Episode 104: How Nonprofits Can Use ChatGPT to Increase Their Impact with Krista Kurlinkus
[00:00:00] Stephanie Skryzowski: Hey there. If you’re looking for the 100 degrees of entrepreneurship podcast, you’re in the right place after a hundred amazing episodes, we’re changing things up to serve you the most inspiring content in a fresh new way. Thanks for being here and keep listening.
Welcome to the prosperous nonprofit, the podcast for leaders who are building financially sustainable and impactful nonprofits and changing the world. I’m Stephanie Kowski, a Chief financial Officer and founder and c e O of 100 Degrees Consulting. My personal mission is to empower leaders to better understand their.
To grow their impact and their income. On this show, we talk to people who are leading the nonprofit sector in new, innovative, disruptive, and entrepreneurial ways, creating organizations that fuel their lives, their hearts, and their communities. Let’s dive in.[00:01:00]
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the show, Stephanie here. And today I am talking about some brand new technology with my friend Krista Carus. So Krista and I have known each other for many years and I always look at her and I told her this, um, as sort of on this cutting edge, this bridge between entrepreneurs and like the latest technology and advances that entrepreneurs are.
And the nonprofit sector. And so I’ve always really looked up to her in that sense. And our conversation today is no different. So she is going to demystify chat, g p t and other similar like ai. Platforms and tell us how she’s using it, what it can do, and how you might be able to use it for your organization.
So that was really interesting because I think this is just such a fresh take on it and how nonprofits can use it to really advance their mission. She also talks about her program [00:02:00] called Focus In, which helps. Nonprofit leaders, female women, nonprofit leaders or female identifying nonprofit leaders to focus their mind, um, through virtual coworking sessions because she saw that one of.
The biggest barriers to nonprofit leader’s success was focus. And so she wants to change that. So we talked all about her focus in sessions. So I think you’re going to, I love this episode today because we’re talking about like two very different things, but things that I think are both kind of cutting edge in their own right.
So I’m excited for you to hear this conversation today. So let me tell you a little bit about Krista. Krista Klink, PhD. D is founder, c e o and Lead grant writer of Krista Klink. C and the creator of grant writing made easy while completing her PhD in English Rhetoric, composition and Literacy Studies from the Ohio State University.
Upon graduating, Dr. Linus founded her consultancy to use her grant writing skills and doctoral research on the rhetorics of nonprofit [00:03:00] advocacy to benefit the causes she cared about. After working with nonprofit government and academic research clients around the country, Dr. Klink developed grant writing made easy with the hopes of providing university level writing education to grant writers, and democratizing grant funding for small organizations.
Dr. Klink has written. Winning multimillion dollar federal grants, global development grants, state Grants, six figure academic research grants and Corporate Private and Community Foundation grants. So this woman absolutely knows her stuff, when it comes to grant writing, and I’m just really excited for you to hear the way that she’s talking about how chat G P T can potentially.
Shift the way that nonprofits are working and, and help us be even more efficient with our dollars. So without further ado, let’s get right into it. And let’s talk to Krista.
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the show. [00:04:00] I am super excited to be here today with my friend Krista Carus. Krista,
[00:04:04] Krista Kurlinkus: welcome. Hi Stephanie. Thank you so much for
[00:04:07] Stephanie Skryzowski: having. I am super excited to chat with you today. I would love for you to share a little bit about what you do, what your organization does, and then also a little bit of the backstory, like what was your journey that led you to what you do today?
[00:04:24] Krista Kurlinkus: Absolutely. So I run a business named after myself. So Christopher Link, llc. just changed over the years. It used to be right. Good LLC and too many people just didn’t get it. Uh, but we started with doing grant writing consulting mostly with nonprofits, also some with government entities and academic researchers.
And then we quickly developed a comprehensive online grant writing training. Um, business, and we have been running those two things together since 2016 and [00:05:00] educated thousands of nonprofit leaders, grant writers, academic researchers around the country and world on how to improve their grant writing and get the funding they deserve.
