The Smart Nonprofit: Staying Human-Centered in An Automated World by Beth Kanter & Allison Fine

Author:Beth Kanter & Allison Fine [Kanter, Beth & Fine, Allison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781119818137
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2022-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

SMART TECH AND GOVERNANCE

Governing boards bear the ultimate responsibility for ensuring that organizations are operating in ethical, healthy, and effective ways. Smart tech poses a particular challenge for boards because they are, necessarily, removed from the day-to-day work and may not have programmatic or technical expertise. The bigger challenge for boards is that beyond exercising their fiduciary responsibility by reviewing financial statements and budgets and fundraising support, boards are often at a loss of exactly what they should spend their time doing. This often results in being too far removed from the work or too closely involved. The ethical responsibilities of using smart tech offer a reset for boards.

Smart tech offers opportunities to recalibrate expectations and measures that have been the norms for decades. For instance, in Chapter 9, “Fundraising,” we will explore the need for organizations to reset their fundraising performance around a new set of measures that focus on donor retention rather than just acquisition. Regarding smart tech writ large, here are the particular areas that need and deserve attention from governing boards:

How well are we balancing the human/tech intersection? Are clients and other constituents able to easily access people within our organization? Do we still feel like an organization run and staffed by people?

Are we living our values when it comes to the use of data? Are we transparent about our policies? Do we default to opt in rather than opt out? Are we scrutinizing third-party data sources?

Are we being actively anti-biased in our use of smart tech? Are we doing our best to mitigate racial and gender biases? Are we monitoring for bias in the use of smart tech by comparing the people screened in from those who are screened out of our systems?

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