Three San Francisco Hearts: Blooming Heartree; Love of-Dahlieas; Seeds of Peace

Do You Know How to Use AI for Your Nonprofit?

Three San Francisco Hearts: Blooming Heartree; Love of-Dahlieas; Seeds of PeaceHave you been struggling with whether – and how – to incorporate generative artificial intelligence (AI; ChatGPT) into your work? Or perhaps you’ve been worrying your job will soon be obsolete?

You’re not alone.

Honestly, the whole AI thing scares the you-know-what out of me on most days.  But, let’s consider the encouraging present rather than worry so much about the possibility of a bleak future (as in destruction of humanity?!).

You can’t control everything.

You can control some things. So, I thought I’d take a quick minute to send you some tips I’ve curated from others to help stimulate your thinking and planning for ways ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) and other AI-driven chatbots have potential to free up your time and revolutionize how you communicate with donors.

You can ignore all of this if you choose. But, it won’t make it go away. Nor will it stop your peers from figuring out how to get a leg up through use of these new tools.  Remember, at first some of us were slow to adopt use of computers, the internet and social media (who, me?).

So let’s lead from curiosity, not fear.

I begin with

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Labyrinthine Heart, 2023 benefit for S.F. General Foundation

6 Top Reasons To Use Handwriting

Do you write anymore?

I don’t mean do you type.

I’m talking about good old-fashioned handwriting.

You know, that very human practice most of the world seems to have abandoned post digital revolution?

It may seem practical and smart. After all, using a keyboard is definitely quicker.

But something critical gets lost in translation.

Emotional Connection

Not just to your audience, but to yourself.

Could keyboarding be causing you to disconnect? To lose your passion?

This is why writers including  J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, Danielle Steele, John Updike and Joyce Carol Oates have rejected word processors and computers in favor of writing by hand. At least for their first drafts.

CAVEAT: Don’t fall into the trap of thinking these “handwriting people” are all just “old,” “old school,” or “stuck in their ways.”  Rather, they intuitively discovered things about hand writing. All subsequently borne out by neuroscience. Once upon a time I intuited this as well. I couldn’t imagine giving up my yellow writing pad and pens of various colors.  How would I think expressively if forced to type everything? Gradually, I was persuaded (shamed?) to jump on the bandwagon of modernity and efficiency. And, lo and behold, it was incredibly efficient. So fast!  I got used to editing as I went along. Pretty soon I couldn’t envision ever going back. BUT…

But… after many years on the wrong track, I’m coming to understand the documented benefits of composing by hand.

Writing By Hand Offers Psychological Benefits

You can learn more about some of these benefits from specific studies here (improves memory and promotes deep encoding); here (bolsters learning), and here (advances idea generation), to name just a few.

Today I want to share six of these benefits I think you’ll find most relevant to your nonprofit work.

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Person holding AI post-it note

Should Your Nonprofit Jump on the Artificial Intelligence Bandwagon?

Person holding AI post-it noteI confess I know virtually zip about artificial intelligence.

But I’ve been learning. Fast.

Because it’s hard these days to travel anywhere in the world, including the social benefit sector, without hearing enticing things about it.

  • How it can do all sorts of things faster and better than humans.
  • How it can create cost savings.
  • How it enables greater personalization.
  • How it leverages effective use of data for marketing and fundraising purposes.
  • How it tracks engagement and predicts future behaviors.
  • How it creates efficiencies for program purposes.

At first blush this sounds good. But… the devil is in the details, right?

Which is why people are equally thrilled or unnerved at the prospect.

I wondered if using it could create unintended consequences. New tools used as blunt instruments could cause unintentional harm. So, I thought I’d do a little research to know whether I should advise fundraisers to jump on the AI bandwagon.

