Building a Public AI Use Statement Page for Your Nonprofit Website
Your internal AI policy tells your staff what they can and cannot do. A public AI use statement does something different and just as important: it tells the people you serve, your donors, and your partners how you use artificial intelligence and what safeguards protect them. This guide walks through why a public statement matters now, what to include, and how to publish one that builds trust instead of inviting confusion.
Most nonprofits that have adopted AI already have some kind of internal policy, even if it is only a few paragraphs in a staff handbook. Far fewer have a public-facing statement that explains, in plain language, how the organization uses AI and what it does to keep people safe. That gap is becoming harder to justify. The people you serve are increasingly aware that the chat window, the appointment reminder, or the grant decision they encountered may have involved an algorithm, and they are starting to ask about it directly.
A public AI use statement is a short, accessible page on your website that answers those questions before anyone has to ask. It is not a legal contract and it is not your full internal governance document. Think of it as the AI equivalent of a privacy policy: a place where you describe what you do, why you do it, and how you protect the people affected. Organizations like the Deep Foundations Institute have begun publishing dedicated AI transparency statements for exactly this purpose, signaling a broader shift toward public disclosure of AI practices across the sector.
There is also a regulatory dimension. State privacy laws are moving quickly toward requiring organizations to disclose AI-related data practices. Connecticut's amendments taking effect July 1, 2026, for example, require organizations to affirmatively state whether personal information is collected, used, or sold for training large language models. A clear public statement is one of the cleaner ways to get ahead of these requirements rather than scrambling to retrofit disclosures later.
This article walks through the case for publishing a statement, the components a good one includes, a section-by-section template you can adapt, and the common mistakes that turn a well-intentioned page into a liability. The goal is a statement that a board member, a donor, and a first-time client can all read and come away trusting you more, not less.
Why a Public Statement Is Different From Your Internal Policy
It is easy to assume that if you have an internal AI policy, you have covered transparency. The two documents serve different audiences and different purposes, and conflating them usually means one of them does its job poorly. Your internal policy governs behavior: which tools staff may use, how to handle sensitive data, who approves new use cases, and what the consequences are for misuse. It is detailed, sometimes technical, and written for people who already work inside your organization.
A public statement governs understanding. Its audience is everyone outside your walls who is affected by your use of AI but has no visibility into your operations. They do not need to know your approval workflow or your vendor shortlist. They need to know whether an AI read their intake form, whether their personal information will be used to train a model, and whether a human is accountable for decisions that affect them. If your internal policy is the engine, the public statement is the dashboard the passengers can see.
Builds Trust Before It Is Tested
When you disclose your AI use proactively, you frame the narrative on your own terms. The alternative is a constituent discovering your AI use by accident and feeling deceived. A clear statement turns a potential breach of trust into evidence of integrity, which matters most for organizations whose work depends on the confidence of vulnerable people.
Gets Ahead of Regulation
Disclosure requirements are arriving through state privacy laws and, for organizations operating in Europe, the EU AI Act. A standing public statement gives you a single place to satisfy these obligations and update them as the rules evolve, rather than hunting through your site for scattered references.
Answers Questions at Scale
Frontline staff field the same questions about AI repeatedly. A public statement gives them a reliable reference to point to, keeps answers consistent, and reduces the risk of well-meaning employees improvising explanations that do not match reality.
Signals Organizational Maturity
Funders and partners increasingly evaluate how responsibly grantees handle technology. A thoughtful public statement demonstrates that your organization has considered the risks and put guardrails in place, which can strengthen grant applications and partnership conversations.
The two documents should reference each other and stay consistent, but they are not interchangeable. A useful sequence is to settle your internal policy first, then distill its public-facing commitments into the statement. If you have not yet written the internal version, our guide on how to create an AI policy in a single day is a practical starting point, and the public statement becomes the outward expression of the decisions you make there.
The Core Components of a Strong AI Use Statement
A good statement is comprehensive without being exhausting. Readers should be able to scan it in a few minutes and find the specific answer they came for. The components below cover what most nonprofits need. Not every organization will use all of them, and the depth of each section should match the depth of your actual AI use. A small nonprofit running one chatbot needs far less than a large service organization using AI across intake, fundraising, and program evaluation.
A Plain-Language Summary
The one paragraph most people will actually read
Open with a short statement of intent that a non-technical reader can absorb in seconds. Something close to: "Our organization uses artificial intelligence to support our work and serve our community more effectively. AI assists our team but does not replace human judgment, and people remain accountable for the decisions that affect you." This sets the tone and gives readers who do not want the details everything they need.
Where and How You Use AI
Specific enough to be honest, general enough to stay current
Describe the actual functions where AI plays a role. Be concrete without listing every vendor and feature.
- Communications, such as drafting newsletters, social posts, or fundraising appeals that staff review before sending
- Service delivery, such as chatbots that answer common questions or help schedule appointments
- Operations, such as summarizing documents, transcribing meetings, or analyzing program data
- Decisions that affect individuals, such as prioritizing applications, where extra detail is warranted
How You Handle Data and Model Training
The section regulators and privacy-conscious readers care about most
State clearly whether personal information is used to train AI models. For most nonprofits the honest and reassuring answer is that it is not, and saying so explicitly is worth far more than leaving it ambiguous. Address how data is stored, whether you share it with AI vendors, and what protections such as encryption or contractual limits apply. If you operate under HIPAA, GDPR, or a state privacy law, name the standard you comply with.
