6 Ways Nonprofits Can Build AI Skills and Transform How They Find Talent

As the back-to-school season inspires fresh learning and new beginnings, it’s the perfect moment for nonprofit hiring professionals to embrace a “back-to-upskilling” mindset. Today’s talent landscape is rapidly evolving, and AI tools are transforming how organizations find, engage, and hire the right people. 

According to LinkedIn’s 2025 Future of Recruiting Report, 73% of talent acquisition professionals agree that AI will change the way organizations hire. Yet, nonprofit teams continue to face unique challenges: lean resources, limited budgets, and fierce competition for skilled talent.

The good news? You don’t need to be a tech expert or have a large team to start seeing the benefits of AI in your hiring and talent workflows. Whether you’re just beginning your upskilling journey or already exploring new tools, here are seven practical ways to build your AI skills—plus LinkedIn resources to help you every step of the way.

1. Begin with AI Basics

If you’re new to AI or need a refresher, start with LinkedIn Learning’s beginner-friendly courses. They’re short, practical, and designed with professionals like you in mind. Each course is self-paced and mobile-friendly, so you can fit learning into your day—whether it’s during a lunch break or between candidate interviews. 

Here are some great places to begin your AI journey:

• What Is Generative AI? [LinkedIn Learning course]
• Career Essentials in Generative AI by Microsoft and LinkedIn [LinkedIn Learning path]

• Human Skills in the Age of AI by Microsoft and LinkedIn [LinkedIn Learning path]
• AI for nonprofits: Reimagining productivity with AI [LinkedIn Event - On-demand]

You can also find LinkedIn’s Most Popular AI Courses of 2025 to dive into the ten AI-related courses that learners around the world have taken most often in 2025 so far.

Did You Know: The number of TA professionals who used LinkedIn Learning to develop AI literacy skills grew 2.3x in the last 12 months. (The 2025 Future of Recruiting 2025, LinkedIn)

2. Upskill on AI with Your Nonprofit Hiring Team

One-third (33%) of global professionals feel embarrassed about how little they understand AI, and 35% are nervous to even talk about it. But you don’t have to explore AI alone! Building AI skills can feel more approachable when you do it together with your coworkers. For nonprofit teams, where collaboration is key, creating shared learning opportunities can help everyone feel more confident, supported, and ready to embrace new technology. Here are a few ideas help your team level up AI proficiency, together:

• Organize regular “lunch and learn” sessions or virtual coffee breaks where your team can watch a LinkedIn Learning course together, practice what you just learned and discuss key takeaways.
• Create a shared doc or central resource hub of AI prompts, team learnings and successes, and links to recommended courses and resources.
• Host monthly team AI learning chats, where team members can share what tools they’ve tried or liked as well as any  learnings or challenges.

By making AI upskilling a team effort, you’ll not only encourage learning but also help strengthen your organization’s ability to adapt, innovate, and attract top talent. Building a collaborative approach to learning can make everyone feel less intimidated and more empowered to apply what they learn while keeping your mission and values at the heart of everything you do.

Here are a few courses your HR team can explore together to build AI skills:

• Generative AI in HR [LinkedIn Learning course]
• Generative AI, Recruiting, and Talent Acquisition [LinkedIn Learning course]
• Harnessing AI in the Recruiting Lifecycle [LinkedIn Learning course]
• AI Academy for Talent Professionals [Website]

If you’re looking to take your team’s learning to the next level, you can explore completing the learning path, Generative AI for Recruiting Professional Certificate by LinkedIn Learning, to receive a certificate to add your resume and LinkedIn profiles.

3. Practice AI Prompt Writing for Nonprofit Hiring Scenarios

Feel ready to put your new skills to the test? Get started by practicing AI prompt writing – also called prompt engineering – for nonprofit hiring tasks. Practicing prompt engineering can help you get more accurate, relevant, and useful responses from AI platforms. The secret to getting great results from AI tools is all in how you ask. 

Try a few of these nonprofit-specific prompts to get started:

• “Write a mission-aligned job description for a development director at a small nonprofit.”
• “Suggest behavioral interview questions for assessing teamwork and communication.”
• “Summarize this candidate profile in 3 bullet points.”
• “Draft a thank-you email for a candidate who interviewed for a program manager role.”

