Carolyn Salvador of Momentum One Consulting brings 27 years of nonprofit leadership experience—and three years of deep AI study—to this session with 4aGoodCause’s Ronald Pruitt.
She talks with us about how the problem with most AI outputs isn’t the tool. It’s how you’re talking to it.
This session goes well beyond writing social posts with ChatGPT. Carolyn walks through how nonprofit leaders can build a true AI-assisted workflow—using custom AI assistants trained on their organization’s voice, priorities, and goals—to expand capacity without expanding payroll.
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Carolyn discusses how nonprofit leaders can move beyond basic AI use and build a strategic, AI-assisted workflow that saves time and strengthens fundraising outcomes.
In this session, you’ll explore:
- Why the way you “speak” to AI determines the quality of your results. Learn a simple framework to get dramatically better outputs.
- How to use AI as a research assistant, data analyst, strategic advisor, and grant writing partner (not just a content generator).
- Step-by-step guidance for building Claude Projects and Custom GPTs that act as dedicated AI team members for your organization.
- How to create a brand voice document that trains AI to write in your tone and style.
- Nonprofit data privacy best practices when using AI tools with donor information.
- Tools worth exploring: Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Grok, Gamma.app, and Loom.
⭐️ What if there’s an easier way to maximize donations? There is. It’s called recurring monthly giving, and it generates 2.4X more revenue on average than one-time gifts. And our Monthly Giving Toolkit simplifies the whole program.
6 top takeaways from this session
1. The problem with your AI results isn’t the tool—it’s the prompt.
Carolyn stressed if you’re getting generic outputs from AI, the tool isn’t the issue. The way you’re communicating with it is.
She introduced a prompting framework she calls CRAT—Content, Role, Action, and Output. Before asking AI to do anything, you define what role you want it to take (for example: “You are an expert nonprofit fundraising consultant with 30 years of experience”), describe the task clearly, provide relevant context about your organization, and specify the exact output format you want, like an email under 150 words, five subject line options, a table, and so on.
Studies Carolyn cited show that well-crafted prompts can reduce editing time by as much as 70%. And if you’re not sure how to write a strong prompt, you can simply ask AI to write it for you.
💡 Did you know? AI tools help expand your nonprofit’s capacity. But so do fundraising platforms that have built-in donor-upgrade tools, like 4aGC’s monthly donor upgrade links.
2. Think of AI as a strategic advisor, not just a writing assistant.
AI can review your appeal letter and act as a coach, critiquing the tone, identifying unclear sections, and flagging where the emotional pull is missing.
It can analyze a grant RFP against your organization’s programs and tell you where your proposal needs to be stronger. It can review a PowerPoint presentation and point out where the logic breaks down or slides are missing.
3. AI can analyze your donor data—if you use a paid plan.
Carolyn shared something that tends to surprise nonprofit teams: You can upload donor data to a paid AI platform, ask it to act as a financial analyst, and receive a detailed report that surfaces lapsed donors, upgrade opportunities, and year-over-year giving trends—all in a matter of minutes.
The critical caveat: this should only be done with a paid plan. Free versions of AI tools train on your inputs, which means your donor data becomes part of the model’s training.
If you want extra precaution, Carolyn suggests de-identifying donors before upload (replacing names with codes) and keeping a separate key that maps codes back to individuals.
4. Claude Projects and Custom GPTs are how you build your actual AI team.
Rather than starting a new chat every time you need something written, Claude Projects and Custom GPTs let you build dedicated, trained AI assistants for specific, repeatable tasks.
Carolyn uses separate projects for appeal writing, meeting notes, and grant writing. Research shows custom GPTs can increase productivity by 45% and output by 3x when paired with a well-built brand voice document.
The setup sounds more involved than it is. You can ask AI to write the system prompt for you—describe what you want the assistant to do, give it context about your goals and preferences, and say: “Write me a Claude Project system prompt that will accomplish this.” Paste the result into your project instructions, upload your reference files, and you’re done.
5. A brand voice document transforms AI outputs from generic to authentic.
Gather 5–10 examples of writing you’re proud of—emails, blog posts, appeal letters, meeting transcripts. Upload them to your AI platform of choice and ask it to run a style analysis: “Based on these examples, describe my brand voice, tone, formality level, and communication style.” AI will generate a brand voice document for you. Save it, upload it into your Claude Project or Custom GPT, and instruct it to use that voice whenever it writes for you.
You can do this for individual team members and for your organization as a whole—and the quality difference in AI outputs is noticeable.
6. There are more AI tools worth exploring than most nonprofits realize.
Carolyn highlighted several tools beyond the ChatGPT default:
- Claude (by Anthropic): Carolyn’s personal favorite for day-to-day use. Particularly strong at nuanced reasoning and role-based interaction. Claude Projects are available on paid plans.
- Perplexity: Excellent for real-time, web-based research. Unlike most AI models trained on historical data, Perplexity actively searches the web and compiles comprehensive research reports.
- Gamma.app: Generates full presentations from a prompt—choose your format, color scheme, and level of detail, and it builds slides for you.
- Grok: A useful research tool that also functions as a conversational sounding board.
- Loom: A free screen recording tool that creates meeting transcripts—useful raw material for your AI note-taking assistant.
- ChatGPT: Still a strong option, particularly for image generation and its Agent mode for automation tasks.
- RightBlogger: Added by 4aGoodCause here, as we’re fans!
For budget-conscious nonprofit teams, Carolyn’s recommendation: Start with one paid plan (~$20/month per user), test it thoroughly, and expand from there. A $50/month investment for two users is modest when weighed against the capacity it frees up.
Supplemental resources mentioned in this session
- Momentum One Consulting — Carolyn Salvador’s firm, offering fundraising capacity-building and AI implementation support for small and emerging nonprofits
- Claude by Anthropic — Carolyn’s preferred AI platform for daily nonprofit work, including Claude Projects
- ChatGPT by OpenAI — Widely used AI platform with strong image generation and Agent mode
- Perplexity AI — AI-powered deep research tool with real-time web search
- Gamma.app — AI presentation builder: generate full slide decks from a prompt
- Loom — Screen recording and meeting transcript tool (free tier available)
💡 Did you know? 4aGoodCause has AI writing tools built right into the donation page editor—so you can generate compelling donation page copy and thank-you messages without ever leaving the platform. See how it works.
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About Carolyn Salvador
Carolyn Salvador is the founder of Momentum One Consulting, a boutique firm dedicated to helping small and emerging nonprofits build fundraising capacity and achieve lasting impact. With 27 years of nonprofit leadership experience, she brings proven strategies and actionable tactics that nonprofit leaders can execute to see real results, meeting every leader and organization exactly where they are. Learn more at momentumoneconsulting.com or connect with Carolyn on LinkedIn.
