As Nonprofits Reach Breaking Point, Agentic AI May Be The Breakthrough

Forbes

08-08-2025

Scott Brighton, CEO at Bonterra.
Nonprofits are being squeezed from both ends. Federal funding is vanishing. Demand is skyrocketing. And most advice sounds like: Do more with less. Again.
For-profit companies might spend 5% to 10% of revenue just on technology, while nonprofits are pressured to devote less than 25% of their budgets to all overhead—salaries, rent and software.
The standard game plan? Diversify revenue. Upgrade systems. Adopt new tech.
That may sound strategic—until you're the one trying to implement it, on a shoestring budget, with an overstretched team. For many nonprofits, these solutions feel like more work disguised as progress. They're already operating at their limit. What they need isn't another tool to manage; it's a partner that lifts the burden.
Agentic AI Delivers Support—Automatically
Imagine logging in Monday morning to find three tailored grant drafts, a half dozen personalized high-value donor emails queued for review and a flagged opportunity from a new local funder, all handled overnight. Agentic AI can do that.
Agentic AI does the actual work: identifying grant opportunities, writing proposals, crafting personalized donor outreach and handling repetitive workflows that typically eat up weeks of staff time. It clears the to-do list without demanding more from the team.
The result is efficiency and capacity. And more time for what only humans can do, such as build relationships, lead strategy and drive change. Agentic AI both speeds up work and makes impact scalable.
What Real Growth Looks Like
Growth in the nonprofit world often feels like a gamble, one that usually means stretching limited resources even thinner. But when AI takes on the heavy lifting, growth becomes something else: achievable.
Agentic AI takes initiative, executing routine tasks autonomously while keeping humans in the loop for decisions that need nuance or empathy. This shift helps teams move from managing day-to-day demands to focusing more on strategic leadership and impact.
In a sector where burnout is rampant, reducing cognitive load while maintaining momentum is transformative.
Rebuilding Donor Trust, At Scale
Trust is the currency of the social sector, and it's running low. Just 57% of Americans have high trust in nonprofits. And when trust breaks down, donor bases shrink and momentum stalls.
Trust is rebuilt with relevance. Donors want to see that their contributions matter—that they're appreciated and part of something real.
That's where intelligent automation comes in. By analyzing donor history and behavior, agentic AI can help craft personalized outreach that speaks to each individual's motivations. Humans stay in the loop, guiding the tone, refining the message and making the final call. The result? Smarter, better-timed engagement that feels personal. This is the future of donor relationships: stronger connections and fewer hours lost to repetitive tasks.
Rethinking The Grant Game
Every nonprofit knows the pain of spending weeks on a major grant application only to walk away empty-handed. The cost is more than time, because time is finite. Wasting it drains morale, momentum and mission-critical funding.
Another strategy is hiding in plain sight. Apply for more, smaller grants. Local and state programs often have higher approval rates: 52%, compared to 25% at the federal level. But more grants used to mean more work, and more work is something nonprofits can't afford.
That's where agentic AI flips the script.
AI agents scan for grants that match your mission and funding history and draft applications automatically. What once took weeks now takes days. Even better? It learns. Agentic AI uses past results to strengthen future submissions.
Adding Capacity
The truth is that much of the software built for nonprofits doesn't reflect what daily life on the ground looks like. I say that as the CEO of a company that builds it. Too often, it assumes time, training and staff—resources that are already stretched thin.
Agentic AI doesn't need to be managed. It just gets things done, working through data and across platforms, bypassing traditional user interfaces entirely. It's an extension of your team.
We're shifting from software that consumes capacity to intelligence that creates it.
Start With Purpose, Not Just Product
Before investing in agentic AI, nonprofits should start with clarity, not about the technology itself, but about the outcomes they're trying to drive. Where is staff time going? Where are opportunities left untouched simply due to a lack of capacity? A clear-eyed operational audit helps identify the highest-impact places AI can accelerate mission delivery.
Too often, organizations jump into AI without this alignment, treating it like just another tool to manage. But agentic AI creates real value when it's embedded in daily workflows, not bolted on. So start small: Automate a grant application or reengage lapsed donors. Let the system learn. Let your team build trust in it.
None of this works without quality data. Clean, consistent and complete data is the fuel that makes AI work, powering better insights and fewer errors. Start gathering and collecting robust data on your subscribers and their behavior now, so you're ready as agentic AI begins to roll out.
In the end, agentic AI is only as good as the leadership behind it. When guided by purpose and paired with strong data and human oversight, it scales impact.
A Leap Forward
The old model—grind harder, chase more, hope for the best—isn't working. Nonprofits know it. Funders know it. Everyone feels the tension.
Agentic AI flips the script. It gives nonprofits the space to lead instead of scramble, to grow without burning out and to act boldly in a moment that demands it.
Nonprofits don't need another tool. They need a breakthrough. Agentic AI is it.
Forbes Nonprofit Council is an invitation-only organization for chief executives in successful nonprofit organizations. Do I qualify?