for the folks in the back. Less than 0. 5, that’s not a typo, 0. 5 percent goes to businesses led by women of color. And so the ridiculousness is that racism is just fine. You just don’t get to say it on the masthead. Um, unbelievable, um, unbelievable win there, American Alliance.
He really, uh, he really leveled the old, uh, equal rights. Well done. Huzzah. Yeah, George, I I Unbelievable, but I think it’s important the way you approach it, right? like let’s just be clear if these are the the rules of law and the courts are going to be weaponized to again, hold back low income communities to hold back Minorities in this process then.
Okay, we should be Paying attention. I think in the philanthropic sector and and they are so that’s where you know, I sort of saw this Yeah, no, George, I agree. Um, yeah, it’s, it’s crazy that in 2024, we’re still asking whether race is real and we should pay attention to it. Um, race is a construct, but you know, anyway, how about a feel good story?
Yeah, what do we got? All right. Um, this one comes from local affiliate Fox 16 out of Arkansas, but it’s about an organization helping Arkansas felons restore their voting rights as a deadline for registration approaches. So the Ouachita Foothills Youth Media and Arts and Literacy Collective, through its program Voter Registration, Education, and Participation, helps raise awareness and educate communities that are often forgotten during voter registration periods.
And one of those communities includes felons. So the story goes through how it helps folks, um, register, uh, if you are felons. And George, I’d like to point out that oftentimes the incarcerated population in the United States represent kind of the largest disenfranchised voting population. Um, and different states have actually different rules about who gets to vote and when.
Um, so, uh, kind of a complicated legal issue, but, um, the, in this case, any felons must provide proof to the county clerk that he or she has been discharged from probation or parole, has paid all fees, satisfied all the terms of the sentencing, and paid all, uh, applicable costs. And I think that this is such an important program because so much of the American prison industrial complex, right, is punitive rather than restorative.
And I think that helping people vote, which is a constitutional right after having gone through prison and, you know, serving their debt out to society, reintegrating, uh, folks into the civic process is really important. So just awesome work here. Yeah, I guess, I was just curious on to this stat, uh, what, um, what is the term, uh, the total count of prisoners who were incarcerated due to marijuana, and it’s like over 30 to 40, 000, uh, folks that were locked up for, uh, what essentially is now legal in most states, which is possession of weed.
Uh, and so to say like, alright, those are folks that don’t get voting rights, uh, and work to be done there is, uh, incredibly important as we are in our election season. Yes, yes. I’m sure, George, we could have a whole podcast about the new Jim Crow. That’s not by, uh, not by accident, for sure. Alrighty. It’s that time.
I do have a question for you. Alright, George. Why did the non profit hire mimes to lead their big fundraising event? I don’t know. Because it was a silent auction. 📍 Oh god. That’s pretty good. That’s, that’s pretty good. Oh my gosh. It’s not, but that’s the point. All right, Nick. I’ll see you next time. All right, George.
See you next time.
