AI Notice

Leveraging Artificial Intelligence in the PDC

Philanthropy Data Commons® (PDC) is developing and testing responsible ways to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) as part of our work to reduce administrative burden, improve data quality, and make philanthropic information easier to find and use.

Our goal is to use the strengths of AI to accelerate our work to bridge data silos and access. AI functionality will help funders, changemakers, and their partners share reliable information more easily on their existing systems, with their existing data and files — and on their own terms.

How we are using and harnessing AI

In addition to best practices around AI tools in support of software development efforts, PDC is developing AI-enabled functional capabilities that can:

  • Extract, organize, map, and move information from existing documents such as PDFs, Word files, and spreadsheets into shared actionable data for the sector.
  • Identify potential data inconsistencies, duplicate records, outdated data, additional insights, and related optimizations combined with human confirmation.
  • Improve search, discovery, and recommendations across similar, but different sector terminology.
  • Adapt and translate approved data to move securely through PDC and the systems organizations already use.
  • Support and connect existing workflows without requiring programmatic changes such as drafting, data analysis, and conversational search.
  • Provide additional connection options targeted for AI-powered systems and end-user AI applications to find, pull, and send data to the PDC.

These capabilities are being developed and tested through structured pilots, user feedback, ongoing evaluation, and iteration.

Our commitments

As this work develops, PDC is committed to:

  • Human oversight and escalation: When AI is used to extract or structure contributed information, people will be able to review and validate it before it is committed to PDC.
  • Organizational control: Organizations determine what information they share and how it may be used.
  • Privacy and security: AI-enabled features will follow PDC’s established permissions, consent, and data-use practices.
  • Transparency: We will communicate where AI is being used, what it is designed to do, and its known limitations.
  • Equitable participation: We will pay particular attention to bias, misrepresentation, and the needs of organizations with limited capacity or technical resources.

The role — and limits — of AI

PDC does not make grants or funding decisions. Its AI-enabled capabilities are intended to accelerate and help organizations contribute, find, understand, adapt, and exchange information — not determine which organizations should receive funding.

AI-generated or AI-structured information may be incomplete or inaccurate and should be reviewed before it is relied upon. We will continue to learn from participating organizations and update this notice as PDC’s capabilities evolve.

Questions or feedback? Contact the PDC team.