On A Mission

Content creation is a big part of communications for 501(c) (3) organizations. 

All nonprofits generate fundraising appeals and a website, so this week’s AI focus is to see what text and supporting images I can produce for very real potential scenarios:

1. A fundraising appeal letter for a new NICU unit, which is part of a larger construction initiative currently underway at Connecticut Children’s.
2. Website story for a fictitious children’s charity that needs to drum up volunteers to mentor inner city high school students.   

There are a host of AI tools to choose from when it comes to large language models (LLMs) including  Open AI’s GPT-4, which is also baked into Microsoft’s Copilot application. I looked around and found another promising one called Cohere Generate, a versatile language model for text generation. Another called Scribe, which didn’t appeal and then I came across Gemini AI, which is powered by Google’s “best family of large language models.” This sounded good, so I tried Gemini, logging in with my Google email credentials.  

Art of Prompting

Knowing that large language processing models respond best when given a detailed prompt, I decided to write a specific request, putting AI in the position of playing the role of a communications officer working for a children’s charity with the fictitious name, Children Unite. The charity needs more volunteers to work with high school students, so the web copy needs to highlight real stories of the impact of mentors. 

Below is the detailed prompt I developed and what emerged seconds later. In real situations, there may be a need to make more adjustments for accuracy and tone. In this case, I made just a few minor tweaks in italics below. 

Prompt: Using Gemini AI to Recruit Volunteers

Imagine you are a communications officer working for a national children’s charity called Children Unite and you need to develop three paragraphs of creative copy for its website to solicit college age volunteers. The copy is a first-person account about a Hispanic high school student called Maria who lives in Hartford, Connecticut whose life was positively influenced by a mentor who met with her each week to discuss her aspirations and concerns. Include an example of how the mentor helped Maria overcome obstacles that would have prevented her from completing her high school education. As a result of this mentoring relationship, Maria finished high school, got a scholarship at the University of Connecticut and is now a math teacher at Weaver High School in Hartford.  The copy concludes with a strong call-to-action to visit a volunteer page on the Children Unites website to complete a volunteer interest form.  

Web Copy for a Children’s Charity using Google Gemini AI

I used to think college was a distant dream, something only happened to other people. I grew up in a tough neighborhood in Hartford, surrounded by challenges that made it hard to focus on school. But then I met Ms. {name}. She was my mentor through Children Unite. Every week, we’d talk about my hopes, fears, and everything in between. She helped me believe in myself when no one else did.

There was a time I was failing math and thinking about dropping out. {Name} didn’t give up on me. She tutored me, helped me find extra resources, and even connected me with a math teacher at a nearby college. With her support, I not only passed math but ended up graduating high school with honors. Because of Ms. {name} and Children Unite, I got a scholarship to UConn and now I’m a math teacher at Weaver High School in Hartford, giving back to my community.

Your guidance can change a life. Imagine being that mentor who inspires a young person to reach their full potential. Children Unite needs compassionate, dedicated college students like you to be mentors. By sharing your time and talents, you can help a child overcome obstacles and achieve their dreams. 

Ready to step up? Visit our volunteer page to learn more and complete a volunteer interest form. 

Depending on the organization, this may need more adjusting for tone and consistency. Overall, this was strong. Then I went whole hog and asked AI for some headline ideas. Here was my prompt and the options generated. 

Headline Prompt

Please generate headline ideas and make them more specifically about the intrinsic benefits of being a mentor to a high school student that is from an inner-city environment.

The results are below, which are helpful and quite general:

1. Unlock Your Potential as a Mentor: Shape a Young Life.
2. Discover the Power of Mentorship: Guide a Student’s Journey.
3. Create Lasting Impact: Be a Mentor to a Hartford Student.
4. Invest in the Future: Mentor a High School Student Today.
5. Experience the Rewarding Journey of Mentorship.

So, I’d take the ideas and write something specific along the lines of, “How one Children’s Unite Mentor Created a Lasting Impact”.

Using Copilot AI to Write an Appeal Letter for Connecticut Children’s

Next I turned to a real organization, Connecticut Children’s hospital and came across this news story. Imagining that building an 8-story tower for pediatric patients takes a lot of resources, the need for some fundraising isn’t hard to imagine. Honing in on the construction of the new NICU unit, I tried prompting AI a couple of different ways, with this as my final: 

Prompt: Please write me a four-paragraph fundraising letter from Connecticut Children’s raising $150,000 for a new Neonatal Intensive Care Unit with 50 new private rooms that will provide 24/7 care to premature babies and those requiring constant observation. Hospital is pledging $1,000 to the first 50 families whose babies are treated in the NICU. There are two ways to give which should be bulleted out in the letter to stand out, which are paying online via https://connecticutchildrens.org/givehope or mail in payment using a no-postage necessary envelope. Keep the tone casual, grateful but not flowery.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

We know the power of images to grab and hold attention in so many settings, including nonprofit digital channels. There are also many times when it is impractical or against policy to include the actual images of nonprofit participants, especially when it involves children.

Kicking the tires of Microsoft Designer, the images shown below are somewhat endearing, but not as convincing as a real artist’s illustration of what the new NICU will offer. For me, this means more experimentation with AI to refine what can be produced and for any situation, imagery always needs to be in keeping with an organization’s brand. 

Here were my prompts:

Prompt A – NICU:

An illustration of a NICU showing incubators with preterm or ill newborns. Each baby is wearing either a pink or baby blue hospital hat. Incubators are equipped with monitoring devices; IV stands and some babies have heart monitors or breathing tubes. A NICU nurse is tending to one of the infants. The light depicts warmth and safety. 

Prompt B – Food Bank:

Create a photograph of an outdoor food assistance program with fresh produce in the foreground and a car in the background driving up with a food bank worker handing a bag of groceries to the person in the car. It’s a sunny day and there is a Food Bank sign.

The Next Industrial Revolution?

After dipping my toes into both the text and image generating applications, I’m thinking that the technologists are right about this being the biggest thing since sliced bread; at least in terms of what I have seen so far in terms of text generation. On the one hand, it’s exhilarating to think that creativity is given a huge boost by AI. Yet, it is a bit unnerving.

How we use AI and how well we dance with its strengths and limitations is in our hands.