By Dr. Eliza Sanders, GPC, Grants for Growth Consultant
As a seasoned grant writer, I’m all too familiar with the sinking feeling that a blank page can bring. That feeling is why using AI has become so tempting for writing and editing tasks: it promises to do away with that sense of dread and keep you moving along at a brisk pace, no pauses or long stares necessary.
At the same time, the news keeps reminding nonprofits of the serious risks of AI use. AI has been known to hallucinate, as it did last May when the Chicago Sun-Times published a reading list of books that didn’t actually exist. AI doesn’t always think about ethics, as when a Microsoft-powered AI encouraged the business owners it was advising to break the law in October 2024. And as too many examples have shown, AI learns from the some of the worst examples of human communication, so it can demonstrate incredible bias based on race, gender, and religion.
Hopefully, the risks these issues would pose to your nonprofit are enough to steer you away from AI’s siren call.
However, I want to encourage you to consider avoiding its use in fundraising for the risks it poses to you.
Consider this: every time you use AI to write something for you, you deprive your brain of the exercise it needs to stay strong and nimble. It’s like a professional athlete asking someone to go to the gym on her behalf. Sure, she’ll save time on that day…but after just a few of these trades, she’ll begin to lose the skills for which she is being paid. A study from MIT just last summer confirmed that using AI for writing tasks significantly impairs brain activity in the areas of memory, engagement, and connectivity.
No matter what the latest tech blogs will tell you, we don’t know what the future with AI will look like. What is certain, however, is that humans will need to continue to be exceptionally human to set our skills apart from the latest tech inventions. Each time AI writes or edits your work, you are failing to build up those parts of your brain that can make you exceptional. How can you edit an AI-written draft to make it sound more human if you are out of practice with sounding human through the written word?
For a while now, headlines have told us that an AI takeover of every aspect of our lives is inevitable. But each of us has a role in that future. We all have a choice.
Let’s Build Hope proudly doesn’t use AI to create any of its products or marketing materials. We know that fundraising is about human connection. That’s what makes donors want to give—their connection to the humanity you put into every appeal letter, every ask, every thank you card. Hold onto that humanity and the skills that help you communicate it, even when it’s difficult. It’s a fundraiser’s most precious asset!
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