A Sneak Peek for our Broccoli buds!

It's been nearly four years since the release of From the Ground Up: Digital Fundraising for Nonprofits back in September 2020. It's remained a category top-seller in Canada that entire time, and it has continued to sell in the US, Mexico, the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia, Japan, and more. It's also been added to library catalogues throughout North America in print, audio, and eBook, as well as required reading in colleges and universities.

It's had a good run, but it's overdue for a overhaul.

We've been busy behind the scenes working on the 2nd Edition, which is going to be packed with up-to-date statistics and trends, new case studies, an expanded glossary, comprehensive index, and more. We can't wait to show you when it's all ready.

Because you're our Broccoli buds we want to share with you a sample chapter about artificial intelligence. It's a brand new chapter because back in Sept. 2020 AI wasn't as accessible and mainstream as it is now, and the goal of the book was to introduce fundamentals and proven tactics. OpenAI's GPT3 had only been released a few months prior to publication, and it wasn't until ChatGPT was released in November 2022 that a critical mass of fundraisers began exploring AI's potential in earnest.

So, give it a read and let us know what you think.

---

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) ranks high among the topics that spark heated debate on conference panels, in boardrooms, and internet comment sections. I know, because I’m guilty of participating in all three.

It’s transforming the way we work!

It’s just another shiny object.

It’s solving the world’s most intractable problems!

It’s Pandora’s box, and we’ve opened it.

It’s catapulting humanity to new heights!

It’s exploiting, enslaving, and eroding society.   

I believe all those statements hold a measure of truth. I also believe that each statement is deceptive—intentional or not—because none of them leave room for nuance, dialogue, and the opportunity to learn.

Computer code has always been a human invention that instructs a computer on how to respond to one or more predictable commands. That’s still true. Even the most complex, advanced technology has an unbreakable lineage back to the people that designed and published the first lines of code. Ada Lovelace is widely recognized for sitting atop that family tree as the first-ever computer programmer, having published an algorithm for an Analytical Engine (or, computer) to compute Bernoulli numbers in 1843.

Fast forward over 180 years later and coding is still just humans giving instructions to computers about how to sort, calculate, and return a response. We’re just able to do it at exponentially higher scales than The Right Honourable Countess of Lovelace—thanks to electricity, telecommunication, academia, public funding, and private investment.

You and I as individuals will never be able to fully comprehend how, in complete and accurate detail, tools like ChatGPT work. But that doesn’t mean we can’t form sound beliefs about the roles they play in our lives, how we choose to knowingly use them, where to draw the line, and why.

Let’s start by unpacking some of the most common AI dichotomies through a lens of healthy skepticism.

Opportunity: Leveling up

There are AI tools that can write copy which may or may not be better than what you’d have written on your own, but it will certainly be done faster. It can spit out a first draft that can summarize, clarify, get you rolling, and more. For designers, the tedious work of photo editing or manipulation can be done in the click of a button, and their wildest, most surreal ideas can come to life with just a simple text prompt or two. Functionality like this has the potential to enhance your fundraising materials, expand the volume of material you’re able to produce, and help you communicate more clearly and effectively with your supporters.

Risk: Theft and Questionable Ethics

In the case of AI text, image, and video generating programs, ethical considerations for the compensation of authors, artists, and the general public for their intellectual property seems to have been disregarded from the get-go. The authors of these tools have scraped and compiled nearly every available image or text from the internet they can get their hands on, as well as an unknowable amount of copyright-protected material and intellectual property (whose creators never consented for their commercial use). That is theft, but like many white collar crimes it seems like the punishment will never fit the crime, if there is any punishment at all. However, at the time of writing this edition there are a number of litigations underway against Microsoft, OpenAI, Google and others led by copyright owners such as The New York Times, Reuters, and Getty Images.

Opportunity: A Time Saver

The most valuable gift your AI helper can give isn’t an image or a blog post—it’s time. With all the time you’ve saved, you’ll have cleared out that to-do list in no time. Time is a non-renewable resource, so you would be foolish not to leverage every opportunity to outsource the tedious or repetitive tasks that steal you away from the work that matters, right?

Risk: A Distraction

As AI grows increasingly capable of taking tasks off your desk, it’s easy to convince yourself that it’s capable of automating every task. As the old saying goes, to a hammer everything looks like a nail. Before you know it, you’ll have spent hours, days, or weeks swinging your AI hammer, but what do you have to show for it? Did you raise more money? Did you forget to pick up the phone to check in on a donor, or grab a coffee with that well-     connected board member? For the vast majority of fundraising professionals, it's your experience, personality, and unique point of view that make you an asset to your organization. It’s also each of those qualities that are least likely to be automated or approximated, so I would caution you against trying.

Opportunity: Predictive Modeling

We’re not all math whizzes (I’m certainly not). But what AI is exceptional at is consuming and analyzing massive amounts of quantitative data for statistical analysis. What was previously the work of economists and analysts is now within reach of anyone with access to Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. These programs have baked AI-powered analytics into their programs, and are continually refining and rolling out improvements without you even noticing. Give it a try. The next time you’re using Excel, and click the “Analyze Data” button in the toolbar ribbon and you’ll have dozens of data insights, suggested charts, and pivot table options at your fingertips.

Risk: Faulty or Flawed Assumptions

If an AI-powered prediction in your CRM suggests you call Brock Warner within seven days and estimates his likely gift amount at $3,000, would you? Why or why not? Does it know something you don’t? An AI add-on to a CRM can only generate recommendations using what is stored in a record, and for most charities that will look like contact information and communication preferences, along with gift dates, amounts, and other identifiers. Trust me—you’ll learn a lot more about me and my likely gift amount if you give me a call and buy me a coffee. And don’t forget to log your meeting notes in the database!

Those CRM nudges are only a small piece of the “flawed assumptions” risk puzzle. It’s imperative that we zoom further out. Earlier I touched on how these models are trained by scraping and consuming large amounts of content and data from the internet. That’s content that is created by people who are predominantly white, male, and English-speaking. It’s unfiltered, uncontextualized, and deeply biased. For every peer-reviewed paper (which they likely didn’t pay for) that is consumed, there are millions of 4chan shitposts, Tumblr memes and red pill manosphere forum threads. You would be wise to stay diligent, and question the source. Case in point, do a quick Google search of “How much glue should I put in my pizza?”

Now what?

If you’re reading this book, you’re likely not an AI expert. And you don’t need to be. You just need to be thoughtful, reasonable, and objective. You need to know the difference between a tool and a toy. You need to see the big picture. You need to know what your irreplaceable value is to your organization and be ready to defend it.