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Whiteboard planning session

Nonprofit Strategy: Three Things to Cleverly Finagle

Whiteboard planning sessionOkay, I recently let folks know I’d “finagled” a discount for them. After one reader told me the word “finagle” means “to obtain something by devious or dishonest means,” I sent an apologetic “Ruh Roh” email. I received a lot of forgiving feedback. Thank you! Many of you kindly supported my initial use of the word “finagle.”  Apparently, there is more than one definition.

Susan sent me this:

finagle (third-person singular simple present finagles, present participle finagling, simple past and past participle finagled)

    1. (transitive) To obtain, arrange, or achieve by indirect, complicated and/or intensive efforts.

finagle a day off work

    1. (transitive) To obtain, arrange, or achieve by deceitful methods, by trickery.

finagled his way out of a ticket by pretending to be on the way to a funeral, distraught

I think the word has come to mean “using super-human negotiating skill to obtain a superior result“

Terry sent me this:

I thought you meant “obtain (something) by indirect or involved means.” I always felt it was sort of clever or creative negotiations to get something done when it seemed like it couldn’t be done. 

Sam sent me this:

I always thought it was someone who could manipulate circumstances to achieve some goal. No adverse implications. No criminal intent. Just clever in being able to make something work that really shouldn’t have worked.

And there were more. I thank you all.

You made me think.

And not just about negotiation (which is a subject unto itself), but about being clever. And thoughtful. And about what it takes to obtain superior results.

All good outcomes require a little positive finagling to get there.

Lots of things can be good and bad at the same time.

For example,

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beach chairs at ocean

11 Phrases to Retire

beach chairs at oceanNegative self-talk can really mess you up. So say behavioral scientists, psychologists and researchers.

I recently ran across an article on the CNBC Make It blog by Kathy and Ross Petras, and want to share it because it rings so true for me. And I hope for you as well.

Many times, professionally and personally, we can’t make the problem go away. Our control lies fundamentally in how we approach the problem. And language, for good or ill, frames our thinking. To change your thoughts, change your language.

Take a look at the 11 phrases that follow. How many (if not all) of these do you fairly consistently say, or think? Don’t beat yourself up about it. We all do it. But, do be conscious of what you’re saying and how it may inform your actions in not-so-positive ways.

This is something you can change. It just takes practice.

11 Phrases to Retire

1. “I have to do that.”

What to say instead: “I get to do that.” This changes your attitude, making you look at something as opportunity, not obligation. Even if unpleasant, it can teach you new lessons and open new doors.

Fundraising Application: During this busy (stressful?) fundraising season, remind yourself of all the good you’re doing. Lucky you! You’re in the privileged position to be able to share what you’re sincerely passionate about, and to ask others to join in your mission and vision to make our world a better place.

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Master chef creation

Master Chef vs. Line Cook: How Do You Prepare Your Nonprofit Fundraising Plan?

 

I learned something many decades ago that I’ve never forgotten.

When I learned this, it made me very happy.

You see, I was transitioning from an unhappy, short-lived career in law and wasn’t really sure about my next chapter.  Nonprofit work intrigued me, but… was it really a discipline or just something folks “winged?”  How would I know I could be successful?

There weren’t a lot of role models around at the time, and I really didn’t know any other fundraisers.  And there certainly were no articles to “google” online!

So, I enrolled in a week-long course offered by The Fundraising School, then led by founder Hank Rosso (who I call the “Daddy of Fundraising”), which is now part of the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University.

What a revelation! My eyes were opened to the very nature of fundraising. And the essential pre-conditions for fundraising success.

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Hand-held Crystal Ball

S’WOT’s Up? The Future, That’s What: Your Crystal Ball for Business Success

Hand-held Crystal Ball

The reasons I love SWOT analyses is they’re all about looking at the present to divine the future.  And leaders need their crystal balls to:

    • Identify trends,
    • Anticipate change,
    • Be open to possibilities, and
    • Enable more effective, impactful work.
Sounds good, yes? But, let’s face it, it often seems easier to stick with the status quo. Crystal ball gazing and divining is not so easy. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.
Taking an honest look at what’s working/what’s not working can be a very liberating thing for an organization to do. Once people agree on what’s not working, there is a freedom to abandon time-consuming processes not yielding substantial results or significant satisfaction.  This opens up whole new possibilities for allocation of resources, and can be a very exciting time within an organization.

