Every AI tool you use was built by someone. That someone had values, assumptions, and a particular understanding of what makes work good and outcomes worth measuring. Those values got baked into the system — not maliciously, just inevitably. And when you use that system to help you think through your strategy, write your messaging, or evaluate your programs, you’re drawing on those assumptions whether you realize it or not.
The tools most of us use were built by technology companies that optimize for efficiency, scale, and measurable outcomes. Those are not bad things. But they’re not the same things most nonprofit missions optimize for. Your work may depend on relationships that don’t scale, outcomes that take years to show up in any data, and a sense of purpose that no algorithm can access.
In this episode, Jeremy walks through exactly where this values gap shows up in nonprofit work — in strategic planning, in fundraising messaging, in program evaluation, and for those leading faith-based organizations, in the discernment practices that orient everything else. He then gives you three practical tools for managing the gap: a mission values prompt to add to your AI inputs, an organizational anchor check to run on any significant recommendation, and a community accountability practice that gives you access to knowledge no AI system will ever have.
The question isn’t whether to use AI. It’s whether you stay awake to whose assumptions you’re importing when you do.
Part of the AI for Nonprofits series. Download the free companion workbook at https://nonprofitfundraising.com/ai
If you're ready to put this into practice with your team, I built a course for exactly that: Build Your AI Fundraising Assistant. It walks you through building one shared AI assistant that knows your voice, your approved numbers, and your real stories, with a person in the loop on every draft. It's made for small development teams, so the time you save can go back to your donors.
