Nonprofit consultants in the age of artificial intelligence

Nonprofit consultants in the age of artificial intelligence

The future is not AI versus consultants; it is AI and consultants working in tandem to ensure that technology serves mission, strengthens relationships and sustains the long-term vitality of Jewish communal life.

A quiet but consequential tension is emerging across the nonprofit sector, including Jewish philanthropy. On one hand, artificial intelligence is being heralded as a transformative force, capable of streamlining operations, enhancing donor engagement and accelerating fundraising outcomes. On the other hand, there is a growing, often unspoken, assumption that these tools will reduce or even eliminate the need for human expertise — particularly that of consultants.

From our vantage point as practitioners who have spent our careers advising and leading within Jewish philanthropy, development and nonprofit strategy, this assumption is not only premature but also misunderstands a fundamental constraint facing most organizations: time.

Across Jewish communal organizations, we see the same pattern: Executive directors, development professionals, program staff and lay leaders are asked to operate as strategists, fundraisers, relationship managers and operators — often simultaneously. The expectation is not just high performance, but constant responsiveness across competing priorities.

The result is not simply overwork. It is fragmentation.

And yet, this constraint is rarely named directly. Instead, new tools — especially AI — are framed as a remedy for capacity gaps. The implicit belief is that automation can compensate for understaffing, diffuse strategy and the growing complexity of donor ecosystems.

But AI does not create time. It redistributes attention.

In a recent engagement with a national Jewish umbrella organization, one of us (Steven) was asked — after submitting a comprehensive final report — to convert that work into a shareable PowerPoint deck for broader stakeholder use. Historically, this type of request would require days of manual translation, formatting and reframing. With the assistance of AI, the initial draft of that deck was produced in a matter of hours.

But the efficiency gain did not come from the tool alone. It came from the ability to match the right platform to the client’s needs — something that required prior analysis, experimentation and comparison across multiple AI solutions, in addition to a deep understanding of the data itself to know what was most critical to present. That upfront expertise meant the client did not have to spend time navigating an increasingly crowded and confusing tool landscape.

The result: faster delivery, higher-quality output and preserved bandwidth for the client’s leadership team to focus on decision-making and implementation.

AI accelerated the work. Expertise made it usable.

The idea that AI can replace staffing or consultancy support rests on two flawed premises. The first is that nonprofit challenges are primarily technical rather than strategic. The second is that AI can make anyone a subject matter expert instantly.

In Jewish philanthropy, this distinction is even more pronounced. Much of the work is relational, values-driven and deeply contextual. It requires judgment shaped by experience — understanding institutional histories, communal sensitivities and the nuanced motivations of donors and stakeholders.

In a recent engagement with a small Jewish community project, one of us (Stephanie) learned that the volunteer team tried using AI to build financial reports, without knowing enough about accounting and financial management to realize AI’s recommendations didn’t add up (literally). AI can accelerate execution, but it can’t determine direction and it can’t always recognize when it is working with flawed data.

Organizations that attempt to substitute AI for expertise in hard- and soft-skill areas often find themselves producing more — more emails, more proposals, more data — without corresponding gains in outcomes. The bottleneck shifts, but it does not disappear.

In this context, the role of nonprofit consultants becomes more valuable, not less.

A Jewish frame for a modern challenge

In our respective work at The Ask LLC and Ampersand Consulting Solutions, we have seen how organizations benefit when outside expertise is used not as a replacement for internal leadership, but as a complement to it — extending capacity while sharpening focus.

In practice, this shows up in three ways:

AI can enhance each of these functions — but only when it is deployed with intention. A consultant who understands both the philanthropic landscape and the capabilities of AI can ensure that tools reduce friction rather than amplify it.

Jewish tradition offers a useful lens for this moment. In Pirkei Avot (1:6), we are taught: “Aseh lecha rav u’kneh lecha chaver” — appoint for yourself a teacher and acquire for yourself a companion.

At its core, this teaching is about recognizing the limits of one’s own perspective and the necessity of outside guidance. Growth — whether personal or organizational — does not happen in isolation.

AI, for all its power, is not a teacher. It is a tool. And the role of the consultant, like the rav or trusted advisor, is to provide context, interpretation and wisdom that transforms information, whether from AI or an organization, into action. In this way, the increasing sophistication of tools only heightens the need for those who can guide their use.

The question is not whether Jewish nonprofits will adopt AI — they already are. The more important question is how they will do so without exacerbating existing constraints. Organizations that succeed will not be those that simply adopt the latest tools. They will be those who pair technology with judgment grounded in an understanding of community, relationships and long-term development and organizational strategy.

This is where the right consultancy relationship becomes a force multiplier. By externalizing complexity and introducing informed perspective, consultants allow nonprofit professionals to reclaim their most limited resource: time.

The sector needs to acknowledge that the core issue is not a lack of available tools, but a lack of capacity to use those tools effectively within a coherent strategy.

AI is not a replacement for people. It is an amplifier of how people — and organizations — already operate.

For organizations already stretched thin, amplification without guidance risks accelerating inefficiency. With the right support, however, it can unlock meaningful gains — not just in output, but in impact.

The future is not AI versus consultants. It is AI and consultants, working in tandem to ensure that technology serves mission, strengthens relationships and sustains the long-term vitality of Jewish communal life.

In a field where every hour and every relationship matters, that distinction is not theoretical. It is essential.

Steven Green is a co-founder and partner at The Ask LLC.

Stephanie Levin is the founder and principal of Ampersand Consulting Solutions and the executive director of the Community Hevra Kadisha of Greater Boston.