Ep. 196: The Right Way to Use AI for Nonprofit Fundraising Emails
EPISODE 196
The Right Way to Use AI for Nonprofit Fundraising Emails
About the Episode:
AI is everywhere right now, and in the nonprofit sector, it's making some organizations' fundraising sharper and others completely generic. The difference isn't the tool; it's how you're using it.
In this episode, I'm breaking down exactly where AI helps and where it quietly hurts your fundraising emails. I talk about the most expensive mistake I see nonprofits making - handing the wheel over to AI completely and treating the first draft like the final answer. I share how my clients inside The SPRINT Method™ and The Purpose & Profit Club® are actually using AI as a thought partner, not a ghostwriter, and what the difference looks like in results. If you've been using AI to write your emails faster but wondering why nothing is converting, this episode will show you why, and what to do instead.
P.S. Easy Emails For Impact™ enrollment opens May 7 with 50% off the course. Go to splendidcourses.com/email to get first access and learn more.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
Why AI is making some nonprofit emails sharper and others completely generic, and what determines the difference
The GPS analogy: why AI should help you get there faster, not decide where you're going
What to use AI for and what to never hand over to it in your fundraising
How to spot an AI-written email, and why they raise nothing even when they look polished
Using AI as a thought partner to push your ideas deeper, not replace them
A simple three-question filter to run before you hit send
It’s not your stories—it’s how you’re telling them. If your amazing work isn’t getting the attention (and donations) it deserves, it’s time for a messaging shift. The Brave Fundraiser’s Guide guide gives you 10 done-for-you donor prompts to make your message impossible to ignore. Get it for free here!
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“78% of nonprofits used generative AI in their programs in 2024.” - M+R Benchmarks 2025 Empower Agency
“Only 42% have any policies or guidelines for using AI.” - M+R Benchmarks 2025 Empower Agency
“63% of fundraisers are unsure about using AI for donor communications. - Nonprofit Tech for Good / Online Donor Feedback Survey 2025 Nptechforgood
“67% of donors say nonprofits should be using AI for fundraising.” - Online Donor Feedback Survey 2025, via Nonprofit Tech for Good Nptechforgood
“You are the one in charge of your message; AI is not a self-driving car.”
“Treat AI as GPS. It's going to help you get there faster.”
“AI mirrors what you give it. If you bring a strong point of view, it's going to help iterate and make that point of view sharper and faster. If you bring it nothing or not much of anything, it's going to fill in gaps with something that sounds like everyone else.”
“Personalized calls to action convert 202% better than default ones.” - Campaign Monitor, via Nonprofit Tech for Good's 2026 Email Marketing Statistics for Nonprofits Nptechforgood
“Editing is faster than writing from scratch.”
“Email is still the #1 tool that inspires donors to donate.”
“AI doesn't raise money, your message does. AI helps you get your message out faster.”
FREE Resources from Splendid Consulting:
How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
Easy Emails For Impact™ - enrollment opening on May 7, with 50% off the course
Double Your Donations - Raise More From Your Laptop Without Chasing Grants or Galas
Donations on Demand: Build a $5K Email Campaign System in 30 min/week
Connect with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
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Christina Edwards 1:24Almost every single nonprofit leader I talk to right now is somewhere across the spectrum. For AI, either you haven't touched it yet and you don't want to, or it's your best friend and you're using it every single day. It's your right hand. Now, here's what's interesting. It's making some people's fundraising sharper, and for some it's making others just totally generic. The difference isn't the tool, right? Whether you're using Claude or ChatGPT or Gemini or something else, it's how you're using it. So today I want to talk about what that gap looks like and what's possible when you get this right now, AI is moving faster than I think any of us can keep up with. So let's kind of check in with our sector. Where does everyone actually stand right now? So most organizations are in this early experimentation mode, and that's really normal. That's where you're supposed to be. So if you're on the spectrum of just like I haven't even tried it yet. Hopefully this episode will give you a little bit of a nudge to dip your toe in. And if you're on the spectrum where you're like, Christina, it is my right hand. I know everything there is to know about AI. I use it all the time. It's on my phone. It's on my computer. I love it. Then this may be the kick in the pants you need to kind of refine and right side your relationship with the tool. So here's the data that is more interesting than the headlines, 78% of nonprofits use generative AI in their programs. This is back from M and R benchmarks in 2025 so 78% of nonprofits, that's significant. 42% though, have guidelines on actually how to use it. So if you're in that 42% welcome, it may be time to have some guidelines on how your organization uses AI. 63% of fundraisers are unsure about using AI for donor communications, and many are worried it feels impersonal. We're going to dig into that today, and 67% of donors say nonprofits should be using AI for fundraising. That's pretty significant. So your donors aren't scared of AI, and let's be frank, like most of them are using it too, day to day, in some way, shape or form, even on Google. Now you've probably had it happen, like I have, where particularly on my phone, if I'm googling something now, Gemini will just pop up, and there's the AI bot. So if I'm asking for the name of a restaurant I can't seem to remember, it's going to start like a thread with me, and I sort of have to exit out that thread if I don't want it. So it may be there even if you don't realize it.