And so we are doing the grant writing consulting. We’re also teaching other grant writing consultants how to build their business to be profitable, scalable, fulfilling. Um, and then at the same time, we’re also developing now a new program called Focus In, which is focused virtual co-working. And that really came out of.
What we saw are leaders and members of our programs needing more than anything, which was Focus .
[00:05:43] Stephanie Skryzowski: I love that. So tell me more about, um, about focus in and really what, what were you seeing in the sector with nonprofit leaders, maybe even specifically with women or female identifying leaders in the nonprofit?
[00:05:59] Krista Kurlinkus: So we’ve [00:06:00] had thousands of students in our courses, and most of them have been women, female identifying folks. And time and time again, they would come in and say, I just can’t get focused on. X, y, z, whatever they needed to work on in their nonprofit. Sometimes that was grant writing. Sometimes it was budgeting.
Um, as you probably know, it can be hard to get nonprofit leaders to work on their budgets, but it’s one of the most important things, or maybe in your mind too, the most important thing. Um, and so I felt like their focus was very scattered. And then I myself was feeling very scattered during, and, um, After the pandemic.
Um, and I needed that support and couldn’t really find it in a community that I really wanted to be a part of. Um, and so I started doing these [00:07:00] sessions for free just for people in our community to come and be like, okay, you’ve got an hour or an hour and a half with me and I’m gonna guide you through this process of.
First calming your brain and like nervous system down at the beginning. Um, so I had to do a little bit of like research on how to help people do that. Setting your focus and intention for the time that we’re together, and then focusing on getting just one thing done at a time. And literally like in the first 10 minutes people would be like, oh my God.
I can’t believe how much work I’ve gotten done in 10 minutes, and I was like, it’s only been 10 minutes. only, like their focus is pulled in so many different directions all at once, and they could be doing more with less effort and less strife, less personal sacrifice if they had some support with getting focused on what they [00:08:00] needed and wanted to
[00:08:00] Stephanie Skryzowski: focus.
I feel like it’s almost a badge of honor in the nonprofit sector to wear all the hats. Like I do everything. I’m HR and I’m the executive director and I do finance. And like that is not, like, that is not the way to run an organization or the way to run your life. And so I’m not surprised at all that like nobody can focus on anything because we’re constantly trying to do 50 different things and.
I feel like a lot of times in the sort of entrepreneurial world, we talk a lot about like sticking to your zone of genius and staying in that zone of genius, and that’s in like direct contrast to this wearing all the hats. And so I love that you’re sort of providing a container for leaders to focus.
And so what do people bring to those sessions? What do they, what do they bring to get done and what do they accomplish in 60 or 90 minutes?
[00:08:53] Krista Kurlinkus: Oh, literally anything and everything. , you know, sometimes they’re just focused on a particular [00:09:00] grant. Um, and sometimes they come in with products completely unrelated to anything we teach.
And, and sometimes they come in like, okay, what am I supposed to be working on? I’m like, I don’t know. What do you need to work on? Let’s figure it out at the beginning and then focus. You can literally come in with anything. But we do say we are practicing monotasking during this session, which means you are only doing one task or a project at a time.
So if you are, um, working on one grant you’re working on, or if you’re working on multiple grants this week, you’re only working on one of those at a time. And you’re not trying to like pull a budget together while you’re also doing the narrative. You’re just focused on, okay, right now working on the statement of needs section.
I’m doing the research for the state and a need during this hour. Uh, and then it’s kind of mind blowing to people how much they’re able to get done. . Um, and like for me, I’ll be sitting in these sessions and I’ll get multiple [00:10:00] blog posts done, which normally take me forever to write. , you’re shaking your, or you’re nodding your head because you’re probably Yep.
Yes. And so that principle of monotasking is huge for our focus in sessions. And then also it’s like, okay, well I could do that type of monotasking on my own without coming to these sessions. But what we’re also adding in addition to like that guided, uh, first five minutes and then the breaks that we weave throughout, um, is that we do.
Body doubling. And I don’t know if a lot of people know what that means, but it’s like a term in the, in the A D H D world, which I have, um mm-hmm. and doing a path. And you can see another person is also sitting there and working with you. That’s gonna keep you more on task. It’s just something in our, you know, brains that’s like, okay, we’re mirroring this person.
