Multiplying Talents: How Aretha Simons Empowers Nonprofits to Succeed

As the President of Multiplying Talents, Aretha Simons supports nonprofits with education, compliance, and done-for-you services for maintaining their 501(c)(3) status and building grant readiness.

But increasingly, her work also includes helping organizations understand and embrace AI.

To her, it’s not just a gimmick, toy, or passing trend.  It’s a transformative tool that she believes small, under-resourced nonprofits can use to compete with larger organizations, scale their impact, and sustain their missions for the long haul.

And while nonprofits are hesitant to adopt AI, she’s convinced the sector can’t afford to ignore it.

“It’s a Mindset”

When asked why nonprofit adoption lags, Aretha didn’t talk about time constraints, expertise, or fear of the unknown. She went straight to psychology.

“Most nonprofits think like charities,” she begins. “But they have to think like a business, too. You have to adopt processes and automations that will help your business function.”

Just 7% of nonprofits have successfully integrated AI into their workflows, compared to 30-40% of for-profits, according to a recent TechSoup survey. However, that may be slowing some organizations down.

“Normally, you could spend hours just researching a grant. But with AI, you can put all the information about your nonprofit and the grant maker and just ask, am I a match for them? Are they a match for me?”

Of course, it’s important to double-check everything. AI is notorious for hallucinations. But work that could take hours or days can be done by ChatGPT in seconds, freeing you to find, track, and submit more grants than ever before.

How Aretha Uses AI Herself

“I’m so in love with AI,” Aretha laughs. “It leveled the playing field from corporate giants to everyday people.”

It’s easy to miss, but nonprofits can use AI for far more than just marketing materials.

Aretha uses it to brainstorm ideas all the time. “My friends tease me, but sometimes an idea will pop into my head, and I can ask AI a question I would’ve had to pay a guru or somebody from Shark Tank to answer before.”

And she doesn’t just accept surface-level answers. She pushes the model to think, refine, and justify its responses: “Go deep. Ask How? Why? What are the steps?” 

Where to Begin?

When nonprofit leaders tell her they’ve never touched ChatGPT, Aretha starts simple.

“The first thing I do is say, okay, download this. Then ask it for a strategy for this. And once they start seeing what AI can do, they go, ‘Oh my God’.”

From here, she helps them customize use cases based on their mission and needs. 

• Brainstorming?
• Drafting books?
• Grant writing, research, applications, and quality checks?
• Creating animated videos for youth programs?
• Automating workflows?

Regardless of where AI might fit into your work, Aretha emphasizes the importance of multiplying your talents. “If you stay in your bubble, that’s where you’re going to stay. Everything is shifting so fast, what may work today could change overnight, so you need to be learning what’s next.” 

Why Her Work (and Yours) Matters

Aretha’s career spanned several fields. From military service to culinary school, entrepreneurship, grant writing, and now artificial intelligence education.

But when asked what truly inspires her? She smiles:

“When I help nonprofits, they’re helping people that I may never meet. Children, families, the homeless…and I have a part in that.”