Nonprofits and the AI Risk: Stop the Chaos Start the Strategy

AI isn’t a “someday” conversation for nonprofits anymore it’s a right-now operational decision with governance, risk, and staff behavior at the center. Joshua Peskay, Co-Founder of Meet the Moment, joined Julia C. Patrick to talk about the practical reality nonprofits are facing: AI adoption is already happening inside your organization whether leadership has planned for it or not.

Joshua frames the moment with a clear warning and a workable path forward. Too many nonprofits, he says, are bumping into “governance immaturity” the missing pieces that turn AI from a productivity boost into a liability. Think policies, staff learning, data classification and handling, and vendor risk review. Instead of debating whether AI is allowed, Joshua urges leaders to start by accepting the current state and then managing it with intention. As he puts it, “Artificial intelligence is happening and it is happening incredibly fast… the water is coming down the mountain.”

The duo reinforce what many executives have observed: when organizations ban AI, staff still use it they just do it quietly, creating silos and exposure. Joshua connects that to a familiar cybersecurity pattern: shadow IT. People work around constraints to get the job done, especially in a sector that’s under-resourced, remote, and mission-urgent.

The forward-looking takeaway is refreshingly actionable: start with the AI tools already inside your protected environment. If your nonprofit runs on Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, use Copilot, Gemini, or NotebookLM as your baseline so staff can work with guardrails. For anything outside that ecosystem, require a business case and a review process. Then, build a learning culture where staff share what’s working, what’s failing, and what’s safe.

Joshua also brings urgency from the risk landscape, noting nonprofits are attractive targets because of sensitive data and typically weaker security.

00:00:00 Welcome and why AI is the topic right now
00:01:26 What Meet the Moment does for nonprofits
00:03:20 The real issue governance maturity and policies
00:05:04 When nonprofits ban AI staff use it anyway
00:06:08 The water down the mountain analogy
00:07:53 Why nonprofit community learning matters
00:11:23 The square wheel paradox and making time to learn
00:13:32 Readiness vs reality and starting from current state
00:15:17 Use the AI already in your protected workspace
00:18:39 Shadow IT and work from home risk
00:21:42 Why nonprofits are attractive cyber targets
00:24:52 Donor spreadsheets and why “hope is not a strategy”

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