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Ten years ago, Dan Pallotta stood in front of an audience at a TED Talk and declared that nonprofits should be measured by their ambitions, not by how much they spend on basic expenses like salaries and rent.
That provocative talk, which has been viewed millions of times, stirred a debate that still rages today and turned Pallotta into a polarizing figure in philanthropy.
Now Pallotta is back in the news, bringing his message to the public with the movie Uncharitable. When Sara Herschander recently spoke with him for a Q&A, Pallotta told her that the “overhead myth” — that charities should keep their overhead expenses low — is still too prevalent and that nonprofits themselves are partly to blame.
“We keep showing the overhead pies on our websites,” he said, “And we keep putting seals of approval from organizations that demand low overhead.”
Not everyone is sold on his vision, as Sara notes — some see in Pallotta’s arguments a desire to bring approaches more appropriate to the business world into nonprofits. But it’s clear that his arguments have struck a chord, and his movie has sparked a new round of conversation.
Artificial intelligence has spread into many corners of nonprofit work, helping staff draft letters, apply for grants, and schedule social-media posts — and the changes are only beginning.
Nearly 80 percent of charities use it for online fundraising, reports Sara Herschander, and some use it to help kids with homework, train volunteer crisis counselors, help disaster victims find shelter, and a wide variety of other purposes.
Much of A.I. is still free, affordable, or already available through existing systems, so even small nonprofits have access. ChatGPT, for example, can partially fill out lengthy grant applications, and Canva can help create infographics.
Experts advise to start small and experiment, and be aware of the downsides of A.I., including its inaccuracies and biases.
To learn more about getting started, see the Chronicle’s free virtual briefings — Putting A.I. to Work at Nonprofits and Understanding the Basics and Benefits of A.I.
Donors are partly to blame for the failures of Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University (opinion).
The center raised $55 million, much of it soon after George Floyd’s murder in the summer of 2020, writes Eboo Patel, president of Interfaith America and a regular Chronicle columnist. Three years later, it’s laying off staff and has little to show for its efforts.
Reflecting on his own experience with funders — some of whom have given him tough feedback — Patel writes, “Shouldn’t the sophisticated grant makers whose job was to help build an antiracism institution have ensured that a sound plan and proper benchmarks for meeting goals were in place? It’s possible that some of this did happen with CAR, but it’s also safe to assume that whatever calls were made or meetings held weren’t nearly enough.”
— Marilyn Dickey, Senior editor for copy