These prompts work with various AI tools, like Microsoft CoPilot and ChatGPT, and are a great entry point for experimenting with AI in your daily work. But just like any new skill, it can take some time and practice to get the hang of how to best prompt AI tools to support your specific workflow – don’t get discouraged! Keep experimenting with your prompts and adjusting based on the outputs you are receiving. You can also explore resources like the course, Introduction to Prompt Engineering for Generative AI, and the blog post, 8 Generative AI Prompts Every Recruiter Should Have in Their Back Pocket, to help you finesse your nonprofit HR AI prompts.

Download: AI Prompt Guide for Nonprofit Hiring Professionals

4. Optimize Your Job Posts with Smart AI Insights

Once your nonprofit team is comfortable with the basics of AI and has experimented with prompting, you can start applying these new AI skills directly to your existing hiring workflow. Optimizing job posts are a great place to begin to attract the right candidates. If your team is leveraging LinkedIn Jobs, available at a discount for eligible nonprofits, you can take advantage of the built-in AI-assistant to streamline and enhance your hiring process. From automatically generating job descriptions, screening questions, and candidate qualifications, to providing AI-driven candidate matching and profile summaries to save time on screening, and more, LinkedIn Jobs AI-powered features make it easier to reach mission-aligned talent and improve your hiring outcomes. 

By making the most of these features and working together as a team, your nonprofit can save valuable time, attract stronger candidates, and ensure your hiring process remains both efficient and human-centered.

5. Use AI in LinkedIn Recruiter to Find Mission-Aligned Talent

If your team uses LinkedIn Recruiter, its AI features (including the new Hiring Assistant!) can help you work smarter, not harder when sourcing and screening candidates. These tools are especially valuable for nonprofits, where hiring teams often juggle multiple responsibilities and need to maximize their impact with limited resources. By leveraging features like AI-assisted search, you can quickly identify candidates who not only have the right skills but also align with your organization’s mission and values.

With Recruiter’s AI-Assisted Search, you can:

• Automatically generate a list of qualified candidates based on your job description
• See profile summaries and suggested matches
• Discover talent who may not be actively job-seeking but are mission-aligned

For those just beginning to explore AI in hiring, start by experimenting with different search criteria and reviewing the AI-generated candidate recommendations. Don’t hesitate to adjust your job descriptions or prompts based on the insights you receive because AI is most effective when used as a collaborative partner—it’s not a replacement for your expertise! Remember that the more you use AI tools and these AI features in LinkedIn Recruiter, the more comfortable and confident your team will become in integrating AI into your everyday hiring practices. Ready to get started? Check out these courses:

• Learning LinkedIn Recruiter [LinkedIn Learning course]
• LinkedIn Recruiter: AI-Powered Talent Acquisition [LinkedIn Learning course]

Your nonprofit may be eligible for up to 50% off LinkedIn’s hiring tools—like LinkedIn Recruiter—to help you find top talent faster.

6. Remember to Keep It Human-Centered

As you upskill with new AI tools and features to streamline your work, it's important to remember that AI is a helpful assistant, not a replacement for the human side of hiring. Your experience, empathy, and intuition still matter most, especially when evaluating candidates or writing strong job descriptions.

Use AI to free up your time, but don’t let it replace your human judgment. The way you communicate your roles, especially through job posts, can deeply influence how candidates perceive your organization. Prioritizing inclusive, human-centered language helps ensure your hiring process reflects your values and welcomes a diverse range of applicants. Keep inclusion and accessibility front and center in everything you do when implementing AI in your process of finding the right talent for your nonprofit.

Almost 4 in 5 global professionals (79%) believe trusted human insight is irreplaceable—even as AI tools become more advanced. That’s why it’s essential to keep human-centered thinking at the heart of how you learn and apply AI in your hiring strategy. Looking to learn more about how to embrace your human-centric skills as we enter the age of AI? Check out the LinkedIn Learning courses Ethics in the Age of Generative AI and How AI in Hiring Can Expand Economic Opportunity…

Tip: Use AI tools to help you review and check for inclusive language and accessibility.

Final Thoughts: AI Can Support Your Mission to Hire Great Talent for Your Nonprofit

Upskilling in AI doesn’t require a tech background or a big budget. It just takes curiosity, a few good resources, and the willingness to experiment. As you grow your AI fluency, you’ll uncover more ways to use it strategically—without losing the human values that make nonprofit hiring work so meaningful.

If you found this article helpful, follow LinkedIn for Nonprofits for more resources, updates, and tools to help you hire, fundraise, and grow your impact.