Leadership is key!

SWOTs help leaders prepare for the future systematically and strategically. We’ve a lot invested in doing what we’ve always done. It takes courage and determination to ask the hard questions that break us out of old patterns and ruts. A structured approach can help.
A good SWOT gets all the stakeholders engaged in moving forward strategically.  A good SWOT is not static.  It’s a multi-step process.  If you’re not familiar with a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats), this is what it is in a nutshell:
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Strength Weight Lifting

Play to Your Strengths: Where Do You Add Most Value?

Strength Weight LiftingHere’s the deal: When you match people to environments or roles congruent with their skills, knowledge and strengths, they’ll do better.

Reading this statement, it appears patently obvious. But… how many businesses operate this way. Does yours?

This post was inspired by one of Seth Godin’s thought-provoking, minimalist posts. As always, he manages to convey something important and provocative in very few words. This time, he got me considering the way nonprofits structure job descriptions and conduct performance evaluations. It’s not the first time I’ve thought about this, as in my three decades of in-the-trenches practice I wrote a lot of the former and conducted a lot of the latter.

In the early years, I made the mistake of putting people into rather rigid boxes. This was not good for the people stuck inside, nor was it good for the organization as a whole.  Later, I learned to be more flexible and play to people’s strengths.

Before I get specific, here comes the Godin post that stimulated this little rant.

Building, breaking, fixing

We spend some of our time building things, from scratch. New ideas, new projects, new connections. Things that didn’t exist before we arrived.

We spend some of our time breaking things, using them up, discovering the edges.

And we spend some of our time fixing things. Customer support, maintenance, bug fixes… And most of all, answering email and grooming social media. The world needs fixing, it always does.

You’ve already guessed the questions:

— where do you personally add the most value?

— how much of your time are you spending doing that?

What follows is a bit of thinking out loud.  I hope it will inspire you as well. If so, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below!

The “Peter Principle” Problem

If you look at a nonprofit organizational chart, too often you’ll see job titles that no longer describe what the folks in them are doing.  Sadly, the “Peter Principle” is alive and well. Folks rise to the level of their incompetence, and the function they are supposed to be performing gets shoved to the back burner.

This can lead to hidden organizational inefficiencies. For example:

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Mirror image

Be Your Donor Week

Mirror imageWhat I have for you is something you can do this week (or you can pick another week on your calendar that isn’t already overfilled with appointments, assignments, meetings and what-not).  It’s really simple and really powerful.  There’s one catch: you have to put aside 45 minutes/day for five days.  If you’re resistant to change, read no further. This post isn’t for you.  If, however, you have a hunch you might be able to move from good to great, then… read on (oh, and there’s a little bonus ‘gift’ at the end).

I’m going to show you how to become a donor-centered fundraiser in just five days. And by “donor centered,” I don’t mean pandering to donors, letting them abuse you or succumbing to mission drift in order to please them. That’s extreme. I’m going to show you how to simply follow the “Golden Rule,” and do unto donors as you’d wish them to do unto you.

Like I said, it’s simple. But you’ve got to dedicate the time. Go ahead.  Find yourself a week where you can dedicate just 45 minutes/day to find out what ‘donor-centered’ may mean to your constituents.

This exercise is something I hope will dramatically change – and improve – how you approach your donors.  And this change can happen for you in just five days.

In a nutshell, I’m going to ask you to:

  1. Make a list.
  2. Pick five things on your list.
  3. Do the five things.
  4. Consider what five things you’ve learned.
  5. Make an action plan to change how you approach donors based on what you’ve learned.

Ready to get started?

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