Human Oversight and Accountability
Who remains responsible when AI is involved
Reassure readers that people, not algorithms, hold final responsibility. Describe your human-in-the-loop commitments: that staff review AI-generated content before it goes out, that no decision materially affecting a person is made by AI alone, and that a named role or team oversees your AI practices. Naming a point of contact, even a generic inbox, signals that accountability is real rather than rhetorical.
Fairness, Limitations, and Your Values
Honesty about what AI cannot do
Acknowledge that AI systems can make mistakes and can reflect bias, and describe what you do to mitigate it, such as testing tools, keeping humans in the loop, and auditing outcomes. Ground the whole statement in the values that guide your choices: privacy, equity, accessibility, consent, transparency, and accountability. This is also the place to invite feedback and explain how someone can raise a concern or request a human instead of an automated interaction.
A Section-by-Section Template You Can Adapt
The structure below gives you a working skeleton. Treat the headings as fixed and the content as a starting point to rewrite in your own voice and to match your actual practices. Resist the temptation to copy a template verbatim without verifying that every sentence is true for your organization. A statement that promises safeguards you do not have is worse than no statement at all.
1. Our Commitment
A two to three sentence opening that states your intent to use AI responsibly and in service of your mission, and affirms that human judgment remains central.
2. How We Use AI
A short list of the functions where AI assists your work, written in plain terms. Group them by area so readers can find the part relevant to their interaction with you.
3. How We Protect Your Information
An explicit statement on whether personal data is used for model training, how data is stored and secured, and which privacy standards you follow. Link to your full privacy policy here.
4. Human Oversight
Your commitment that people review AI output and remain accountable for decisions, plus a note that constituents can always reach a human if they prefer.
5. Limitations and Fairness
An honest acknowledgment that AI can err, a description of how you reduce bias and verify accuracy, and an invitation to flag problems.
6. Questions and Contact
A named contact point and a brief note on how you will respond to questions or concerns. Close with the date the statement was last updated.
When you describe specific interactions, coordinate the statement with the scripts your frontline team uses. Our guide on answering the question "was I talking to a person?" pairs naturally with the human-oversight section, and the broader question of where to label AI use and where not to can help you decide how granular your "How We Use AI" section needs to be.
Common Mistakes That Undermine a Statement
A public AI statement can backfire when it overpromises, hides behind jargon, or sits untouched while your practices change around it. The pitfalls below are the ones that most often turn a trust-building exercise into a credibility risk.
Promising safeguards you do not actually have
If your statement says every AI output is reviewed by a human but your chatbot answers donors unsupervised, you have created a gap between your words and your practice that can damage trust far more than honest limitations would. Only commit to what you can verify is true today.
Writing for lawyers instead of people
A statement buried in dense legal language defeats its own purpose. The audience is the public, including people in stress or crisis. Use short sentences, define any term you cannot avoid, and aim for a reading level your least technical constituent can follow.
Being so vague it says nothing
A statement that promises to use AI "responsibly and ethically" without any specifics reads as a press release, not a disclosure. Readers want to know what you actually do. Generic reassurance with no substance can read as evasive rather than reassuring.
Publishing once and forgetting it
AI use changes quickly. A statement describing tools you stopped using a year ago, or omitting a major new system, becomes misleading over time. Review it on a regular schedule, date it visibly, and assign someone responsibility for keeping it current.
Publishing, Linking, and Keeping It Alive
Once your statement is written, place it where people will find it. The footer of your website, alongside your privacy policy and terms, is the conventional and expected location. If you run a chatbot or an AI-assisted intake form, link to the statement from those touchpoints directly, so the disclosure appears at the moment it is most relevant. Some organizations add a brief one-line notice near AI-powered features that links to the fuller statement, which respects readers who want detail without interrupting those who do not.
Treat the statement as a living document with a clear owner. Assign responsibility to a specific role, whether that is an operations lead, a compliance officer, or a small AI oversight group, and put a recurring review on the calendar. A semiannual check is reasonable for most nonprofits, with an immediate update whenever you adopt a significant new AI system or retire an old one. The visible "last updated" date is not a formality. It tells readers the page reflects current reality and signals that you take the commitment seriously.
Finally, connect the statement to the rest of your governance. It should be consistent with your internal policy, your privacy policy, and your strategic plan for AI. If your organization operates in Europe or serves European constituents, make sure the statement aligns with the labeling obligations introduced by the EU AI Act, which our coverage of the Article 50 disclosure rules explains in detail. A coherent set of documents that all tell the same story is far more credible than a single polished page that contradicts what people experience elsewhere.
Conclusion
A public AI use statement is one of the lowest-cost, highest-trust investments a nonprofit can make as it adopts artificial intelligence. It asks you to do something genuinely valuable: to articulate, in language anyone can understand, exactly how you use AI and how you protect the people affected by it. That clarity benefits everyone. Constituents know what to expect, staff have a consistent answer to give, funders see evidence of responsible practice, and your organization gets ahead of a regulatory landscape that is moving steadily toward mandatory disclosure.
The work is not in the writing, which a small team can complete in an afternoon once the internal decisions are made. The work is in the honesty. A statement is only as valuable as it is true, which means the real exercise is aligning your public commitments with your actual practices and keeping them aligned as both evolve. Done that way, the page becomes more than a compliance artifact. It becomes a standing promise that your organization uses powerful technology in a way that keeps people, and their trust, at the center.
Start with what is true today, publish it plainly, and commit to revisiting it. In a sector built on trust, being the organization that explains itself clearly is rarely a disadvantage.
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