Christina Edwards 4:38
So let's dig into the belief that a lot of leaders, marketers and fundraisers are quietly holding when it comes to email and AI, you're thinking, if I use AI, it'll save me time, and let's be honest, the emails will probably be fine and write them a lot faster than I can. I don't even know what to say anymore. I'm so tired of writing emails, and honestly, that's a really. Reasonable, makes a lot of sense place to start, but fine isn't the same as fully funded, and the gap is worth closing. So that's what we're going to dig into, is, are you using AI to write your emails, or are you using AI in the way that our clients are using it to help you shape and become a thought partner with your emails.
Christina Edwards 5:38
So here's the shift that I want you to make when you're thinking about ai ai right now, because in a lot of ways, it's sort of this behemoth we can't really totally wrap our heads around of what it is capable of. I went to a conference earlier this year that is a for profit tech conference, and the capabilities of AI in media are wild, like, to the point where I was like, Oh my gosh. Like, this is I don't even know, like, I don't even know if I can wrap my head around how I even feel about this. So it's so ominous, it's so big, that I've watched some people think, like, almost, I don't think you're thinking it consciously, but like, AI knows best, because, yes, it is crawling and using information from everywhere it is, pulling data, pulling sources, pulling thoughts, pulling opinions, and telling you this is the best, but the belief AI knows best isn't true, and especially for you and your mission and your people and your organization and your donors, it barely knows you, depending on what you even given it, it it might know you not even know you at all. And yet, what organizations are doing are taking the first draft or second draft that AI is writing for your emails and treating it like it's the final answer. It's the boss. So if there's one thing you get out of today, I hope it's this, you are. So the one in charge of your message, AI is not a self driving car. You shouldn't fall asleep at the wheel of your fundraising. GPS is the same thing. GPS gets you somewhere faster, but it can't decide where you're going. So I want you to make this shift. Treat AI as GPS. It's going to help you get there faster. It's going to tell you there's a little bit of a traffic delay here, or they're doing construction here, go this way. You're going to get to your destination quicker, but not let me go sit in the passenger seat and just, y'all just figure it out. You just, you just take me there, because if you put in the wrong destination, it'll get you there quickly. But what will happen is you're in the wrong place. You're in the wrong place. So what is using AI Well, productively, profitably actually look like?
Christina Edwards 7:59
what I want you to use it for. Here's what our clients are using it for. Inside the club, inside the sprint method, we have aI coaches so we have them trained inside of my IP, my blueprints, my curriculum, so you can expand on an idea from multiple angles, great for generating subject lines in 30 seconds. If you do not think like a copywriter, beautiful AI can be that copywriter thought partner for you,
Christina Edwards 8:37
But much like if I hire copywriter in my business, and this may be one of the best copywriters there is in the sector, the number one Forbes winning copywriter when they give me back their first draft. Let's say I hire a copywriter for my website. No doubt I will go through that copy and I will have edits as I should. I will go that's not the direction we're going in. That was how we thought 10 years ago, five years ago, nope. We don't do it that way. We don't say it this way. That should be how you exchange so generating subject lines very quickly, mapping out a sequence of emails. So let's say you're running a sprint campaign. We just got through our sprint launch, and it was incredible, incredible. We welcomed so many organizations inside the sprint method. And as you're building out your sprint campaigns, you could use AI. You could use our AI sprint coach to help you build out the sequence of emails, not exactly what's in them, but when you're sending them, how often, how the spacing mapping that sequence. Same thing in the club. A lot of our teams are using this inside the club in a similar way, pushing your thinking deeper into a story. This is one of my favorite ways to use it.