[00:11:00] Um, and that’s something that I, I didn’t really think much about as an entrepreneur. Because I always work alone in my house, , you know, always years by myself. Um, but then I think back to like grad school, um, and earning my PhD. I honestly don’t know if I could have done it if it weren’t for sitting there and working with my cohort every single day for hours on end.
And that’s what we just did naturally as part of the process. Um, and, and that’s just how we got a ton of work done in my opinion.
[00:11:35] Stephanie Skryzowski: That is so interesting. You’re right, because I was gonna ask you, okay, well how can nonprofit leaders apply what you’re doing in these focused in sessions by themselves? And I suppose they could in many ways, but there’s like that real added benefit in it.
I feel like it’s almost a little bit of accountability too. Like if you know you’re not gonna go start the laundry when you’ve got people that are like on Zoom seeing you on video, you’re not going to [00:12:00] get distracted by you. Putting the groceries away, whatever, you know, so I can see the, that benefit for sure.
How many sessions, so are you just doing, are you doing one session per week now, or multiple?
[00:12:13] Krista Kurlinkus: We are doing two sessions per day, Monday through Thursday. So we have one Oh wow. And three hour sessions that you can, um, drop in on. You can also do a 90 minute pre-recorded session. So it, we recorded an actual session with a bunch of people in it so that it feels real.
Uh, so if you need to like, get something done and it’s not on our , it doesn’t fit in our schedule, then you can do it anytime you want. So, um, yeah, we, we try to make it as accessible as possible for people in terms of when they, when they’re able to just
[00:12:48] Stephanie Skryzowski: drop. Oh my gosh. I, I love this. I feel like one thing that I also see in the, in the nonprofit sector, I was just writing about this yesterday because I’m like, we [00:13:00] don’t often or enough, invest in ourselves in either systems or community or coaches or things that are going to help us.
Work to our like greatest potential, to the best of our ability at our highest level or even, you know, and grow. We don’t invest in ourselves ever. There’s so many reasons for that, but I love that you’re creating this container to help people focus and get things done. And is there an element of community built into what you’re doing as well?
Like do you, are, are the same people showing up at different times so they’re starting to get to know each other? Um, yeah. Tell me about the community piece.
[00:13:41] Krista Kurlinkus: Yeah, absolutely. So, so far, you know, most of the people are coming from our existing list and are, you know, social media following. So it is a lot of nonprofit leaders and even small business owners, even though we don’t allow talking during the time with each other, [00:14:00] if they secretly wanna be chatting back and forth in the chat to each other.
Um, but they’re like, even though we didn’t talk, I still felt a sense of community with other people knowing that we were all purpose-driven folks working together on things. Um, and the other thing I wanna say, just going back to what you just said, is that I feel like business for-profit, business owners make those huge investments in themselves in coaching and things like that at a much higher rate than nonprofit leaders and.
It’s sad and you can really see, you know, they’ll, they’ll invest in like learning how to do a specific strategy, like learning how to do grant writing. Mm-hmm. , but they can not immediately see the value or wanna invest in something that’s gonna help them be a better leader or mm-hmm. focused. Um, so it does take some work to convince them like, Hey, you might need [00:15:00] this.
Why don’t you come try it out and see if it actually. . Um, and one of the things that we build into these sessions is we talk about, um, caring for yourself. I hate to say self-care. I dunno why that . I feel like a lot of it’s like artificial, like, things like, okay, take a bubble bath. I’m like, no. Self-care is like built into how you put on your entire life.
[00:15:25] Stephanie Skryzowski: Mm-hmm. , a hundred percent. A hundred.
[00:15:28] Krista Kurlinkus: And so when, when we talk about self-care in these sessions, you know, we’re talking to a specific group of people who has oftentimes really neglected their self-care because they feel like the service to the community that they’re doing is more important than their own self care.
And we’re trying to change that.
