Nonprofit Resilience and AI Newsletter #13

April 16, 2025

I had the opportunity earlier this week to provide a workshop on resilience to nonprofits in and around Wausau, Wisconsin. I was sharing potential AI prompts from this newsletter. I thought of another one, which can be used by any nonprofit in today's rocky environment. To get the best results, use the Deep Research button as you submit the prompt:

Act in the role of an expert in organizational development and nonprofit risk management. You are providing recommendations to [XYZ], a nonprofit whose website is [URL]. Imagine you're leading a team that's grappling with critical decisions relating to the potential impacts of changes in federal policy affecting nonprofits since January 20, 2025, on XYZ.org. I want you to

1. perform research on XYZ including looking at its website and other references to it online. Make sure you get a thorough understanding of XYZ's mission and current operations. Then perform the following tasks:
2. Assess the likelihood that XYZ or its beneficiaries will be impacted by any of the announced changes to federal policy since January 20, 2025. Include in that analysis both actions that have been taken by the Trump Administration and Congress and policy changes and legislative that have been proposed and received significant news coverage but not yet adopted. Make sure that this analysis is detailed and takes account of at least five different areas: federal spending cuts; loss of federal expertise because of terminations or voluntary exit of federal employees; reductions in federal regulations; vilification or disparagement of nonprofits by Elon Musk, Republicans in Congress, or the White House in Executive Orders; and challenges to the rule of law by actions of the Administration or Congress.
3. Evaluate and then provide a set over force-ranked countermeasures that you recommend XYZ take to be more resilient and sustainable in light of the actual and potential changes. For each countermeasure, explain in detail why it earned that rank.
4. Suggest no fewer than five initiatives or actions XYZ could take to turn any or all of these changes at the federal level into opportunities, instead of threats. Rank the five according to cost, ease of implementation, and risk (financial, reputational, or otherwise).

Before providing your final response, fact-check every sentence in your proposed response to reduce the likelihood of error, and provide me only with the fact-checked version.

If you run this prompt for your nonprofit, it can serve as a reality check as you assess your current and potential responses. You can also take portions of the response and run them back through ChatGPT to get further detail (e.g., You state in your response [quote]. Explain that in greater detail.)

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