Hey Reader,

Last month, I had coffee with a development director I recently worked with. I often check in to see how the team's fundraising is shaping up.

She mentioned she’d attended at least two AI webinars that left her feeling more behind than when she started.

She’s not alone.

The conversation around AI is moving so fast that the question of what to do first has become a kind of a dread for many fundraising teams.

I recently started working with a small nonprofit here in Calgary that had been hearing about AI for months. The executive director began flagging articles in the team’s Slack channel. Someone suggested building a chatbot, and another wanted to use AI to “personalize donor communications.” But when they tried to get started, everything stalled.

They didn’t know which tool to use or who needed to make the decision. There was also concern that whatever tool they chose would expose donor data in a disastrous way that no one could imagine.

So, they stopped. Easy.

Or was it?

For about 30 days, it felt like the right call. What got them unstuck wasn’t finding the perfect tool. It was asking the team three simple questions:

• What data do we have?
• How clean and organized is it?
• And what’s the single task eating the most time on our team right now?

That last question is where the real answer lives.

They spent the next two months cleaning their donor data before adopting a single AI tool. They merged duplicate records, identified lapsed donors, and updated email addresses.

Unglamorous? Yep. But when they finally ran a draft of a re-engagement email sequence through an AI writing tool, they saw far more of their list open their emails because they knew, based on the data, who to send it to.

Here’s the framework that helped her team, and that I’d offer to any organization feeling stuck: AI readiness isn’t only a technology problem. It’s a data and process one.

Think of it like a car. AI is the engine. It’s powerful, impressive, and capable of getting you from A to B. The data inside? That’s the fuel.

A great engine running on dirty fuel doesn’t get you far. If your records are scattered, stored in another database, or rife with duplicates, even the most sophisticated AI tool in the world won’t save your next campaign.

You don’t need to adopt AI everywhere at once. Start with your smallest, most repetitive writing task. First drafts of thank-you emails. Turning a one-pager into three social posts. Or you want to convert a grant report into a donor update.

Remember: Low stakes. Quick feedback. That equals real learning. It’s how you build confidence and what AI readiness looks like in practice.

Take 20 minutes this week to answer three questions as a team:

1. How clean is our donor data right now? Be honest!

2. What’s the one written task that takes the most time on our team?

3. Who would own “AI experiments” at our organization?

You don’t need a strategy yet. You need a starting point. These three questions are it.

If you’re unsure what “clean enough” donor data looks like, or you’d like a second opinion on where your team should start, hit reply. I read every response, and I’d be happy to help you think through what your organization needs first.

I’m offering 3 free AI Readiness Assessments for nonprofit teams before the end of April. Reply to this email, and we’ll set it up!

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