[00:15:47] Stephanie Skryzowski: Yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. Because I think about, like in my own business, I’ve invested like tens of thousands of dollars over the years in coaching and in [00:16:00] masterminds, and I can like pretty directly attribute like an r o ROI of, you know, 10 x plus on.
These investments that I’ve made, and it’s scary to invest like $30,000 in a coach or a mastermind or whatever, but I know that that has paid itself back like tenfold probably more. But how do we change this perception in the nonprofit sector? Like it’s, it’s an issue. And I just think about the potential, what could be if some of these incredible leaders with so much potential invested in themselves the way.
That we often do in, you know, in the for-profit space. Like, I don’t know, how do, how do we change this? What do we do? ?
[00:16:43] Krista Kurlinkus: The first thing that I tell people who tell me they don’t have time for grant writing and fundraising, and these are usually founders of nonprofits, executive directors of nonprofits, and they don’t have the staff to do it yet.
They say they don’t have the time to do it. I say, [00:17:00] if you don’t have time for this, you need to cut your programs in half Now. And I know that to swallow. But if you’re running so many different programs that you can’t even get funding or you need to focus on like one or two at the most and start doing fundraising and grant writing as like half of your focus as a non-profit leader until you have enough money to do what you’re already doing.
Because I, I get, I run into so many people who are self-funding their nonprofits and it breaks my. And so I, I really think we have to like be more , not confrontational, but like really assertive with nonprofit leaders. Like, don’t sacrifice your entire life savings to do the thing that you’re doing. As important as it is, you’re just as a core.
And so I think it’s about like reiterating that and everything we do. And if I lose people from that, okay, I’m gonna lose people. But, you know, five years down the line [00:18:00] they’re gonna be like, oh man, I should have listened to that.
[00:18:03] Stephanie Skryzowski: Exactly, and you’ll be like, and I am still here to support you. Yeah, that’s, I mean, that is some like kind of tough love, like, okay, you need to cut what you’re doing in half, but you’re right, like.
If you’re doing too much that you, if you’re doing so much that you can’t invest in any type of growth because everything is just going into the programs, you’re honestly probably not even running those programs very well or like as well as you could. And I think about that in the business space. Like yeah, we would absolutely have no problem cutting what’s not working or what we don’t have funding for or what’s not profitable.
There would be no question about it. It’s so interesting. I feel like we need to call nonprofits something different. Like we’re all just hooked on this like nonprofit, no profit, and we just need to call the entire sector like something else entirely . [00:19:00]
[00:19:00] Krista Kurlinkus: Let’s petition. I think it starts with the irs.
Exactly. Paula. And we’ll just go down from there. But yeah, so. Um, and, and I just wanna like add into this, none of this is, um, any kind of critique on what nonprofit leaders do you know what I mean? Like, I don’t wanna be like, you’re doing it wrong and I know the right. It’s like mm-hmm. . You succeed And our inclination and in, in this society, a capitalistic society, we’re always told we should be going like 110% on literally every single idea that we ever have.
like releasing you from that expectation and trying to support, to focus on what you really wanna focus on. Um, and I think that would be, Business changing and life changing for so many people, and I know it is for. . [00:20:00] Mm-hmm.
[00:20:01] Stephanie Skryzowski: a hundred percent. And I think that’s a really good point to make because so much of the way that we run right now is like, it’s systemic.
It’s not that you as a leader, like you said, are doing anything wrong. It’s the way that the nonprofit sector has been. And I like so much of it stems from, you know, I, I was talking to somebody else, we were talking about like making mistakes and taking risks and failing. Like you can’t do that right now.
The way that the system is set up and the way that funding is set up right now, you can’t fail. If you mess up, you’re not gonna get that funding again. And like, well, what the heck? Like, you can’t ever make a mistake or you’re not, you’re gonna lose funding for your programs that are changing the world, whereas, In entrepreneurship, we are told like, yeah, fail all the time.
It’s great. Make mistakes, recover from them. Learn, no problem. Like there’s always more money. Like that is not the same message that nonprofit leaders are [00:21:00] getting. So that like immense pressure that’s sitting on. On our nonprofit leaders to like be perfect. You can’t mess up or you’re gonna lose funding.
