Senior leaders of nonprofit organizations who are interested in exploring the use of AI in organizations including:

• Executive Directors and CEOs
• COOs
• CIOs/CTOs
• Other C-Suite Leaders
• Directors of Development
• Board Members

• Key takeaway 1: Gain an understanding of AI including a broad overview of the tools that are available for free or at a low cost.
• Key takeaway 2:Guidance on assessing external tools and service providers. Includes key criteria for alignment with mission, data ownership, integration and operability, internal cost-benefit and sustainability considerations.
• Key takeaway 3: Learn how to effectively lead teams where some members are people and others are intelligent machines. Explore the impact of AI on team decision-making and effectiveness.
• Key takeaway 4: Develop the strategy and tactics for ensuring the implementation, adoption, and institutionalization of new AI technologies within your organization. Learn individual change competencies and assess organizational change readiness.

Beyond the Hype: Equipping Nonprofit Leaders to Evaluate, Engage, and Employ AI

• Develop the leadership competencies needed to critically evaluate, communicate, and collaborate with AI technologies
• Establish guiding principles for how AI could, and should be used within your organization’s mission, values, and goals
• Understand the behaviors and mindsets necessary to cultivate a culture of responsible experimentation with this emerging technology

Understanding and Implementing AI Tools That Go Beyond Content Creation

• Explore the different types of AI and what each is good at. This is important base knowledge as it provides leaders with frameworks, they can use to begin to understand what their specific organizational use cases could be
• Identify and prioritize pain points within your organization and use these to develop use cases for AI
• Build a sustainable AI implementation process
• Understand special considerations such as data privacy and employee training and sentiment

Leading Human-AI Teams

• Examine how AI shapes team cognition, communication, and trust, and how its presence can either mitigate or amplify common decision biases
• Through the New World Human-AI Simulation, participants will experience firsthand the challenges of human-AI collaboration in a high-stakes Mars landing scenario, where they must work with an AI teammate, MAARS, to make critical mission decisions. This simulation focuses on creating the essential conditions for successfully teaming with AI, including structuring discussions to mitigate bias, building calibrated trust, and developing shared mental models between human and AI teammates
• Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of how to navigate the jagged frontier of AI, ensuring that technology enhances, rather than disrupts, team effectiveness

Driving Adoption of AI Tools Within Your Organization

• Utilize a structured simulation to experiment with varied change management strategies—including communication sequencing, stakeholder targeting, and timing—to effectively drive AI tool adoption within your organization
• Identify common sources of resistance to technological change and evaluate your organization’s current readiness for AI integration
• Formulate an action plan to introduce and institutionalize AI technologies, aligned with your mission, capacity, and stakeholder landscape

Michael Rice - Academic Director; Associate Director, Nonprofit Executive Programs

Jeannette Colyvas - Clinical Associate Professor of Management and Organizations

Leslie DeChurch - Al-Thani Chair in Communication, School of Communication. Professor of Management & Organizations, Kellogg School of Management; Professor of Psychology, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences.

Liz Gerber - Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering; Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence, McCormick School of Engineering

Ivy Walker - Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Helios Digital Learning

Location

This program is delivered in a live virtual format via the Zoom platform. Please visit our live virtual programs page for more information.

Application Deadline

The deadline for registration is 10:00 am one business day prior to the program start date.

Scholarship Assistance

Up to 50% scholarships are available for all of our nonprofit executive education programs for those working in nonprofit organizations. All scholarship requests are reviewed by our Registrar and any scholarships granted will be reflected in the amount charged to your credit card.

Payment

• If you request a scholarship, your credit card is submitted upon registration and will be charged once your request is approved (allow 1-2 business days for review).
• If you do not request a scholarship, your credit card will be charged upon application submission.

Cancellation Policy:

Participants must notify the Program Manager five business days in advance of the program start date if they are unable to attend. Otherwise, participants will be charged 20% of the stated program fees.

When canceling a program registration, participants may choose to rollover their payment to a future program or receive a refund. Participants are allowed two rollovers, after the second rollover, participants forfeit the money paid to the Center for Nonprofit Management.

*Refund or rollover must be requested at the time of the program cancellation. Once a program payment has been rolled over, a monetary refund is no longer an option. The participant must continue with the rollover process.

Northwestern University reserves the right to cancel a program at any time for any reason. In the unlikely event of a course cancellation, paid program fees will be refunded. For in person programs, the university is not responsible for any travel or other related expenses accrued by the program registrant.