An open letter, and a film

Every donor relationship now has two futures.

One keeps AI at the development officer’s side. The other lets the machine write to donors itself. Our open letter asks fundraising’s associations to keep a person in the chair.

Sign our letter

Books we publish

Two books, one conviction: the donor relationship belongs to a person.

Holding Fire

A Skeptic’s Framework for the Fundraiser with AI at Your Side

Stephen Christopher Nill, JD

Holding Fire shows development officers how to work with AI at their side, where even the AI knows never to directly communicate with a donor.

About Holding Fire →

Personalized Philanthropy

Crash the Fundraising Matrix, Second Edition

Steven L. Meyers, PhD

Personalized Philanthropy is where the soul comes from: gifts designed with donors, never extracted from them.

About Personalized Philanthropy →

The article

No, Blackbaud, we’re not ready for Agentic AI

By Stephen Christopher Nill, JD and Steven L. Meyers, PhDAugust 11, 2026

“It is going to be taking action,” he said. “That is its job. It is going to be reaching out to your donors.”

A few days ago, Blackbaud University held a webinar for the company’s nonprofit customers titled “Are You Ready for Agentic AI? A Human First Readiness Check for Nonprofits.” The session came one day after Blackbaud announced four new AI agents for its platform, so this was the education arm briefing practitioners the morning after a product launch. What was said in that hour has disturbed us since.

Read the article

Why it matters

The replay and the transcript are in the article, so you can hear it for yourself.

It is the evidence behind the open letter, and the reason the two of us wrote it together.

The open letter →

Project Aardvark

Meet Aardie. Forever free.

Try our working demonstration of an AI coach at your side. Aardie knows to never go around you and communicate directly with your donors. This is forever free and will never become a commercial product. We think you’ll like our little aardvark.

Try the demonstration

The Framework

The Specification: an open standard for AI in the donor database.

Published rules any company that runs an AI-enabled donor database is free to implement to enable its AI to do its work within the fundraising profession’s codes of ethics. One core rule: the AI never contacts a donor directly. This is an open standard for the companies that run AI-enabled donor databases to implement.

Read the Specification