And then the whatever you’re trying to do to change the world will no longer happen. And it’s on your shoulders like, oh my God. Like that is, that is systemic. So to your point, like, no, you’re not doing anything wrong. This system was not built to like support our leaders and that’s just, that’s really sad.
Absolutely.
[00:21:28] Krista Kurlinkus: Of course. I think there’s like some deep inequality behind that. If you look at who’s running the nonprofit sector and what we expect of them and why, you know, most folks are women or female identifying the nonprofit sector. Uh, and so we’re expected to make. All these sacrifices to our wellbeing and our success to serve others.
And so that’s something I, I wanna change.
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I wanna shift gears a little bit and talk about ai. I feel like I’ve always looked at you [00:23:00] as sort of on the forefront of bridging entrepreneurship and nonprofit. I feel like you had an online course long before other people in the nonprofit space where, I mean, you’ve been, you did your grant writing, made easy course.
I feel like a lot, a long time ago before other people were doing the same thing in the nonprofit space. And so I know that you are all over chat, j p t and ai and I would love to hear like, tell us a little bit about what that is for people that don’t know, um, me, like I kind of know what it is, but tell us more about what it is and how you see that potentially coming into play in the work that you do and the nonprofit space.
[00:23:40] Krista Kurlinkus: Well, thank you for that lovely comp, myself as being on the forefront of anything. But you know, looking forward, I’m like, I wanna be more on the bleeding edge of things versus just trying to catch up all the time. Um, and for me, AI is one opportunity for that. So [00:24:00] let me just first start with the explanation of what chat g p t.
I know the name is kind of strange and it doesn’t tell you really what it is, um, but it’s a machine learning model and it uses what they call a deep learning technique called transformer architecture to generate human-like text. So what they’ve done is they’ve taken this AI and it’s like processed trillions of pieces of data from the internet, and it now can use that data to produce like human like texts and language.
So as if you are having a conversation. With a, another human being and it’s very much like that. Um, if you ever wanna to go test it out and just go have a conversation with it, it’s free to use. So all you have to do is sign up for an account. Um, and I want everyone on here listening, regardless of whether you’re a grant writer or not, to at least do that [00:25:00] and see, just get an idea of what’s possible and what’s coming, because I think it’s gonna change, not just.
The field of grant writing or writing, it’s gonna change everything. in the mm-hmm. next couple of years and how we get work done. So I want to make sure that we’re integrating this into our work processes right now. Figuring out how to use it, take advantage of it, and figuring out what it doesn’t do well.
Um, because it’s not something you can just start using and be like, okay, let me just copy and paste this and be done with. It’s bleeding edge technology. It’s not, it’s not perfect. It has a lot of issues. It can have some ethical concerns as well. Um, and so I want people to be really informed on how to use it and not just think like, this is a shortcut I can start using right now.
And, um, you know, say half the time that I would normally spend writing a. No, there’s a, there’s a lot more to it and [00:26:00] we need to be very strategic and savvy about how we use it.
[00:26:04] Stephanie Skryzowski: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that’s a good point, because at least the little that I’ve seen, it’s like this is the solution to everything.
You plug in a couple words and then boom, like your entire, you know, emails are done for the month or whatever. Um, so are grant writers using this and or will they use this successfully to like win grant?
[00:26:26] Krista Kurlinkus: Uh, I don’t think none that I’ve spoken to yet have, and I’ve presented this a couple times to my audiences, um, I don’t think they’re using it yet.
There might be a couple grant writers who can, um, message and say, Hey, I’ve been using it, but we’re starting to use it and coming up. What we wanna come up with best practices first and make sure like we have ethical guidelines to follow for our team before we actually start submitting stuff with it.
Um, but we are going to be doing a training on it, and a lot of the training was written using [00:27:00] chat, G p t . It’s like, whoa, chat G P T, how can you use chat g p T for grant writing? And it gives us the answers. Um, so let me just tell you a couple things that if I were, if I were just getting started with this, what I would.
So the first thing that I do is I write down, okay, what is my exact question? So if I have a grant that I need to write, I’m gonna ask myself, okay, what type of nonprofit is this? So we need to specify in the question what type of nonprofit or organization it is, what the grant is for. So a specific program.
