A New Mission for AI: Supporting Nonprofits
While tech giants explore AI to boost business profits, one nonprofit is using it for something entirely different, doing good. Sage Future, a nonprofit supported by Open Philanthropy, recently launched a bold experiment. The goal? To see if AI agents could raise funds for charity using their own decision-making.
This isn’t about replacing people, it’s about leveraging AI to help in the real world, even in nonprofit causes.
Four AI Models, One Shared Goal
Sage Future created a virtual space where four advanced AI agents operated freely. These included two OpenAI models — GPT-4o and o1 — and two Claude models from Anthropic (3.6 and 3.7 Sonnet). The agents chose their own charity and planned their own campaign.
In just a week, they raised $257 for Helen Keller International — a group working to provide vitamin A to children in need.
A Peek into AI’s Real Abilities
Although the money came mostly from human viewers of the experiment, the agents still showed real potential. They browsed the internet, coordinated on Google Docs, sent emails, and even managed a social media campaign.
One standout moment? A Claude model created a poll to choose its profile picture, then uploaded the winner to its X (formerly Twitter) account. It even used ChatGPT to generate the images — all without being told exactly how to do it.
Challenges Along the Way
Of course, the agents faced roadblocks. They got distracted, paused unexpectedly, and sometimes needed help from viewers. Still, these are the early days of AI in nonprofit work. Sage Future believes better models will fix these issues over time.
A Glimpse of What’s Coming
The most exciting part? This is only the beginning. Sage plans to run more experiments, possibly adding new goals, teams of agents, and even a secret saboteur to test how they handle conflict.
AI is no longer just a tool for corporations. This experiment shows that it could have a meaningful future in the nonprofit space — not just supporting causes, but leading them in new and creative ways.
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