The kitchen of The Bear is not for the faint of heart. Tickets pile, tempers flare, knives flash in the heat of controlled chaos. Yet somehow, Carmy and his team stitch together purpose and precision, crafting dishes that are greater than the sum of their parts.
To anyone working inside a nonprofit, the metaphor lands with uncanny precision. Like a bustling restaurant, nonprofits juggle back-office complexity with front-of-house mission delivery. And just as Carmy learns, the only way forward is to rewire the system itself–mise en place, workflow, culture–if the mission is to thrive.
For nonprofits today, artificial intelligence is that rewiring.
But here’s the tension: Many nonprofit professionals who recognize AI’s potential don’t sit at the board table. They see what’s possible, yet leadership fatigue, cultural inertia, and fear of risk block the path forward.
The question is not whether AI will transform nonprofits. It’s whether those on the inside can influence adoption from within.
Leadership Fatigue and the Adoption Gap
The 2025 landscape is sobering. Nonprofits face shrinking public funding and donor churn while expectations rise. As one leader put it in a recent conversation: “Most of the people in my job are just fighting fires all the time.”
Leaders are overwhelmed. They worry about mission delivery, financial margin, reputation, and risk. Innovation, no matter how promising, too often feels like another fire to douse.
This helps explain why technology still doesn’t have a permanent seat at many nonprofit strategy tables. It’s held back by fear of complexity, short-term metrics, and misalignment with mission language.
As a result, AI adoption often begins in the shadows–staff experimenting “under the radar,” uncoordinated and unprotected.
That gap matters. According to a 2024 Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) piece, many nonprofits already dabble with AI tools for grant writing, donor outreach, or analytics, but without governance or organizational buy-in, those experiments risk being dismissed or, worse, backfiring in ways that reinforce leadership skepticism. [1]
Leaders want more than hype. As one executive told me: “Taking it out of the theoretical and really using it to help me fight the fire…is going to get my attention.”
The Bear and the Balance of House
Enter The Bear, which in 2023 the Chronicle of Philanthropy declared “required viewing” for nonprofit leaders. Why? Because it dramatizes the tension between front-of-house and back-of-house–between customer-facing service and the messy, unseen operations that make service possible.
In the nonprofit world:
Front-of-House = Programs
Back-of-House = Fundraising, Finance, HR, operations, and yes, technology
Simply put, the front-of-house cannot thrive if the back-of-house is broken.
As Carmy rebuilds his kitchen, he insists on systems that feel tedious but prove transformative: mise en place, consistent communication, shared standards.
The lesson for nonprofits is clear: Back-of-house excellence drives front-of-house impact. AI, handled well, becomes the mise en place of modern philanthropy–quietly but radically reordering how staff allocate time, energy, and attention.
From Skepticism to Trust: Start Where the Wins Are Obvious
One of the surest ways to influence adoption from within is to begin not with sweeping promises but with small, high-yield, low-risk problems. In other words, launch pilots that are low risk, high visibility, and scalable proof points. Then, expand outward.
Consider routine donor thank-you letters. Staff often spend hours drafting personalized notes. A generative AI model, supervised by humans, such as Virtuous Momentum, can prepare thoughtful drafts in minutes.
Another example: summarizing long board reports. Or automating meeting scheduling. These are not existential mission shifts; they’re daily pain points.
As Jo Purcell-Jones of Australia for UNHCR explained: “We didn’t adopt machine learning because we believed the hype – we tested it until we could prove the value. We ran long-term experiments, made changes, adapted over time, and earned organizational trust by showing real results. That’s what made our rollout work.”
The psychology is as important as the metrics. When leaders see visible, low-risk wins, they shift from suspicion to curiosity. Small experiments become cultural proof points.
Speaking the Language of Leadership
Even the best pilot will fall flat if it isn’t communicated in leadership’s terms. From my deck: Leaders care most about mission, margin, reputation, and risk. So, frame AI initiatives accordingly.
- Mission: “This tool saves staff hours, allowing more time with donors or community members.”
- Margin: “Automating reports reduces staff burnout and turnover costs.”
- Reputation: “Demonstrating responsible AI use positions us as an innovative, trustworthy nonprofit.”
- Risk: “We’ve built data privacy and ethical review into every step.”
This reframing turns AI from a tech vision into a change vision–about culture, mindset, and behavior, not just tools.
5 Best Practices: How to Influence Change from Within
Based on research and 20 years of lived practice leading nonprofit organizations, here are 5 strategies for nonprofit professionals who want to move their organizations toward responsible AI adoption.
1. Start Small, Show Results
Pick a high-yield, low-risk problem. Measure the time saved or quality improved. Share stories as well as metrics. “Demonstrate the possibility of impact by solving a problem.” That’s what gets attention.
2. Build a Coalition
Influence doesn’t flow only from leadership. As Maisa Lopes Gomes of Cerebral Palsy Alliance observed: “Leadership isn’t about title or seniority – it’s about who’s willing to go first. In our team, it wasn’t just the executives. It was the digital coordinator, the frontline staff, the person brave enough to try.”
