I’ve been hearing versions of this quote a lot lately:

“AI won’t take your job, but someone who uses AI will.” 

The same sage warning holds for organizations at large. The nonprofits embracing AI across departments to boost efficiency and glean insights are best positioned to stay relevant and well-funded. 

Using AI tools isn’t solely about saving time. It’s even more about having a 24/7 sidekick to help you collect and process information so you can reach beyond your inherent biases and unlock new ideas. Copywriting for fundraising is a perfect use case. 

If you’ve worked for the same nonprofit for more than a few months, you’re already plagued by the Curse of Knowledge. Cause-specific jargon has seeped into your brain. The complexity of your organization is feeling less complex. All seventeen programs you deliver are equally important to you now. You’re in deep… 

Guess who’s not in deep and, in fact, hardly ever thinks about your organization? 99% of your supporters. 

Guess who else? ChatGPT. 

For $20/month (or free), you’ve got a writing assistant who’s well read, but not as immersed as you are. 

AI doesn’t replace the value of conducting donor research to test your assumptions and gather feedback from real people, but it does help you get out of your own head and think like a donor. 

When I use ChatGPT to help me craft a first draft of any fundraising copy, I provide the following information up front:

1. What I know about the donor base - personas, survey or interview findings, their interests, demographics, life stage, location, average gift amount, etc. 
2. A specific use case for the copy we’ll be crafting together - for example, an evergreen value proposition for the organization’s primary donation page.
3. Fundraising themes or copy that has performed well in the past.

And I set the following guardrails:

1. Length - am I looking for a sentence, a paragraph, or a full page?
2. Readability - I always require a reading level below 12th grade and ideally closer to 6th grade.
3. Voice and tone - I upload brand guidelines or link to web pages that are strong examples.

Then, I work with what comes back to me like a pizza chef. Knead it, spin it around, poke too many holes, and knead it again, multiple times, for minutes or hours.

Even when this process doesn’t save me time, it’s better than writing alone. The AI recommendations break me out of that Curse of Knowledge, which is impossible to do alone.

What’s even cooler: There are trained GPTs popping up every day that specialize in nonprofits and fundraising. 

iDonate just launched this one to help improve your donation page copy. It will prompt you to start from scratch or review and improve something you’ve already written. Based on research on value propositions conducted by NextAfter, it might surprise you how much copy this GPT recommends for a donation page. After years of being taught to keep copy as short as possible, some research is now showing just the opposite. 

Often, your supporters need more context—and a more thorough emotional appeal—than you’re giving them. AI can push you to give people the right amount and the right pieces of information. 

When writing with a GPT or other AI tool, you may need to correct inaccuracies. You may need to add in important selling points that got left out. You should always run the copy through a free reading level checker to make sure the AI drove within your guardrails. 

And you will probably edit certain words or sentences that just don’t feel like your organization. 

If you’re revising too much, though (I SEE YOU adding in that phrase your ED loves that nobody understands!), stop. Don’t do it.

I always recommend testing your solo-crafted fundraising copy against a version that’s written by AI and lightly revised. You can A/B test your donation page. You can split your email list and send each group a different message. You can run a digital ad campaign with multiple text and headline variations. If the test results are clear, listen to them.  

You don’t need to use a GPT every time you put fingers to keys. I wrote this article the old-fashioned way. But for the fundraising content that holds prime real estate and needs to inspire action, I believe we owe it to nonprofits and donors to leverage the tech. Even if you’re a seasoned chef, the AI will probably help you make better pizza. 🤖🍕💕

______

Seeking a little human guidance with all of this? Join the iDonate crew on April 2nd to workshop your value proposition with their GPT in real time.

About the Author

Caroline Griffin has worked in nonprofit marketing, communications, and digital fundraising since 2013. She has seen it from all angles: in-house as a marketing team of one, agency-side serving dozens of clients over the years, and as a solo consultant since 2020.

About Marketer on a Mission

As the Marketer on a Mission, Caroline helps nonprofits grow their fans and funds online with donor research, strategy, and implementation support. You can check out her website to learn more and sign up for her monthly newsletter, The Good Stuff.