Speaker 1: Can chat GPT be used for non-profit fundraising? Most definitely. In this video I'm going to share seven ways that chat GPT, the increasingly popular artificial intelligence chat bot, can help boost your non-profit fundraising goals. Welcome or welcome back. If we haven't met before, I'm Amber Melanie Smith and I'm a non-profit founder and social impact YouTuber who makes these videos all about how to make an impact through different mechanisms like starting a non-profit or a socially conscious business or social enterprise or being a leader in your community and more. As always, I hope that you find this video useful and helpful. Don't forget to give it a like and subscribe to my channel for more content like this. Also, if you are in the process or thinking about starting a non-profit, I have some online courses at my website foundertofulltime.com that you can check out to help guide you through the process. Okay, so chat GPT has made big news recently for its increasing popularity and people thinking about how it can be potentially applied to both business and personal uses. If you're not familiar, chat GPT is an artificial intelligence chat bot that was launched by OpenAI in November 2022 and since then, just that short period of time ago, has already grown to over 100 million users worldwide. Social impact experts have already started to speculate how might we use this new tool to amplify our own goals, whether that's, you know, increasing the reach of a message about a cause or growing a subscriber base or in the particular case of this video with fundraising. Ever curious, I wanted to try out chat GPT myself, so through some tinkering around, chat GPT and I teamed up to come up with this following list of seven ways that it could potentially help with your fundraising goals. I had a lot of fun with this. There were some delightful surprises along the way and if you haven't tried it out yet, I recommend it just because it's pretty interesting. So let's get into these seven ways chat GPT can boost your non-profit fundraising. Okay, way number one, and this one was recommended by chat GPT itself, was that we could use chat GPT to create a chat bot for donor engagement. So I haven't fully explored the depths of how this would work, so if you have actually tried this out before, comment in the video comments and let us know how this works and how you've been able to use it. But basically the idea is you think of your donors like customers in a sense, and sometimes they need some customer support, some customer service, and maybe you're not always around to answer them quickly and maybe they'd be able to find some quick answers through engaging with a chat bot on your site. The idea is that you would set this up and that it would be able to engage with your donors and help answer some of their questions and even provide some personalized responses. Now I was curious what it would look like if I were a donor considering donating to a cause and I wanted to know why should I donate to this cause, what are some of the reasons? So I actually asked chat GPT to list off several compelling reasons I should donate to a random non-profit that I picked off the internet, which was One Day's Wages located in Seattle, Washington. I wanted to see what are some reasons I should donate to One Day's Wages. So I asked chat GPT and within seconds chat GPT was giving me some pretty compelling reasons that I should consider making a donation to this organization. You can see here I'll show the results of the the prompt that I input, but it gave me reasons like, well, One Day's Wages is empowering communities by tackling the systemic issues that contribute to poverty. It's also regarded as a very transparent organization and it showcases its impact widely all over the internet and has been recognized for these impacts and transparency by major name sites like Charity Navigator and GuideStar. So it basically scoured the internet and compiled these compelling reasons and what I found very remarkable about this was that it knew what compelling should feel like. It almost humanized it in the sense that it kind of knew what I wanted, right? It knew that I wanted to hear about how impactful it was. So that was pretty cool. So one tip I would have for you as a non-profit leader or someone who's involved with a non-profit is, I think that for a prompt like this to work for chat GPT, the information has to be available and clear and inferable on the internet. So if you don't have an online presence as a non-profit, chat GPT is not going to be able to scour the internet to find and synthesize information like this for you. So a tip as a non-profit leader is make sure your information is out there and that it's out there widely and that you're constantly updating the online world on all your wonderful impacts and work. Okay, way number two that chat GPT can help with your fundraising is pretty exciting and it is that it can help you with grant writing or donation letter writing. Basically it can generate the whole letter for you or a section of a grant proposal if you input some of the important variables or give it like a website link for it to scour and comb through. I was really intrigued by this one so I wanted to just see what it would do if I gave it another random non-profit. So I input, write me a grant letter request for $10,000 for the random non-profit I chose, it's called Big Cat Rescue Corp. So I input this, it's a real non-profit, I put this organization's website in there and I asked it to write me the letter requesting $10,000 from a grant maker and the results were pretty great. I'm showing this grant letter on screen here so you can take a look at it. A couple things to observe here, yes it is a short grant letter so I would actually probably call this more like a donation request letter, not a full grant proposal because it doesn't include all of the things that you need for a full grant proposal but it's pretty solid as a basic donation request letter or as the foundation of a larger or longer grant request. Some notable things about it, it did some of the obvious things I expected like it pulled the mission of the organization into the text here but a couple of other things that it did was it once again made an assumption about what the reader, in this case a grant maker, would want to see in this letter and it made sure to pull in that information. Some things that I'm talking about include the values of the organization. So it says, you know, we operate on the belief that big cats are entitled to a life free of abuse, neglect, and