Holding Fire

AI is a new kind of fire. It can warm donor relationships, deepening trust and individualized attention across the entire donor base. Or it can burn those relationships to a cinder. Foreword by Steven L. Meyers, author of Personalized Philanthropy. Praised by Russell N. James III, Linda Lysakowski, and Joanne Oppelt. Stephen Christopher Nill is skeptical of AI in fundraising. After decades building development programs and publishing dozens of books on nonprofit fundraising, governance, and management, he has watched AI insert itself between organizations and their donors, increasing the distance and eroding trust.
The hype cycle suggests using AI as a shortcut for producing more appeals, more emails, and "personalized" communications at higher volume. The result is more words and fewer relationships. Donors sense that something mechanical has replaced something human, and they drift away. Nill has built the answer. In Holding Fire, he lays out the Human-Centered AI Framework that was created for AI to read at the start of every session.
Once it does, it knows just how to work with development officers to build deeper and more productive human-to-human relationships with our donors. The process is remarkably simple. Hand the Human-Centered AI Framework Operating Specification to your AI at the start of any session, and the AI works inside the framework from the first prompt. The Specification, which Nill makes available online for readers to use, is built to work with the AI inside the relationship-building systems fundraisers already use, including Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT, Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud, Bloomerang, DonorPerfect, Neon CRM, Virtuous, Little Green Light, EveryAction, and Kindful, among others.
You can start Monday morning with the data you already have, in the platform you already use. Or you can experiment with the free online Practice Portfolio Nill built around the same fictitious donors he introduces in the book. The framework's first move is a healthy division of labor: AI handles synthesis, drafting, pattern recognition, and portfolio-wide tracking; the human fundraiser handles the relationship work that only a human can do.
The same quality of preparation once reserved for top prospects now extends to every donor at every level. Nill introduces the Monday morning review as a starting point each week. The AI reads the full donor base, flags what needs attention with specific rationale, and drafts the communications you review, thoughtfully revise, and send. Lapsed donors who stopped giving because the organization stopped paying attention come back into view.
Faithful midlevel donors who quietly increase their support get acknowledged. Major gift visits get the preparation that used to be reserved for the top of the portfolio. The "honored or handled" ethical test keeps the donor's interest first, always. Major gifts officers, annual fund directors, planned giving specialists, and development directors face the same questions, whether they recognize them clearly or not: How can we use AI to build more and deeper productive relationships with our donors? How do we keep AI from working against us in the process?Holding Fire answers them.
Whether your shop has one fundraiser or hundreds, the framework keeps the human at the center. Written by a skeptic, for skeptics.