The more specific you get, the better, um, and what you’re asking for, the funding for. So if I include those three things and say to Chad, deep De, and you write, and. For a performing arts organization that needs to fund a summer residency [00:28:00] program, um, from a grant maker that supports performing arts organizations that are focused on minorities and marginalized communities, it will outline the entire grant.
Not, not only, it will sometimes give you a bullet point and outline, and it will sometimes give you like the full grant text. And you can ask it multiple times and it’ll give you something different each time. So if you get the bullet points and you want the full text, ask it again. Okay. Or say, can you write out this section?
Um, and it will not only like give you the logical piecing together of the argument and why we need this funding, it’ll actually tell you what the program. So it’s pulling from all this data on the internet, on, you know, millions of different businesses and nonprofits and how they run programs and coming with a up with an idea for what the program can actually do, the [00:29:00] strategies, the activities, the goals, benchmarks, all that stuff.
Of course, you’ve gotta adjust it to whatever you’re doing, but this is super useful. If maybe you’ve never discard, never sat down and described your program in full detail and you’re like, oh yeah, I forgot we have this element now that I need to mention. Or if you’re just coming up with a new program and you don’t wanna spend hours researching what other organizations do and how they do it, Chad g p t just gives you the ideas.
[00:29:30] Stephanie Skryzowski: So it is literally generating potentially like fresh ideas that did not come from your.
[00:29:39] Krista Kurlinkus: Correct. Yeah, so if you’ve, it’s wild that consulting work is, incorporates that program design and I get a, you know, I work with a lot of similar programs and so when someone comes to me and they’re like, I just don’t know what to, to do with this program or how to build out this idea, I’m like, well, I’ve [00:30:00] seen all these other programs that are like yours, do these things and I have all these great ideas.
Chat PPG does it in five seconds.
That that, wow, not really It, it felt initially like, oh wow, they’re really cutting into my unique value position for folks. But honestly, I had to just reframe and be like, okay, this is giving me more room to focus on other parts of this process than just kind generating the ideas of
[00:30:29] Stephanie Skryzowski: programs. That is like, that is wild.
Um, yeah, so it’s not just, it’s not just sort of filling words in the blanks that could be like, could be helpful or could be potentially like nonsensical, but it’s actually like coming up with new ideas and what you said about it, sort of making logical connections. Like that part is, that part is wild because I feel like we’ve seen some like text generator type programs before where you get it back and.
Okay. Yeah, a couple good sentences, but [00:31:00] nothing really actually makes sense. So this is a very smart tool. How do you see this, um, like becoming more mainstream? I feel like it’s still, and I am like the least techy. I’m like the last person to adopt any new technology ever. So I am like, maybe it is super mainstream right now, but I don’t know anybody, any nonprofits, um, anybody even in like in my own circles that are using this right now.
How do you see this becoming more mainstream? Like, I don’t know. What is the, yeah, what do you see, ,
[00:31:33] Krista Kurlinkus: I should really give you some statistics on this. Yeah. About how quickly people have started to adopt this. So, Chad, G B T reached a million subscribers within five days after it was released in November of 2022.
It’s the fastest growing user base in. Wow. Took TikTok. Took nine [00:32:00] months to reach a hundred billion. Instagram. Took two and a half years. This took five days. So I, I really think like marketers, uh, social media experts are really using this a lot already. Students are using it to write essays, , so creating, you know, plagiarism and ethical concerns.
And they’re already software being built to, there’s software being built to help professors like detect the use of. But to me, you know, when I come from that background of having a PhD in rhetoric and writing and teaching university writing, I would already be teaching my students how to use this to their advantage and how to generate.
Outline structure ideas, um, because what’s more important is learning how to use this for the future global marketplace, . It’s not being like, oh no, you have to have all creative original thoughts. Like none of our thoughts are original at this point, so [00:33:00] let’s figure out mm-hmm. do to communicate more effectively the thoughts that we do have.