exploitation. That belief statement is a statement of the organization's values and it's very powerful because when you include a belief statement like that you're signaling to the grant maker that you want them to believe the same thing as you and if they do they should give you the money. They also are very clear about what they're asking for. They say, you know, we're writing to request a grant of ten thousand dollars and they also say what they're going to spend the money on. So it will include support to our animal care costs like providing food, shelter, and medical care for the cats. They talk about some of the recognition they've received as an organization, so they're building their credibility and authority here as an expert in their issue. Pretty solid for a 10 second prompt that I put into the chat GPT. The third way that chat GPT can help with non-profit fundraising is through some degree of prospect research. And if you don't know what that means, that means finding potential donors out there, the right people who might be interested in your cause and have the capacity to make a financial contribution. I was really intrigued by this because, you know, prospect research is really hard and sometimes you have to be able to know a lot of personal details about people in order to assess whether they might be a potential donor of some capacity. So I was curious what chat GPT could do with this one. Chat GPT actually came up with this idea when I asked it, what are some ways that you might help me with fundraising? And this was one of the ideas that it came up with for me. It said that it could help gather information on potential donors, their giving preferences, their philanthropic history. And I think to a degree that's true. If you know the name of someone who has a strong online presence or it's kind of renowned in your community, you might be able to give chat GPT like a bio of that person or a website, like a Wikipedia about that person. And it could come back and tell you some of the things they're likely to donate to. That's true. But I wasn't able to figure out how I could use this with the free version that I was tinkering around with. So if you have a more advanced version or paid version of chat GPT, and you've been able to figure this one out, let me know. That said, I did want to kind of figure out what are the limits of what it could do on the free version. So I asked it to come up with a list of the types of businesses that would be the most likely to sponsor a program meant to combat human trafficking. So based on that issue area, it did come up with a list of types of businesses, like categories of businesses or industry types that would be the most likely to donate to combat human trafficking. And from my own experience, I took a look at it, this list that it generated, and I know that it is a pretty solid list. These are the ones that I would probably come up with, too, if you asked me as a human to come up with such a list. A couple notable ones that you'll see on here, technology companies, because technology can be used to track and identify human trafficking patterns. So that was an interesting fit. Yes, I could see how they would have a stake in solving or addressing human trafficking. Financial institutions, banks and other financial institutions may be interested in this topic because financial support is needed to assist with victim recovery. So that was pretty insightful of chat GPT. You know, scrolling down the list, I'm not going to read all of these, but law firms, law firms might be interested because they often need to provide legal expertise and support for victims. So even though it's not going to literally spit out a list of people's names, and also I kind of feel like that'd be a little creepy of people who might donate to your cause, you can use it to help you narrow down some of the potential supporters out there based on similar interests. So that is helpful. The fourth way that chat GPT can help with fundraising is by helping improve the content of your website and the fundraising web pages on your site. So you could input a donate web page and ask it, what are three ways that you would specifically improve this page in order to encourage more donations? And you have to be clear about that goal. Because if you just say, how would you improve this web page? You might come up with some ways to make it more aesthetically pleasing or user-friendly, but it's not going to be thinking of it in the in the context of what does this web page need to do in order to increase donations. So that additional command is important. Now I tried this by inputting a couple of different donate pages on a couple of different websites, because I wanted to make sure that it was going to give me specific customized tips for that web page instead of just generic advice about how to create a good fundraising web page. And to my delight, it was specific. So I'll show you this organization that I played around with here is the Detroit Dog Rescue. You know, I actually think this donate page is pretty decent. It's got an adorable picture of a dog on it, which is always great. It's got some nice icons, some nice coloring. But I wanted to see how would chat GPT recommend we improve this web page even further. So I asked it, what are three specific ways that you would improve the Detroit Dog Rescue donation web page to encourage people to make a donation? So here's some of its recommendations. I'll show these on screen. One, it recommended using even more visual content. It says that the text, the web page is text heavy, and that is true. If you scroll down on the web page, there is a lot of text below the top part. So it recommended more photos or videos of the dogs. Provide donation suggestions. So offering suggested donation amounts, because chat GPT has searched the internet and found that it is a common best practice to do this to increase donations, so good on it. And then showcase the impact of the donations. The web page should highlight the impact of donations and how they contribute to the mission. So all sound advice that I might perhaps give myself. Okay, so way number five is a big time saver in my opinion, and it is that chat GPT can help you write email communications and marketing communications for your fundraising events. I again wanted to test this out, so I found a random fundraising event happening. It's the the City Parks Foundation Gala happening later in 2023 in New York. I found the web page for that event, and I dropped it into chat GPT, and I said write me an email inviting people to attend this event. And