Christina Edwards 10:04
I may have a concept for a podcast, for a webinar, for a talk, for teaching inside the club, and I will say, Oh, this just dropped in. And I will write it down in my notes app, and I will save it. And I'm like, Okay, I want to, I want to have a thought partner for this concept. Ask me some questions. So I'll ask AI to ask me questions. So it is asking me questions very similar to a coach might do or even a therapist like tell me more about that. And so I'm giving it my ideas, my IP, and it's helping construct that into content. Do you see the difference versus me going, what do you think I should say Chat? I got nothing to say today Claude, help me write something. There's a very different dynamic there, pushing you into a deeper story, testing different tones and structures. So if you find yourself maybe leaning a little sterile, a little a little ominous in your brand voice, you can say to AI, does this sound a little formulaic and sterile? And it can help answer that very quickly, instead of sending it off to another staffer and waiting for, you know, three days for them to get back to you, here's what you shouldn't use it for, deciding your core message, writing the first draft from nothing, replacing your point of view. This is really, really important, because nonprofits have a history of having very vanilla, very sterile emails. And what I don't want you to do is go from having very vanilla, sterile emails that you were yourself or your executive director writes, and then using AI to then write more vanilla sterile emails that sound, again, like any organization, any town, anywhere across the world. Replacing that point of view really important, choosing what matters most. This is a big one. Oftentimes, AI may let's say you're writing an email and there's a couple of different story points you want to make. Maybe there's a testimonial or a stat, and you're putting that into chat and it spits you out an email. And what you can see here is, sort of the least important thing to your donors, is what it puts first again. It doesn't know you, doesn't know you. So you get to say, Oh, we're actually not going to lead with that. We're going to lead with this.
Christina Edwards 12:23
so here's an important distinction. Ai mirrors what you give it. So if you bring it a strong point of view, it's going to help iterate and make that point of view sharper faster. If you bring it nothing or not much of anything, it's going to fill in gaps with something that sounds like everyone else. So we don't want to be stuck in that cycle, and that's why I can spot an AI written email almost immediately. Nowadays, we'll talk about that in a minute, of what those look like. So the leaders that are getting results are the ones who show up to the conversation already knowing what they want to say, or at least the skeleton of what they want to say, or they're ready to use it as a thought partner on what they want to say. Now I want you to think about this stat, 202% personalized calls to action convert. 202% better than generic ones. AI can help you get there, but only if you bring it the personalization. It can invent what it doesn't know. So again, it can't get personal about a topic, an audience admission that it doesn't personally know, and you haven't given it information to personally know. So let's talk about those AI written emails in the wild. It is two things that I see. One is the structure, the design, and two are the actual copy in the words. Those are two points where I'm like, ooh, they just threw this over the wall to chat. They just threw this over the wall to Gemini to just write. It's a little too perfect, a little too overly spaced, a little too overly emojied, a little too, you know, over polished in tone and nothing really risky, nothing really pushing the envelope versus what I do instead having that one micro moment, we talk a lot about this inside my course easy emails for impact. We talk about these micro moments, these fly on the wall moments. Y'all, this is such a blue ocean opportunity for nonprofits. We are so ready for you to invite us in to the truth, to the most authentic story you've ever told for your organization. And it's right there for the taking, for you to have that relationship with me. I can think of just a handful of organizations that do this really well, where you're cutting the fluff, you're cutting the like nonprofit buzzword speak, you have a clear ask, a clear, compelling fundraising ask. You are not apologetic in your fundraising. You're repeating the message. So if you're stuck over here with that sort of perfect. Generic, overly polished. It may look good, design wise. It may read fine Grammarly Is like two thumbs up and it raises nothing. It raises nothing.