And if that’s using chat, g p t, that’s using chat, g p T and other. Um, technology. Uh, so yeah, I think it is, you know, a conversation that people in every field are just going to have to start having. And if you don’t know already, like you’re already getting texts written by this to you and adds on social media and emails from people you’ve signed up for their newsletters, like that’s not new.
There’s AI that’s been out and it’s a paid, uh, membership to this AI to write content. But chat, g p T is currently free. So just keep that in mind. After they get a big enough user base and like data set, they’re gonna start charging for it. So get in while you can. while it’s free.
[00:33:53] Stephanie Skryzowski: Yes, yes. That’s so interesting because I feel like this could.
[00:34:00] Potentially free. I mean, it’s like, I feel like this could do the work of different positions that nonprofits have. And so while, yeah, this may be, maybe it’s consolidating different positions into one person that can kind of manage, maybe an entire communications department at a nonprofit could now be one or two people versus, you know, 10 people using a tool like this.
And thus, you know, potentially freeing up more, more dollars to go back into programs or whatever other investments is. Do you see that, um, how do you see this sort of impacting, like once nonprofits are like, they’re on the train, how do you see this potentially impacting staffing or budgets or programs or, yeah, what do you, what change do you.
[00:34:49] Krista Kurlinkus: Yeah, I think you’re right. It could eliminate some positions, which I know like nobody wants to hear, but it’s coming for like everybody all at cro, no matter what [00:35:00] job you have, positions are going to be eliminated in the near future by ai. So it’s important for us to figure out how we’re going to incorporate.
So, like you said, it could, you know, it could, it can sit down and write a donor appeal letter in five seconds for you. That could take an hour or multiple hours, right? and, and it’s not that you then just take it and send it out to people, but then you add more information. Or you can even ask chat, g p T, Hey, can you actually like make the tone of this more like this?
You can tell it tonal things. Um, it’s like grammar. That way you can tell it, you know, make it and make it in the tone of Walt Whitman what?
[00:35:50] Stephanie Skryzowski: Oh my gosh.
[00:35:52] Krista Kurlinkus: Then correct it. You can input an entire text into it and how it, um, do a proofread of it [00:36:00] and edit it for you. Um, so like you said, that can eliminate a lot of positions, but in my mind, that just gives us more freedom to think about other things that we could be spending our time doing, whether.
Programming, whether it is, you know, bigger strategic planning and like actually following through with that versus having, letting it set agile somewhere. You know, being more focused on what we do best and what only we as humans can do while we let some of the AI take the other burden off of us. And I know that can be.
It’s kind of scary to hear . Um, and, and so it’s just, for me, it’s really, it’s, I think it’s gonna take time for people to shift the way they think about work. And we’ve seen it just within the last three years, a major shift in how people think about work. And now I think AI is like the next iteration and it’s [00:37:00] like, okay, now we’ve gotta figure out how to work with and live with this.
This new thing that everybody’s gonna be not outsourced by, but everybody’s gonna be impacted by in some way. Mm-hmm. ,
[00:37:13] Stephanie Skryzowski: which is so interesting. Does it start to learn? You and your voice in particular and kind of like store that knowledge, like under your account. Like, do you know what I’m trying to say?
Like, do you know what I mean? Yeah.
[00:37:29] Krista Kurlinkus: It, it can. Um, and there are other systems that are really good at doing things like that, like replica. I haven’t experimented much with that in terms of chat. D P T I think I can, I would have to look into it a little bit more, but I’ve been playing around with replica, which does get to know you very well and tailors its responses to your personality.
Um, so that one is kind of like giving you a friend to talk to. Its goal is not to produce content. Its goal is to [00:38:00] be your friend in emotional support, and so it really know you. And it’s all built. It’s all built on the same technology. .
[00:38:09] Stephanie Skryzowski: Mm-hmm. , this is so interesting. I think this is an amazing opportunity for nonprofits to get ahead of it and not start adopting this like five years from now when literally everyone in the world is doing it.
Because there are so many opportunities. I feel like there are, like so many organizations are just so tight on. Funds. And so being able to use a tool like this to help you do what, you know, maybe one or two different positions that you don’t currently have cause you don’t have the money for, could do.