Gather colleagues into a community of practice. Learn together. Present as a group.
3. Incentivize Curiosity
Culture shifts when curiosity is rewarded, not punished. “It’s not because we don’t want to be thoughtful and creative…We’re curious too, but the job doesn’t allow a lot of time for blue-sky thinking,” noted Peggy Maher of CHSLI.
Create micro-spaces for experimentation–lunch-and-learns, cross-team demos–that lower the barrier for busy staff.
4. Lead With Ethics and Guardrails
Propose policies on data privacy, human review, and bias mitigation. By raising governance first, you reduce leadership’s perception of risk. External best practices from Bridgespan and SSIR emphasize ethics as the first step, not the afterthought.
5. Communicate Transparently
Don’t oversell. Share what worked, what didn’t, and what you’ll try next.
Leaders reward persistence and honesty more than perfection. As the adoption ladder shows, influence grows with empathy, relevance, and persistence .
A 5-Point Action Plan to Influence Change from Within
Here’s a concrete checklist for staff who want to influence change from within:
- Map pain points – Keep a log of repetitive, manual, or morale-draining tasks.
- Propose one pilot – Select a high-yield, low-risk problem. Test under supervision.
- Add ethical guardrails – Draft a simple AI use policy, with human oversight and data privacy.
- Share results and stories – Metrics plus human impact.
- Invite leadership in – Demonstrate, don’t just report. Let them see the small win themselves.
Think of it like mise en place – a French culinary phrase meaning “everything in its place.” In professional kitchens, chefs prepare ingredients, tools, and stations ahead of time so that when the rush hits, they can perform with speed and precision. Nonprofit professionals can apply the same principle: small, intentional steps that create order and readiness for larger transformation.
1. Map Pain Points
Start by keeping a simple log of repetitive, manual, or morale-draining tasks. These are the places where frustration builds and time is wasted: formatting spreadsheets, rewriting donor acknowledgments, or preparing the same reports month after month. Documenting these inefficiencies matters because leaders respond to evidence, not vague complaints.
Nonprofit staff often spend a surprising portion of their time on administrative redundancies. By naming and quantifying these pain points, you create a baseline that’s difficult for leadership to ignore.
2. Propose One Pilot
From your list, choose a task that is both high-yield (saves time or energy in meaningful ways) and low-risk (failure won’t derail the mission). This is your test kitchen dish. Don’t start with overhauling a fundraising strategy; start with something small but visible, like automating routine thank-you notes or summarizing meeting minutes.
Run the pilot under supervision, track the outcomes, and prepare to share them. As one nonprofit leader put it: “Demonstrate the possibility of impact by solving a problem.” That’s what builds credibility.
3. Add Ethical Guardrails
Nothing spooks leadership faster than unmanaged risk. Flip that dynamic by addressing ethics before they ask. Draft a short AI use guideline that covers data privacy, human oversight, and a simple reporting mechanism for staff. Show that you’re not chasing shiny objects. You’re thinking about governance.
Organizations that set ethical policies early are far less likely to encounter reputational or compliance crises later. Even a one-page policy signals foresight and responsibility.
4. Share Results and Stories
Metrics are essential, but so are human stories. Did automating reports save your colleague five hours a week? Did it reduce stress in the lead-up to an event? Pair the numbers with lived experiences. Leaders balancing mission, margin, reputation, and risk need to see both.
One executive captured this perfectly: “Taking it out of the theoretical and really using it to help me fight the fire…is going to get my attention.” Evidence with empathy is more persuasive than statistics alone.
5. Invite Leadership In
Finally, don’t just report on your pilot; demonstrate it. Set up a short demo. Let your executive director watch a generative AI model draft a donor report in seconds, or have them test a tool themselves. Seeing innovation firsthand turns abstract claims into tangible experiences.
Leaders who personally experience a tool in action are far more likely to sponsor its expansion. It shifts the conversation from “maybe someday” to “what can we try next?”
Why It Works
These five steps–mapping pain, proposing pilots, adding ethics, sharing results, and inviting leadership in–mirror the discipline of mise en place. Just as chefs prepare meticulously before service, nonprofit professionals can create order and confidence before attempting larger AI transformations. Each step is accessible from any seat in the organization.
Why It Matters
Because philanthropy is under pressure, technology is advancing, and leadership is fatigued. This moment demands staff who can bridge the gap, not by waiting for actions from leadership but by leading from where they are. Leadership, after all, is not bestowed. It’s exercised.
Nonprofits that embrace AI responsibly will free their staff to do what no algorithm can: build trust, nurture relationships, and inspire generosity. And just like Carmy’s kitchen, when the back-of-house systems hum, the front-of-house impact shines.
The Bear reminds us: The work is messy, and the stakes are high, but when the team aligns around purpose and precision, the mission flourishes. The same holds for nonprofits daring to move from back office to bold impact.
Virtuous AI Products
Looking for a palace to start? Get a demo of our AI products here at Virtuous.
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