Christina Edwards 15:45
So if you're like, I don't have time to add to edit the AI output. The whole point Christina was that I could have some help in the organization, and I don't have time to go back and forth with AI. So I want you to think about it this way. Editing is faster than writing from scratch. Editing is easier than staring at a blank cursor, right? So you're still it is still a quicker lift than just starting at 01. Of the other things I love AI for as I love to use the audio version, so it's very, very accessible. You can go out on a walk and you can be writing an email, dictating an email on a walk. I love this. It's so accessible. I don't have to be in front of my desk. I don't have to be in front of a Word document or whatever, my CRM and going, type, type, type, type, I can just riff. Riffing is my favorite. Riffing could be your audience's favorite too, because we want to know the people behind the organization. So you're not adding a step, you're replacing the hardest one, which is that blank page you already review grant proposals, board, deck, staff, work. This is no different. In fact, this is just a lot quicker in that review process and email. Email is still the number one tool that inspires donors to get definitely above social media and wildly above your website, five minutes to go back and forth and really edit down a too overly AI, email is totally worth it.
Christina Edwards 17:33
what you can do is, if you are using AI a lot to write your emails, and maybe this is a little bit of a wake up call where you're like, Oh, crap, are we? Have we been sounding a little too AI lately? Then you can come up with a really simple filter before you send, you can ask yourself, Does this sound like us, or does this sound like every other nonprofit in their inbox? Is there a specific moment here, or summary language? Is everything just added a 10,000 foot view, and it's not really going to resonate. Would I say this out loud to a donor? I know those are really good filters. You don't have to go through 10 different filters, but that's the difference between AI helping you write faster and AI helping you raise more, because you don't just want to write faster. Think about, so I'm thinking about my daughter. This reminds me of her. So we were talking to her teacher, and she was saying that one of the challenges they have with students, this is like just school system now, how it is tests are taken online, so they are using their Chromebooks to take tests, right? So actually, showed my picture by kids, a picture of a scantron, because they didn't know what a scantron was, at least not in elementary school, and I was like, this is a scantron. This is what we used to take tests with. So it was all very analog. And her teacher was saying that, because tests are taken online, their brain can just breeze through it really quickly. Now there isn't as much natural built in pause where you're reading the question, if you're thinking about the question, and you're maybe writing on some scratch paper, and then you're filling out, you know, A, B, C or D on the Scantron. Instead, what are they doing? They could just fire off click, button, click, button, click, button. They're going to the next question very quickly. And so she says, I'm always reminding the students to slow down, to slow down. I was like, Oh, that's so good. That's such a reminder. And that's kind. Of what we're talking about here is you don't want to just write faster for the sake of writing like let me just put out more output. Now I've made more output. No, the quality matters as much as the quantity. The quality matters more than the quantity. You want to write emails that people feel because AI doesn't raise money your message does AI helps you get Your message out faster. So that's the nuance.
Christina Edwards 20:54
and this is why we have an entire section inside of my course, easy emails for impact on how to use AI. Well, what to look out for, what to not do, how to use it. And this is why we have templates inside the course too, because it is hard, it really is hard to stare at a blinking, blank page where the cursor is like, what are you going to write today? So this idea of like, not just to use AI, just to use it more, but how to use it in a way that strengthens your message pulls donors in instead of watering it down. That is a really big barrier for a lot of organizations right now, because when you get this right, you don't just write faster. You write emails that people feel people respond to, feel people feel connected to, and that connection to your cause, that is how you build longevity for your organization, for your donors, for your attention, for your Fmonthly giving. Like all of the things we want
Christina Edwards 23:25
Easy emails for impact is opening up on May 7, you're going to want to sign up for our webinar to get first access to our special bonuses and a big discount. We were opening up with 50% off the course. So go to splendid courses.com forward slash email to sign up for that webinar and get a first look at the discount and what comes with easy emails for impact. Okay, so if you have questions about AI, if you're like, which one should I use? Send me an email. Send me a LinkedIn message and let me know what you've tried. Because actually, I'm going to share with you, I'm using two I'm using two different AI sources right now. I'm using chat and I'm using Claude, and I'm using them for different things, which this is a footnote for our podcast. This is me exploring and me going, you know, I really know how to use chat. Well, I'm hearing really great things about Claude, so I've been using Claude, and I really like it as well, and they work for different uses. And really isn't that true about a lot of things where you're like, I use this one software for when I have an auction, and I use this software for general donations. And so you can kind of use it like that too. So if you have questions about AI, send me a message, and I will see you in the next one. Bye.