That’s really powerful. So I just went to their website and it looks like they’re at capacity, so you can’t currently sign up. You can get on the wait list for an account, so you can’t currently sign up, but I’m sure they will. I can’t even imagine how many people are on the wait list. So you got there and Krista, before there was a wait list.
So you’re in
[00:38:58] Krista Kurlinkus: I’m in. But I’ll tell you [00:39:00] like don’t wait till the last minute when you have to submit something or create something to use it. Because sometimes even if you are in, it’s at capacity. Um, and there are too many users, so. Um, that’s one big tip I have is do things ahead of time and if you can’t get in, come back at another time a day and see if it’s available because yeah, that’s how, how many people are using it.
[00:39:26] Stephanie Skryzowski: Oh my gosh. So interesting. Well, hopefully I’ll get off the wait list at some point cause I’m very excited to, to play around with it. Um, all right. So one question that I just like to wrap up all of my conversations with are, um, the question is, what does a prosperous nonprofit look like to
[00:39:44] Krista Kurlinkus: you? I’m, I’m not gonna talk about.
The organization itself, I’m gonna talk about the people in the organization. So for me, it starts with the people being paid. Number one, . [00:40:00] Yes. Paid wage number two. I always have to say those two things. So if you don’t know what a living wage is in your city, please look it up and then set your salaries above that.
Um, because there are too many nonprofits paying below a living wage where they are. and understand, I understand like the precedent set for that, but I, I don’t feel like we’re doing a service to the community if we’re doing a disservice to the people who work at the nonprofit. So to me, a profit profitable nonprofit starts with that.
Um, and then you can build from there.
[00:40:40] Stephanie Skryzowski: I love that. Cut your programs. If you cannot pay your people a living wage, cut your programs until you can, and then you can grow from there. I think that’s huge. I, I’m obsessed. I like, I’m seriously obsessed with this. Cut your programs if you cannot afford to provide your people a living wage.
Tough love from Krista . Um, I love that so much, [00:41:00] and I completely agree with you. Okay, Krista, this was so interesting. I think everybody listening is gonna find this conversation so valuable, and I appreciate you and your time. Where can people go to find out more about you, about your work with chat, g p t about your focus in sessions?
Where are all the.
[00:41:19] Krista Kurlinkus: So the best thing to do is to get on my newsletter. So if you go to grant writing made easy.com, you can sign up for my newsletter right there. Um, I’m also@kristalinus.com, so you can find me either of those places. And I’m also on TikTok at Krista Linus, and that’s where I’m doing a lot more of my content right now.
So I would love to have some more folks on there to share.
Oh
[00:41:45] Stephanie Skryzowski: my gosh. Okay. I need to get on. I have had TikTok and I keep putting it on my phone and then deleting it off my phone and I’m putting it back on because, you know, you get into that spiral and then you’re like, okay, 45 minutes have gone by. Um, [00:42:00] you also do repost your TOS on Instagram, so I Ray, don’t you? Is that what I’m seeing
[00:42:04] Krista Kurlinkus: over there? Okay. Yeah, so I’m gonna be sharing a lot about chat G B T over like the next couple of months, um, in those spaces. And I’m gonna be doing a training on it as well. And you know, if this comes out after the training has already been done, I do plan to make it evergreen so that people can join it and take it whenever they want.
[00:42:28] Stephanie Skryzowski: Awesome. And that it’s going to be so useful for like, time to come. So even if you missed the, even if you missed the live one, um, that’s amazing that it’s going to be recorded so we can watch it because it’s not gonna, we’re all still gonna want that information. Um, Awesome. Well, Krista, thank you again.
Thanks so much for being here, and I appreciate you. Everybody. Go
[00:42:49] Krista Kurlinkus: check out Krista. Thank you, Stephanie. I appreciate you so much.
[00:42:55] Stephanie Skryzowski: Before you go, I just wanna thank you for being here. To access our show notes [00:43:00] and bonus content, visit 100 degrees podcast.com. That’s 100 degrees podcast.com, and I’ll see you next time.