here's what it came up with. You got your standard stuff up front. It says right away what the email wants from the reader. I'm writing to invite you to join us at this event. It's an event that supports our mission, but some of the notable things about this email were that it called upon the importance that parks have to human beings. I thought that was really cool. It says, I don't know if you can read this on the screen, but it says, our parks have always been a place where people can come together to enjoy nature, exercise, and connect with their communities. The pandemic has highlighted the importance of our parks and the role they play in our physical and mental well-being. So as we recover and rebuild, your support is more important than ever. That's pretty cool. I don't know if it took this language and like synthesized it from another place on this organization's web page, or if it just inferred the importance of parks to people and wrote about it here. But either way, that's pretty compelling, and that's something that I think would inspire someone to attend their event. So pretty cool. Way number six that chat GPT can help is through social media content creation and outreach. Similarly to the email language development, this can be a real time saver. And once again, I tried it out to see what it would say about why people should donate to another randomly chosen nonprofit. This one is Dwell with Dignity located in Dallas, Texas. So I said, give me three social media posts that encourage people to donate to this organization and why it's important. Here's what it said. Okay. So post number one, join us in supporting Dwell with Dignity and help provide a comfortable and inspiring, interesting choice of words there, living environment to families in need. Your donation can help us create a positive impact in the lives of so many individuals and families in our community. That's pretty good, but I was actually more impressed by post two and three. Post two, every person deserves a home that feels like a sanctuary. I just want to pause and think about that for a minute. Once again, I don't know if chat GPT took the same language off of this organization's website or somewhere else that it found it. But if chat GPT came up with this language itself, that is pretty intriguing because it's very emotional. And we know that the research shows that people are more likely to make a donation based on emotion than logic. So telling a story and invoking a feeling of sanctuary and home, that's like spot on fundraising stuff, chat GPT. So anyway, post number three, similar, very emotional. Imagine the joy and relief a family feels when they finally have a comfortable and inviting place to call home. Your donation will do this, that, that, that, etc. Donate today and be a part of changing lives for the better. So again, pretty good, pretty well written in the sense that it just knows how to call upon the emotions of a human to encourage the donations. Way number seven, chat GPT can help with non-profit fundraising, is a little bit different. It's more about the donor than the non-profit itself, and it is that it can provide personalized giving recommendations. So what this means is you could tell chat GPT what you're interested in, what your issues and causes that you care about are, maybe even the city that you live in, or some things that are important to you about what you might support in an organization. Like for example, I only want to support organizations where at least half of the board of directors is women, or I'm just making something up. You could give it parameters like that, and it could come back with a list of actual organizations that you might consider based on this publicly available information. I tried this out again, and what I'll show you first is that it, I just asked it a broad question. I said I want to support animals, especially dogs, and the environment, and it came back with these five non-profits that I might consider making a donation to. Some of these you might have heard of. Now the downside is these suggestions are pretty large and well-known non-profits, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with supporting those larger organizations, but let's say I really wanted to support something that was specific to my local community, or that I really wanted to support a smaller organization. So I tried it one more time, and I asked it, okay, I want to support animals and dogs, but specifically I want to focus on smaller non-profits with a budget of no more than $500,000 per year. So here's what it came up with. Oh, and I also specified that my local community in this particular example was Denver, Colorado. So it came back with these three organizations, Paws Co, The Big Bones Canine Rescue, and Harley's Dream. Specific organizations with this budget size, and your organization's financial and budget sizes are basically public information, because you're filing your annual tax forms with the IRS, so people can find that information if they want. So that's how it was able to know what the budget sizes were. It talks about their mission. It talked about how funds could be used. So again, it's like responding to what I want as a potential donor. I want to know these things. The mission, the size, the impact, et cetera. So pretty cool. And for us as non-profit leaders, this goes back to the importance of making sure that your information is robustly on the internet, and that it is accurate, and thorough, and regularly updated. I'd love to hear what you think now. Do you think you're going to try out ChatGBT and use it for non-profit fundraising or something else? Or have you already tried it out? Share a little bit more in the comments below about what you've been doing or what you think you might do with this. As I mentioned before, if you are thinking of starting a non-profit and need a little help to get started, check out my website, foundertofulltime.com, where I have those online courses that you can take to guide you through the process of starting a non-profit and also creating a sustainable fundraising plan. I also have a newsletter for change makers and non-profit leaders. You can get the link and subscribe to that below the video as well. And finally, I have a group on Facebook called Change the World or Bust. We've got 4,000 people in there from all over the world making an impact. Come on and join us. It's a great community, and I hope that we'll see you there. I hope that this video was helpful or at least interesting. And once again, I'm Amber Melanie Smith, and I hope to see you next time. Bye.