Don’t automate your communication
Every day it seems there’s another shiny new toy, based on AI, to make fundraising faster and easier.
It’s surely tempting for an overworked nonprofit staffer with scary-big goals to hit. But while there are certainly areas that might be turned over to automation, communicating with the people who support your mission isn’t one.
Communication is so much more than words on a page or a screen. It’s the connecting point between what your organization exists for and the people who do – or might – support it. It’s essentially human to ask for help.
The flaws of AI-generated communication
If you’ve played with AI-generated communication (and honestly, who hasn’t?), you will have noticed speed. It’s unearthly fast. It can digest lots of information and spit something out in a second.
It’s what it spits out that matters, though. And that’s only as good as what it’s learned from. My friend Denisa Casement calls it “beige goo”. She’s right.
Communicating with the people who care shouldn’t be a chore. It should be a joy. Yes, it’s still work. It still takes time. But it’s central to building the community that will make your mission happen.
And beige goo isn’t good enough for you or your donors. You deserve better. You deserve human connections.
Humanity and building community
Humans have been communicating for thousands of years. Through actions and ritual. (Think burial sites like the pyramids.) Then, for a long time, with verbal communication.
Then we learned to write. But writing was expensive and hard to learn. So, only the wealthiest had access to the written word. Others might need to hear that written word to learn what was written. Think about how religious writings spread – not mainly in written form, but read to people from rare, written accounts.
Today, we live with screens (and real writing – thank goodness for books!). Anyone with access can share their thoughts and potentially have them reach a huge audience.
But that access to lightning-fast communication has a price. We’re overwhelmed. So much to see, so much to read, too much to listen to!
It’s exhausting us. Your donors are no different.
So what stands out in our world?
Stories. Emotions. Genuine connection with people, one-to-one.
Our senses still matter. Touching something connects differently. (I love this piece of research.)
Hearing something connects differently. (It’s possible that reading has made us less skilled at taking information in that way.)
Even reading something that isn’t lit up has a different effect on us.
Putting yourself into your work using one-to-one connections
We’re still humans. And humans need community. Left alone, we don’t do well. (Think about what an awful punishment solitary confinement is.) Your donors are looking for connection, too.
So when you think about communicating with the people who care, think about approaching that with care, too. And that means giving of yourself. Not in a draining way – in a life-sustaining, community-building way.
I saw a complaint recently about donors being upset that they didn’t get a hand-written thank you. In more than 30 years of fundraising, I’ve never run into that.
I have had conversations, in person, on the phone, and on paper, that go beyond the basics and create real relationships. They’ve given me more than the effort they’ve taken.
A personal touch does matter. So any sense that one person is communicating with you stands out. Can you call on your passion for your cause and pour that into your communications?
Leave AI to do the manual tasks that don’t require your heart
Will data entry change for the better? Probably. Will we be more and more able to collect information about donors’ interactions with us automatically? Probably.
There will be all kinds of uses in our future for AI. Things we can’t imagine today will be in front of us tomorrow.
But leave the important person-to-person work to humans. Write and talk with your donors. (And yes, you can write something very personal and send it to thousands. Just keep your heart in it.)
I think you’ll find that slowing down just enough to create really human communications will not only bring your donors closer – it will fill something important in you, as well.
If you’re on Bluesky and want a particularly creepy example of a chatbot’s work, read this.
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