Should I ask ChatGPT to write my new Volunteering Strategy?

Asked by Eileen Hayes

Eileen says:

“We actually tried this and it came up with something pretty close to our current strategy. Which I guess is because our strategy is based on accepted good practice which Chat GPT has aggregated in its search. It looks like an interesting tool but I’m not sure it would manage a NEW strategy – it is presumably just recycling existing ideas from the internet. Or maybe not and it will take over the world with a rogue band of volunteers….“

Chat GPT can be a lot of fun. For example, I asked it to write a haiku on volunteer management and it came up with this:

Volunteers unite,

Guided by skilled management,

Impact amplified. 

I really like that.

But, despite all the hype Chat GPT isn’t artificial intelligence. It’s a machine-learning program that scours the web for information that responds to queries. Sometimes it can be quite accurate, sometimes less so, as colleague Jayne Cravens recently highlighted.

So, Eileen, I would certainly encourage you to use a tool like Chat GPT in your work. For example, it can be used to generate ideas for a blog post, come up with cutesy poems for volunteer recognition events, suggest good practice solutions to issues you face which you can then explore in more depth and much more.

I would not, however, suggest it is used to generate volunteer strategies.

Why?

The software behind Chat GPT cannot know the wider organisational strategy, the drivers for this (internal and external), and other key information which has informed it, into which the volunteering strategy must feed. It cannot see the links and inter-relationships that provide the nuance and complexity to the issues you face. It cannot empathise or gain an emotional understanding of the relationships that are at the heart of your work.

As you rightly say, ChatGPT can aggregate data effectively and churn out something useful. In that sense, it can be a valuable and fun tool to use in our work. But it isn’t a person, and it doesn’t have lived experience of volunteer engagement. I’d no more trust it to write a volunteer strategy than I would trust my dog to fly a plane.

I think our jobs are safe for now!

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Now it’s over to you.

How would you answer Eileen’s question?

Leave a comment with your ideas and don’t forget to ask your own question by emailing Rob now — rob@robjacksonconsulting.com, with the subject line “Ask Rob Anything“