AI for Nonprofits

Chapter 7.1Introducing Arnold, the StaffBot: Lung Cancer Foundation of America Case Study

Based on insights from an interview with Donna Whitney.

Background and Problem Statement

Lung Cancer Foundation of America (LCFA) is a small nonprofit organization with a powerful mission: to improve lung cancer survival rates by funding transformative scientific research. Despite their significant goals, the foundation operates with only four full-time employees, supplemented by key media consultants. As with most nonprofits, their small team was continually challenged with the demands of program development, marketing, fundraising, and increasing their search engine optimization. As a result, the team is always looking for new ways to leverage technology to amplify their bandwidth in the most efficient and cost-effective way.

AI-Driven Solution

To address these challenges, LCFA turned to their long-time consultants at Whole Whale (https://www.wholewhale.com/), whose CauseWriter.AI platform assists nonprofits with their AI development needs. With their help, LCFA developed a custom large language model (LLM), essentially adding a digital staffer while ensuring data privacy. They were excited to safeguard any sensitive information entered into AI, ensuring prompts wouldn't find their way into the public domain. They were also drawn to the concept since it would enable them to orient their bot properly with background information and materials, so any outputs were customized for their ...