If AI can reduce the drudge work in a nonprofit’s operations, that can offer people who will be most impacted the chance to move into roles that require uniquely human skills, such as collaboration and critical thinking.

“How do we do this in a human-centered way?” Kanter asks rhetorically. “How do we retain our ability to interact with each other and maintain relationships at work, which is the elixir of getting things done and having impact? Purpose is a piece of it. Learning is a piece of it.”

Large nonprofit organizations should build out their HR and professional development departments, adding “learning professionals” who can participate in long-term programs that go well beyond skills training. “You’re shadowing them, internally mentoring them,” Kanter says, “so that people always have the ability to move into another area and do a new skill as part of their job.”

Just as AI and other technologies will disrupt nonprofit jobs throughout the organization, they will also alter the traditional notion of a job ladder. As some jobs end and others begin, Kanter says, “instead of a ladder, it’s a lattice.”