{"id":15729,"date":"2026-06-09T16:05:54","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T16:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gc.gcdev3.com\/mcn\/blog\/?p=15729"},"modified":"2026-06-09T16:05:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T16:05:54","slug":"do-i-have-to-participate-in-the-ai-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gc.gcdev3.com\/mcn\/blog\/do-i-have-to-participate-in-the-ai-revolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Do I Have to Participate in the \u201cAI Revolution\u201d?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m 25 years into a nonprofit technology career. Every year, I co-organize a summit for nonprofit organizations at a large annual tech conference called DrupalCon. This year, it happened in March, in Chicago. It was a whole day of discussions among nonprofit technology experts and nonprofit staff about the current challenges we\u2019re all facing. The main theme that kept resurfacing was, of course, Artificial Intelligence (AI).<\/p>\n<p>Many organizations have stakeholders demanding that they level up and participate in the \u201cAI\u00a0revolution\u201d as soon as possible, so as not to get left behind. At the gathering, I felt the same ambient anxiety that has infused the world more broadly: how do we enhance our websites with\u00a0AI?<\/p>\n<p>The answer is that\u00a0AI\u00a0is just a tool, and it is very likely that it\u2019s not, at least right now, the right tool for your job.<\/p>\n<p>There were many seasoned developers and technology leaders in the room, many of whom work on software projects at a global scale. In conversations around the room, those leaders were\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/devcollaborative.com\/blog\/consultative-approach-how-asking-why-can-get-you-better-website-lower-cost\">encouraging everyone to first ask \u201cwhy?\u201d<\/a>\u00a0before committing to an\u00a0AI\u00a0project. This is excellent advice for considering the use of AI, or any technology tool at all.<\/p>\n<h6 id=\"your-mission-is-your-job\"><b>Your Mission is Your Job<\/b><\/h6>\n<p>AI\u00a0technology is still evolving, and rapidly. As one leader put it,\u00a0<i>transforming your organization with\u00a0<\/i><i>AI<\/i><i>\u00a0is not your job.<\/i>\u00a0Your mission is your job. If we\u2019re designing websites in order to take advantage of\u00a0AI\u00a0features, bending our work around\u00a0AI, then we\u2019re designing for machines, not people. We need to keep humans, and our missions, at the center of our work, always.<\/p>\n<p>It was validating to hear other nonprofit technology leaders in the room taking a similar stance to the one that my company, DevCollaborative, is taking in our work. We should keep asking questions about the ethics of\u00a0AI\u00a0platforms, find the best ones we can, and experiment with using them internally. We all need to continue tracking the way that\u00a0AI\u00a0is changing search results, to make sure the sites we build are findable. But should every site we build have\u00a0AI\u00a0features ready to go, right now? Not without a really good use case that directly addresses the needs of the people you serve with your website.<\/p>\n<p>In short, your organization may have a great use case for using\u00a0AI\u00a0now, or soon. But as we always say, instead of leading with technology tools, let\u2019s lead with service to our missions. Let\u2019s always keep asking\u00a0<i>why<\/i>\u00a0we\u2019re building a digital solution, and make sure there\u2019s a solid reason we\u2019re doing it.<br \/>\nRead more here about how to approach technology projects in a more strategic way:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/devcollaborative.com\/blog\/consultative-approach-how-asking-why-can-get-you-better-website-lower-cost\">The Consultative Approach: How Asking \u201cWhy\u201d Can Get You a Better Website at a Lower Cost | DevCollaborative<\/a><\/p>\n<pre><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-15286 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/gc.gcdev3.com\/mcn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Johanna-Bates.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"182\" height=\"182\" \/><\/strong><\/pre>\n<pre><\/pre>\n<p><strong>About the Author: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/johannabates\/\">Johanna Bates<\/a>\u00a0is the Co-Owner and Principal at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/devcollaborative.com\/\">DevCollaborative<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m 25 years into a nonprofit technology career. Every year, I co-organize a summit for nonprofit organizations at a large annual tech conference called DrupalCon. This year, it happened in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":15731,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-posts"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Do I Have to Participate in the \u201cAI Revolution\u201d? - Mass Council of Nonprofits<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Do I Have to Participate in the \u201cAI Revolution\u201d? - Mass Council of Nonprofits\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019m 25 years into a nonprofit technology career. 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