Keep a human hand on the wheel.
AI Training & Governance
The Mundanehas a new trick. It offers your team a shiny genie that grants wishes — write this grant report, draft that email, summarize these notes. And the genie delivers, which is exactly why it's dangerous: staff start feeding it the org's secrets, and every so often it lies out loud, confidently and in your name. That's Chaos wearing a helpful smile — the hallucination, the leaked donor list, the embarrassing headline.
AI can be a genuine force-multiplier for a lean team. The trick is to take the wishes without getting cursed. The Crew does it by writing one short pact and keeping a human hand on the wheel. (Our founder co-authored the City of Long Beach's Generative AI Guidance — the same playbook, scaled to your size.)
AI is a tool, not an oracle. Use it boldly — but keep a human hand on the wheel and your values in the driver's seat. Don't let a robot speak for the people we serve.
I literally automate away busywork for a living, so trust me: never feed me secrets you wouldn't post publicly, and never ship my output unread. One page of rules, an approved-tools list, training-data settings off. That's governance. #AutomateThis!
The Crew's playbook: a one-page AI use policy
You don't need a 40-page framework. You need one page your whole team will actually read. Start with these five rules:
- 1
Never paste sensitive data into consumer AI tools
No donor records, client PII, health info, or anything confidential into free public chatbots. Treat the chat box like a postcard — assume someone could read it.
- 2
A human reviews anything that goes public
AI drafts; people approve. Nothing AI-written reaches a donor, grantor, or the public without a human checking it first.
- 3
Keep an approved-tools list
Name the specific AI tools staff may use, and the settings to use them with. "Use AI" is not a policy; a short list is.
- 4
Disclose AI-generated content where it matters
Be honest when content is AI-assisted, especially imagery and anything attributed to a person or beneficiary.
- 5
Protect your org's data settings
Turn off training/data-retention where the vendor allows it, and prefer tools that offer a business tier with a data processing agreement.
Avoiding embarrassment
AI fails in specific, predictable ways. Name them so your team can catch them:
- Hallucinations — it invents facts, names, and citations that sound right. Verify anything factual before it's public.
- Bias — it can reflect stereotypes. For mission-driven work, read with a critical eye and a diversity lens.
- Voice drift — generic AI text can flatten your org's warmth. Edit it back into your own voice.
- Speaking for others — never let AI put words in the mouths of beneficiaries or generate their likeness without consent.
Training your team
Policy without literacy is just a poster. Spend an hour helping staff understand what AI is good at, where it fails, and how to use the approved tools well. A free place to start: our LearnAI course — a no-cost, no-login interactive AI literacy course with a voice-powered guide.
How Chaos & The Mundane win
- No policy at all — every staffer improvising their own rules.
- Banning AI outright, which just drives it into the shadows on personal accounts.
- Pasting donor data, client info, or case notes into free public chatbots.
- Publishing AI output nobody fact-checked — and inheriting its mistakes.
Common questions
▸ Should we just ban AI to be safe?
No — banning AI usually backfires. Staff use it anyway on personal accounts, where you have zero visibility or controls ("shadow AI"). A short, clear use policy plus an approved tool is far safer than a ban nobody follows.
▸ What's the one rule that prevents most AI data leaks?
Never paste confidential or personal data — donor records, client info, health details — into consumer AI tools. Many free tools may use your inputs to train their models. If it shouldn't go on a postcard, it shouldn't go in the chat box.
▸ How do we stop AI from embarrassing us?
Keep a human in the loop. AI can hallucinate (state false things confidently) and carry bias. Fact-check anything public, watch for biased or off-brand output, and never let AI speak on behalf of the people you serve without their consent.
▸ Do we really need a written AI policy if we're small?
Yes, and it can fit on one page. A small team is exactly where one informal decision becomes everyone's habit. A one-page policy — what's allowed, what's never allowed, and which tools to use — takes an afternoon and prevents most problems.
The next leg of the journey
Prefer a story? See these ideas play out in our comic-book field guide.
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