They open Claude or ChatGPT, type a prompt, hit enter, and paste the output into an email or social post. Then they wonder why their content sounds robotic. Why their donor responses are dropping off. Why every post starts with “I’d be happy to” or contains the word “delve.”

It’s not the tool. It’s the setup. Or more accurately, the lack of one.

Every conversation you have with AI starts in the same place: a blank slate with no idea who you are, what you sound like, or what your nonprofit cares about. If you don’t tell it those things up front, it defaults to generic AI English. Corporate. Hedged. Full of clichés. Peppered with words like “leverage,” “robust,” “comprehensive,” “utilize.” Phrases your donors recognize as AI within two sentences. Phrases that make your nonprofit sound like every other nonprofit using AI.

The fix is one document. About 30 minutes to write. You write it once. You attach it to every Claude project, paste it at the top of every ChatGPT custom GPT, or save it as a system prompt. From that point forward, every output reflects your voice, not the AI’s default voice.

This document is what I call a brand compliance prompt. Here’s how to build yours.

What goes in the brand compliance prompt.

Six sections. You can write the whole thing in 30 minutes if you already have a brand voice. Longer if you’re working out your voice as you go.

1. Who you are.

Two or three sentences about your nonprofit. Mission, location, the work you do, the people you serve. Name your founder and give one sentence about what makes their voice distinct. The AI uses this to understand the speaker.

2. Your mission and core beliefs.

Three to five sentences that capture what you believe and what you’re working to change. This is the philosophical anchor. Every piece of output should reflect these beliefs without needing to be told again.

3. Your voice rules.

How you sound. Tone, energy, posture toward the reader. Write these as positive instructions and negative instructions. What to do, what never to do.

4. The words and phrases you NEVER use.

This is the part that strips out the AI tells. Be specific. Be aggressive. If you don’t want a word in your output, ban it explicitly.

Standard list to start with: delve, straightforward, leverage, certainly, comprehensive, robust, utilize, intricate, interplay, pivotal. “I’d be happy to assist.” “It’s important to note.” “It’s worth mentioning.” “Let’s dive in.” “In today’s world.” “At the end of the day.” “Not only... but also...”

Then add anything specific to your sector. If you work in animal welfare, ban “fur baby” and “forever home.” If you work in housing, ban “stakeholder engagement” and “capacity building.” If you work in healthcare, ban “wellness journey” and “holistic optimization.” Whatever the buzzwords in your sector are, name them and ban them.

5. Your formatting rules.

How you want output to look on the page. Font choices, em dash policy (mine: never), emoji policy (mine: never), bullet point policy, header use. Be opinionated. Defaults will eat your voice if you let them.

6. Your brand colors and visual rules.

If you’re using AI for image generation or design work, include your brand colors with hex codes. Name the visual style you want.

How to use the prompt once you’ve written it.

Three ways, depending on your tool.

Claude: Create a project. Paste your brand compliance prompt into the project instructions. Every conversation inside that project will follow the rules automatically.

ChatGPT: Create a custom GPT. Paste your brand compliance prompt into the GPT’s instructions field. Use that GPT for all your nonprofit work.

Other tools (Gemini, Perplexity, others): Paste the prompt at the top of every new conversation. Save it in a notes app or document so you can copy it in fast.

The template.

I’ve attached a fill-in-the-blanks version of my own brand compliance prompt, rewritten generically for any nonprofit. Download it, edit the bracketed parts, save your version, copy and paste into Claude: Settings - General - Instructions for Claude forever. Free for any 501(c)(3), no attribution required, no email signup, no catch. Can also be used for ChatGPT.

Nonprofit Brand Compliance Prompt Template V1

37.5KB ∙ PDF file

Download

A fill-in-the-blanks AI brand compliance prompt template. Make AI sound like your nonprofit, not like every other chatbot. Six sections, 30 minutes to customize. Free for any 501(c)(3).

Download

The reality check.

This prompt will not turn AI into a perfect writer. It will turn AI into a writer who consistently sounds like your nonprofit instead of like a generic chatbot. The difference between those two is the difference between a tool that helps you and a tool that creates more editing work than it saves.

If you’ve been using AI and feeling like every output needs heavy rewriting, this is why. You skipped the foundation. Build it now and the next 100 hours of AI work you do will sound like you.

One more thing. As your voice evolves, the prompt should evolve with it. Add new banned phrases when you spot them. Add new signature lines when you create them. Tighten the formatting rules when you decide on something new. The prompt is a living document. Version it like you’d version any other operational doc (mine is currently V12).

What’s next.

Next Thursday: how to write your nonprofit's AI policy. The one document that protects you legally, defines what AI can and cannot do for your organization, and gives you a defensible answer when board members or donors ask if you are using AI safely. Build this week's voice foundation first. Get used to seeing AI output that sounds like you. Then we will wrap it in the governance layer that keeps you safe.

The work of running a nonprofit doesn’t get smaller. The team can.

AI does the busywork. You do the mission.

This is not a brag. This is the only reason any of it exists.

Most nonprofit content about AI assumes you have a team. A communications person. An operations lead. A grant writer. A development director. A volunteer coordinator. You don’t have those people. You have yourself, maybe a board, maybe a part-time helper. The advice that works for a 50-person nonprofit doesn’t work for a 1-person one.

AI changes that math.

This newsletter is about how. Specifically, what AI skills, setups, and workflows actually let small-team nonprofits operate at scale without burning out the founder.

Here’s what you’ll get every week.

The Skills. How to build custom AI skills and prompts that handle specific nonprofit work. Grant writing skills. Donor communications. Board meeting prep. Each post breaks down a specific skill with the exact prompts and structure I use.

The Setups. How to build a working AI infrastructure for a nonprofit on a $0 to $200 a month budget. Tool stack, integrations, what actually matters versus what’s hype.

The Workflows. Repeatable processes that combine tools and skills. The grant pipeline. The content engine. The intake-to-follow-up sequence that handles every family case in our prevention work.

The Reality Checks. Where AI fails. Where it costs more than it saves. Where it’s actively dangerous for nonprofit work (donor data, beneficiary privacy, anything legally sensitive). I’ll tell you when not to use it.

Three ways to read this newsletter.

Free subscribers get the bulk of the content. Every post on tools, setups, workflows, and field notes lands in your inbox for free.

Paid subscribers ($8/month or $80/year) get one premium post a month (or more), usually a full implementation walkthrough you can actually copy and run. The first one is “The AI Stack I Use to Run a 501(c)(3) Solo.”

Founding members ($150/year, capped at the first 25) get everything above, plus one custom AI skill per year, built to your nonprofit’s specific workflow. You describe what you need. I build the skill. You use it forever.

Twenty-five founding spots. When they’re gone, they’re gone until next year’s renewal.

I’m BJ Adkins, founder of Animal-Angels Foundation. I’ve been using AI to build a nonprofit from the ground up since the moment Claude became something more than a chatbot. This newsletter is the operating manual I wish had existed when I started.

If you’re a nonprofit founder, operator, board member, or volunteer trying to figure out whether AI is worth your time, you’ll find a home here.

Welcome aboard.

AI does the busywork. You do the mission.