Why you think that terrible AI-written fundraising appeal is great

An organization I worked with was decided to add a direct-mail appeal to their line-up. As is often the case in that situation, we had no data as to what the appeal’s topic, offer, or approach should be.

We needed to try something new, which can be both risky and difficult.

An enterprising member of the team thought they’d see what ChatGPT could do to get us going. They fed it a story from their work, along with some other prompts, and the AI took its usual 5 seconds or so to write an appeal.

The team member was impressed, and circulated it among their colleagues.

Word came back: We love this appeal! It’s going to work great!

Then they sent it to me.

I get asked to critique a lot of fundraising writing. And as often as not, it’s not great, and I have to tell them so. (Basically, I’m a professional mean critic.) So I read things differently from regular people.

The AI appeal was terrible. Here are some of the problems with it.

• Hard to read (reading ease grade of 13).
• The writing was flat and unemotional.
• The story was boring (just reading the raw notes for the story was more interesting).
• The story had a happy ending.
• There was no sense that there was a problem the needed solving.
• There was only one direct address to the reader, asking (in an oddly vague way) for a donation.
• No P.S.

It was a pretty typical example of AI appeal writing.

What puzzled me was the widespread love of the appeal from people at my client. They were smart, experienced, professional people. How could they miss so many glaring problems with the AI appeal?

I think I understand why. And this is one of the challenges with AI writing.

It looks better than it really is. AI copy is….

• Clean. No spelling, grammar, or syntax errors. Far cleaner than even the best professionally written copy.
• The story wasn’t boring for them. It was something they were familiar with and already knew it was a really good story. They supplied the power that the AI missed.
• Same with the unemotional tone. They knew the emotional content of the project the letter was about. The AI just prompted them to remember thoughts and feelings they already had.
• The readability barriers really weren’t a problem. In a sense, they were being paid to read it. Anyone can power through the most difficult writing if they are determined to.
• All in all, each of them carried the “curse of knowledge.” They already knew what they needed to know in order to understand and care.

For them, it was a masterful appeal. While it seemed that it did all the hard work an appeal should do, actually it was them, the readers, who did all the work. Inside their own heads.

That’s one of the real dangers of AI writing.

It can trick you. It looks good, and it supplies just enough to activate all your own buttons.

That is really tough to avoid.

If you’re looking at AI copy for your fundraising, turn your vigilance up to eleven.

And/or get outside help who doesn’t have the curse of knowledge about your organization.