In most nonprofits, the person giving the update on "how AI is going" is also the person with the least in common with the staff who would actually use it day to day. A survey of 917 nonprofit professionals, published by NTEN and The Bridgespan Group in September 2026, found that 50% of executives use AI daily. Only 38% of staff do. Executives also report feeling more comfortable with the tools, 67% versus 55% for staff.
If you lead a nonprofit, the AI picture in your head is probably your own picture, not your organization's.
I hear this almost every time I talk with a nonprofit ED about AI. She can describe her own use of the tools in detail. She assumes her program staff use them about the same way, at about the same rate. In my experience, that's almost never true.
What does the data actually show?
It shows a usage gap and a comfort gap, and the usage gap is the bigger one. 98% of respondents in the survey use AI in some capacity, according to Nonprofit Quarterly's summary of the report, and 61% describe that use as an organized pilot, team-wide rollout, or full integration, not one person trying a chatbot alone. So the question for most nonprofits isn't whether to start using AI. It's how far the use has actually spread past the leadership team.
The comfort numbers are close, 67% to 55%. The daily-use numbers are not, 50% to 38%. A smaller gap in comfort next to a bigger gap in use suggests something practical.
Staff probably aren't avoiding AI because they feel uneasy about it. They're using it less for other reasons: time, workload, unclear permission, or tools that simply don't fit the job in front of them.
Why does so much of the use happen off the record?
Because more than half of it was never approved in the first place. 53% of all respondents in the survey report using AI unofficially, what the report calls "shadow" use, including 57% of executives and 49% of staff, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy. That's not a staff problem. Executives shadow-use AI at a higher rate than their own employees do.
This tracks with the governance numbers in the same report. 57% of executives say their organization has no dedicated AI budget. 58% say there's no AI roadmap.
37% don't train staff on the tools already in use, and only 32% of staff have received any formal AI training. Fewer than 40% of organizations have written guidance on responsible AI use at all.
Put plainly: most nonprofits are using AI without the budget, plan, or training that would make the use deliberate. When there's no written rule, people improvise quietly instead of asking for permission they're not sure exists.
Why are the staff closest to the mission the least likely to adopt it?
Because closeness to the community is doing some of the work that comfort with the tool is supposed to do. Amy Sample Ward, NTEN's CEO, told the Chronicle: "The closer you are to your community ... the more likely you are to say, 'I will never use generative AI tools.'"
That's worth sitting with. The staff with the most direct relationship to clients and donors, the people an executive's adoption numbers are meant to represent, are often the ones opting out entirely. An executive-level adoption figure can genuinely overstate how far AI has actually reached inside the organization.
What should a director do about this, this month?
Ask, don't survey. Sit down with five people directly and find out which AI tools they use, if any, and for what. Then write your own honest answer to the same question. Compare the two lists.
You'll probably find three things. A tool you didn't know was in use. A tool you assumed everyone had adopted that almost nobody opens twice. And at least one person who has quietly decided never to use any of it, for reasons that have nothing to do with comfort and everything to do with what their job actually requires.
None of this needs a policy document or a vendor. It needs five short conversations, and the discipline to write down what you hear instead of what you expected to hear.
At DeTask, this is close to the exact gap we built the product to close. DeTask turns your mission into goals and keeps your leaders, people, and AI aligned around the results that matter.
The question I ask every nonprofit leader is the one this survey accidentally answers: Does your team know how today's work contributes to your mission? Right now, on AI, most leaders don't actually know. They've just been answering for everyone else.
Most executives I talk to can describe their own relationship with AI in real detail. Fewer can describe their frontline staff's relationship with it in the same detail. That gap, not the tool, is the thing worth closing first.
FAQ
Does more AI use at the executive level mean a nonprofit is further along with AI overall?
Not necessarily. The NTEN/Bridgespan survey found 98% of nonprofits use AI in some form, but only 61% describe that use as organized past an individual level. Executive comfort and daily use aren't a reliable stand-in for how the whole organization actually uses the tools.
What is "shadow AI use," and why does it matter for nonprofits?
It means using AI tools outside any approved process or written policy. In the same survey, 53% of all respondents reported unofficial use, including 57% of executives. Without written guidance, that use can touch donor or client information with no rule governing it.
Should a nonprofit write an AI policy before asking staff what they already use?
Ask first. A policy written before anyone knows what's actually in use tends to miss the real tools and the real risks. A short round of direct conversations with staff is faster and cheaper than drafting a policy blind.
Is this survey representative of the whole nonprofit sector?
It covers 917 respondents surveyed between late April and mid-June 2026 by NTEN and The Bridgespan Group. That's a meaningful sample, but like any survey, it reflects who chose to respond, not a census of the sector.