Don’t Blend In: 4 Ways Nonprofits Can Avoid AI Blandification
Don't sacrifice your nonprofit's brand voice and authenticity with donors for automated convenience and perceived savings. It'll cost you in the long run.
This article was also published in Nonprofit Tech for Good.
Show of hands: How many nonprofit teams use AI (ChatGPT, Google Gemini, etc.) to write appeals messaging and create organic and paid outreach for their campaigns?
How about using the tools to build out schedules and campaign workflows?
Or maybe your organization is taking a hybridized approach — leveraging bots to generate campaign ideas and messaging threads and building out workflows but not fully committing the campaign to them.
I recently experimented on behalf of my clients. I was curious about how the OpenAI application (Gemini proved a little too hallucinogenic — read: unreliable — for my purposes) compared to my hands-on, creative work. My conclusion: Turning campaigns over lock, stock, and barrel to the bots is a risky bet for convenience and perceived cost savings. What is really at stake is reducing a nonprofit’s outreach — and good name — to a nondescript mache of blend-in beige. I’ll explain.
At face value, AI appears to be a gift from the fund development and marketing gods. AI tools seemingly transform campaign development from a hands-on, intensive process into hit-enter ease. But what’s the reality?
In truth, turning campaigns over lock, stock, and barrel to AI reduces a nonprofit to AI blandification, as defined by Russ Napolitano.
Napolitano captured it well: “While AI undeniably offers efficiency and scalability, the concept of ‘creativity’ remains a uniquely human trait that machines cannot fully replicate.”
What is AI?
For simplicity, AI can be categorized into generative and non-generative. This article focuses on the generative version.
Non-generative AI doesn’t create new content; it analyzes data to make predictions, automate tasks, or surface insights. Think of tools like spam filters, donor segmentation algorithms, or predictive analytics that forecast campaign performance — systems that excel at recognizing patterns in existing data.
By contrast, generative AI creates new content based on what it has learned from massive datasets. Tools like ChatGPT or Google Gemini can write donor emails, generate social media captions, or brainstorm fundraising themes — instantly producing new material in response to prompts.
Bottom line: Non-generative AI helps understand what’s already there. Generative AI helps imagine what could be.
Generative AI is like a ginormous digital Encyclopedia Britannica that compiles the internet’s knowledge base and immediately plops it on a screen. It is essentially a vast rearview mirror.
That’s the problem.
ChatGPT and Gemini repackage all that information, rendering it into headlines, social posts, and emails crafted to feel human. However, there’s nothing new there. It’s an artful, artificial remix of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos or one of John Muir’s essays — not original, just reassembled.
Slinging AI Blandwash at Your Donors
Nonprofits are fundamentally in the relationship business — with beneficiaries, with volunteers, and with donors. Letting ChatGPT or Gemini create campaigns means regurgitating a random collection of thoughts found on the Web. Relying solely on generative AI to create messaging means forfeiting the work — and creativity — required to forge real relationships.
More importantly, nonprofits risk losing their brand identity if they relinquish their humanity. If Nonprofit A and Nonprofit C say the same thing, they will eventually become indistinguishable. Over time, donors will yawn and move on because there is nothing to bond with. Both are the same. Both are algorithm-blended blandwash.
Be Real: 4 Human Essentials in Fundraising Campaigns
Instead of “appealing to the average” and homogenizing appeals campaigns, focus on creating and illuminating your nonprofit’s distinct voice. Invest human energy – the stuff relationships are built on – in campaign elements that require an emotional connection. Let AI handle the administrative and analytical lifting.
Here’s where human input remains essential:
1. Emotional Storytelling and Persuasion
Humans understand the emotional triggers that inspire generosity — whether it’s urgency, personal connection, or a compelling mission-driven narrative.
AI can identify donor preferences, but humans must craft authentic and heartfelt stories that resonate.
2. Creativity and Innovation
AI is trained on past data; it cannot invent truly novel ideas outside existing trends.
Nonprofit fundraising requires fresh campaign concepts, singular visuals, and engaging calls to action — all of which require human ingenuity.
3. Building Genuine Relationships
Donor relationships are built on trust and connection, which AI cannot replicate.
Major gifts and long-term donor engagement still depend on human-to-human interactions — phone calls, handwritten notes, personal meetings.
4. Ethical Oversight & Nuance
AI lacks ethical reasoning and could unintentionally generate misleading or insensitive messaging.
Humans ensure messaging aligns with organizational values and respects donors’ emotions and motivations.
The Future is AI + Human Collaboration
AI is a powerful tool but not a replacement for human-driven fundraising and marketing outreach. The most successful nonprofit campaigns will:
Use AI to analyze data, optimize timing, and identify personalization opportunities
Rely on humans to craft compelling stories, develop creative strategies, and nurture donor relationships
Nonprofits that embrace this hybrid approach will see the most success — leveraging AI’s efficiency without sacrificing the human touch that makes fundraising genuinely effective.
