Centering Humans and Community in New Tech and AI Related Investments

By Scott Emerick, Executive Director, GreenLight Fund Philadelphia 

We won’t be the first or last to recognize the urgency of the moment for philanthropic investments in new technology and AI for social impact. It feels clear that AI will significantly impact economic mobility. It remains less certain if AI will improve equity of opportunity.

Our core GreenLight Fund values and commitment to remaining rooted in the community during our investment process lends a unique perspective to meet this moment. Our values drove recent GreenLight Philadelphia investments in Basta and Hopeworks. These values will drive the way we consider human-centered and community-driven investments in new technology moving forward. 

Consistent conversations in our community and with our Selection Advisory Council here in Philadelphia have centered on four core principles critical to ensuring that tech and AI investments achieve more equitable and sustainable impact. 

1) Prioritize Mission Impact Before Tech Innovation

We are investing in mission-focused nonprofits with proven impact. Technology is a means for these organizations to extend and grow their impact. We are not prioritizing investments in technology innovations for the sake of tech. Instead, we prioritize proven social impact organizations that are using technology to achieve their mission and grow their impact with (not for, and not to) our communities. 

Spending time with young people, staff, Board members and partners of Hopeworks and Basta makes a foundational truth for both organizations clear. Hopeworks and Basta are not tech orgs trying to figure out social solutions related to their tech priorities. 

These are organizations with origin stories and cultures deeply rooted in caring adults, community connections, youth development, more equitable distribution of social capital, employer partnerships, trauma-informed care, deep learning, and proactive guidance and relationships with young people. Technology is used in service to these core values and the commitments of both organizations.

Tech organizations searching for users to demonstrate the viability, marketability and sustainability of a new tech product or approach is fundamentally different from working with communities in search of their own solutions. Shared community solutions increasingly relate to innovative new technology, but new tech itself is not the foundational goal. The tech innovations we support are a means toward a shared end of access to better and more equitable opportunities in our community.

2) Support Human-Centered Tech Innovation

We are investing in mission-focused nonprofits that go well beyond technology innovation with “humans in the loop.” World-class social impact organizations center humans in experiences throughout every phase of technology use, feedback and innovation. 

It’s become common for developers to describe integrating “humans in the loop” of new tech products and tools. While approaches vary, the general idea is that humans can actively engage in AI systems to correct mistakes and intervene to improve the reliability of AI output. Integrating human judgement into a variety of machine learning processes and outputs is necessary and useful, but insufficient for our communities. 

For first-generation college students and job seekers from communities that have historically been excluded from professional opportunity, trusted guidance, professional relationships and connections to their communities matter deeply, both in real life and in evolving AI-enabled environments. 

For instance, Basta’s support is customized to every first-generation college student. Basta’s AI-enabled career navigation tool, Seekr, ensures that supports are differentiated and job boards are customized based on the details students share about themselves and their unique needs and interests in their career journeys.

More than 80,000 students have taken the Seekr assessment. Basta can now analyze more than eight million data points on the first-generation student experiences. Basta’s learning and emerging insights consistently shape the career exploration, exposure, and guidance students receive from trusted advisors, employer partners, and postsecondary leaders. Those relationships can grow into lifelong sources of support and opportunity. These people are more than “in the loop.” They expand students’ social capital and help them navigate meaningful careers in the communities where they live, work, and lead. 

Since launching in 2016, and since launching Seekr in 2020, Basta has maintained its commitment to listening and understanding the experiences of young people. Our newly launched work with Basta in Philly builds from a foundational understanding of how young people experience job seeking and the complexity of their engagement with AI. Basta works because the organization starts from a place of real curiosity and authentic learning.

Sheila Sarem, Basta CEO and Founder, commented, “Access to technology and AI-leveraged data is becoming a commodity. The real value lies in trusted synthesis, field-leveling connections, and the wrappers of guidance, context, and support that help specific populations put that technology and data to use. That is why organizations like ours exist.” 

3) Ensure Equity Includes Agency

We are investing in an equity agenda that ensures community members with low-incomes are doing more than accessing baseline tech and achieving foundational AI literacy goals. Instead of being considered passive recipients of tech and AI tools, participants in the programs we support are empowered as leaders with agency to drive creation and innovation of new technology tools and approaches. 

For instance, Hopeworks leads incredible work with partners like Dell to build new curriculum approaches for young people to leverage AI for better career development pathways.

Hopeworks is using new AI approaches to provide proactive interview coaching and timely feedback with job-seekers, building new AI assistants to help local school counselors assist students, and improving the tech capacity of local businesses and partners across Philadelphia. 

They move beyond the foundational step of AI literacy to also promote AI agency with their participants and graduates. 

Hopeworks CEO, Dan Rhoton commented, “The current economic system is not working for young people, so it’s critical to ensure that AI is adapted to benefit and empower young people  to co-create AI/tech consistently. We focus on skill development with AI augmentation – teaching young people to use AI as a tool to uplift existing skills and to improve their effectiveness in the workforce and beyond. We want to promote intentional use of AI, as one skill among a comprehensive tech skill set and also with guardrails to protect users.”

AI literacy can help promote access to tech and some jobs. But Hopeworks works toward empowering young people with more meaningful agency as co-creators. Our work with Hopeworks in Philly stems from this shared commitment to promote real career pathways, deepen authentic leadership opportunities, and work toward meaningful change to eliminate structural barriers in the tech workforce and beyond.

4) Act with Urgency 

Finally, we believe the philanthropic sector would do well to reflect on what Dr. King called, “the fierce urgency of now.” During a recent AI Learning Community session with philanthropic partners across Philadelphia (supported generously by the Barra Foundation), we heard from local nonprofit leaders calling for more leadership and urgency from philanthropy in this work. 

One national nonprofit leader commented, “Many foundations are currently pausing funding to focus on strategic planning around tech and AI, but it might make more sense to continue making small investments to experiment and learn at this critical moment in time for development of these tools.”

Another local leader shared, “Most foundations’ strategic planning processes operate too slowly and quickly become outdated. AI is changing too quickly for this slow process.”

A 2025 report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy provides a broader national analysis of foundation and nonprofit use and partnership around AI efforts. Nationally, most foundations infrequently provide funding or nonmonetary support for grantees’ use of AI. And in Philadelphia, we believe there is a much more proactive leadership role for philanthropy to play in the ethical and equitable development and use of AI across our great city.

If foundations take years to decide on AI use policy and investment strategy, if the philanthropic sector waits for a perfect understanding of AI implications for grantees and communities, or a multi-year strategic planning process to make related investments, it will become increasingly unlikely for philanthropy to influence the quality or equity of AI use in our communities. 

We recognize the urgency of the moment to actively engage with technology innovation, tech developers, social entrepreneurs and community partners to have a clear voice, perspective and active leadership role focused on aligning tech priorities with equity goals. 

If we center humans and communities in new tech and AI investments around the principles described here, we can meet the moment with the urgency it deserves.