{"id":4402231479033,"date":"2026-04-02T09:59:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T13:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.philanthropy.com\/?p=4402231479033"},"modified":"2026-04-02T12:22:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T16:22:13","slug":"the-hidden-cost-of-ai-productivity-at-nonprofits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philanthropy.com\/solutions\/the-hidden-cost-of-ai-productivity-at-nonprofits\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hidden Cost of AI Productivity at Nonprofits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Research recently published in the Harvard Business Review<\/a> found that when employees at a tech company with about 200 workers were given AI tools, they ended up doing more work and being more productive, but they also worked longer hours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ongoing research is being conducted by Aruna Ranganathan, a professor at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and Xingqi Maggie Ye, a Ph.D. student there. They declined the Chronicle\u2019<\/em>s request for an interview. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their research, which was conducted over eight months, they indicated that longer hours may lead to burnout. \u200b\u200b”Many workers noted that they were doing more at once \u2014 and feeling more pressure \u2014 than before they used AI, even though the time savings from automation had ostensibly been meant to reduce such pressure,” they wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While there are clear differences between for-profit businesses and the nonprofit world, burnout remains a persistent problem for charitable groups. And with more nonprofits experimenting with AI, some experts are concerned that the technology has the potential to exacerbate the problem for nonprofits.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This \u201cproductivity paradox” \u2014 increased productivity but higher rates of burnout \u2014 is \u201cone of the things I worry about the most with AI in our sector,\u201d says Nathan Chappell, founder of fundraising.AI. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If a nonprofit can spend $20 a month on an AI tool that makes an employee 20 percent more productive, that\u2019s equivalent to an extra day of work. It is tempting to view AI as a way to add to one\u2019s work force without increasing personnel expenses, Chappell says.  But that approach could lead to retention problems, he warns, if staff end up doing more tasks than are suitable for a single job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce the excitement of experimenting fades, workers can find that their workload has quietly grown and feel stretched from juggling everything that\u2019s suddenly on their plate,\u201d Ranganathan and Ye wrote in the Harvard Business Review.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n

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