AI Fundraising Build Pt. 1: Teaching AI to Think Like a Fundraiser
Episode 8, September 22, 2026
Show Notes:
What difference does a good prompt make when you use AI for fundraising?
In this first episode of the Catholic Tech Table’s fundraising build series, we introduce St. Jude Catholic Leadership Center, a fictional Catholic nonprofit with strong programs, a decade of goodwill, and no formal development program. Over the course of the series, we’ll use AI to help build St. Jude’s annual giving program from the ground up.
We begin with a simple demonstration: using a thin prompt and a detailed prompt to turn the same information into newsletter copy. The results show why context, audience, tone, purpose, and constraints matter.
You’ll learn how to move beyond generic AI output and begin collaborating with AI to create clearer, more donor-centered, impact-driven fundraising communication.
Follow along as we build St. Jude’s fundraising program one step at a time.
Episode Transcript:
Intro Snipet
Andrew: If you're being more collaborative with, with your AI, meaning you're giving it better instructions, you're sort of going back and forth with it, then you're gonna get better advice, you-- and you're going to get clearer and, and more impactful results.
Episode Introduction
Andrew: Well, howdy everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Catholic Tech Table. I am Andrew Robison, owner and president of Petrus Development, and I will be one of your co-hosts for this first episode, so welcome. Jenni, welcome as well.
Jenni: Thank you so much, Andrew. I'm very happy to be here. My name is Jenni Reamer. I am a consultant with Petrus Development. I have been writing classes and teaching classes since... Gosh, I can't remember. I think three or four years now, if that sounds right. You might know.
Andrew: Yeah. It's been a while. Well, we are here for this special episode of the Catholic Tech Table. And just a little bit about who we are. Petrus Development is a Catholic nonprofit fundraising organization and we offer fundraising consulting, fundraising education through our courses, through our coaching, and through our capital campaigns. And so this episode, or this podcast is the Catholic Tech Table. Uh, it's- we've had a couple of episodes out already, but we're starting a, a series here, and so this is the first episode of that new series. What this series is gonna be about is about using AI in Catholic fundraising. So, uh, we're very excited. Jenni and I are your hosts for this episode, but we've got other members of the team, Matt, Sarah, Rhen, and probably even some special guests will be joining us for some of these episodes about AI and Catholic fundraising. So, we're very excited to be launching this series, and hopefully it's helpful to you as you explore how AI can be useful in Catholic fundraising.
Jenni: Well, I'm very excited about this podcast, and I'm so glad to be part of it because this is this huge emerging technology, and, um, I've been fundraising since 2010. And, the whole concept is that we get to, to work through this and to share it with you. So I'm happy to be part of it, and I'm really looking forward to, to what we work on.
Andrew: Great. So, when we were trying to figure out sort of how to introduce AI and Catholic fundraising through this podcast, we really were kind of scripting out how these episodes were gonna go and what this series would cover, and we really realized that we needed to not just talk about AI, but we actually needed to demonstrate how to use AI, right?
And so what we are doing is Petrus has developed an AI tool specially for Catholic fundraisers called Pete, and that is the tool that we'll be using through most of these episodes. This first episode is a little bit different, and we'll explain that to you in just a second. But as we were, were mapping this out, we thought, "There's so many ways that you could use AI to demonstrate fundraising in the Catholic space, right? But what if we showed our audience, showed you how- this tool could be useful in a real-life situation, but not having a real-life organization, we thought, well, what if we just constructed a nonprofit and used Pete to build an effective and a productive fundraising operation, right, for this constructed organization?"
So that's what we did. Jenni, I'll let you explain the organization. But over the next 20 weeks, we are going to focus on the annual fund side of fundraising, and we're going to use AI, we're gonna use specifically Pete through most of this, but we're gonna use Pete to build an annual fund operation for this imaginary nonprofit.
And, hopefully, the idea is that you or whatever organization you're with whatever kind of issues you're struggling with, areas you wanna grow, you can pull out from these lessons applicable lessons. I said lessons twice, right? You can pull out applicable ideas, uh, for you to use in your nonprofit. Does that explain it a little bit, I think, Jenni?
Jenni: Yeah, I think exactly. And that's, that's where it all came from, that we wanted to create this organization to be our guinea pig, if you will. So that from beginning to end, we'll have one place we can go to, one Pete account where we will be able to fully show the big picture of what a big difference Pete made and how much we are able to create in one place.
So let me tell you a little bit about St. Jude. It's a fictional Catholic nonprofit. We decided that they were gonna have adecade of goodwill, really strong programs building Catholic leaders to make a difference and impact in their community. But, they have essentially no development program.
They sent out some sporadic letters and some emails here and there, but no systematic approach to raising money. So we are going to start essentially from the ground up and try to capitalize on some of that goodwill and create good relationships. This is our launch episode when we get the whole concept started.
Next week, we're gonna start actually building the program. And step by step, by the end of our 20 weeks together, St. Jude will have a complete annual giving program from its case for support, operational plan, communication plan, all the stewardship strategies, everything that they need to do to have a donor-centered, impact-driven, meaningful, relationship-based development program.
Andrew: Great. I think I've got it. So St. Jude, not, not any existing St. Jude. This is St. Jude Catholic Leadership Center. So as the 20 weeks roll out, you'll learn a little bit about this fictional organization, right? But St. Jude Catholic Leadership Center is a fictional nonprofit that we've created.
They've got some goodwill, as you mentioned it, maybe a little bit of a donor database, but no intentionality around their fundraising which is where a lot of, which is where a lot of nonprofits are right now, right? Maybe they've sent some letters, maybe they've done some fundraisers, maybe they've got, you know, some founders or some founding donors that have got it up to the point where they are. But, as you start looking at the future, you as a leader or as a fundraiser in this space think, "Okay, we need to get serious about this." And that's where St. Jude Catholic Leadership Center, our fictional organization, is right now, and we are going to use the next 20 weeks to help build out a functional and an effective annual fund program.
Jenni: Yeah, exactly. They have a great mission, but they're at this point where they recognize that they can't reach more people, and they can't do their mission more effectively until they get serious about fundraising. Yeah. So in 20 week- 20 weeks, we're going to build the annual giving program. After that, we're going to expand even more, and we're gonna work on part two, which is major giving and beyond. And then we'll use AI to take it to the next level and talk about major gifts, endowments, planned giving, capital campaigns, all that good stuff.
Andrew: Sounds awesome. Okay. So every week we'll have two episodes. Tuesday episodes will focus on demoing the use of AI, like I said, primarily Pete which is Petrus' AI tool.
And then our Friday episodes will be more kind of philosophical discussions or kind of high-level discussions about proper use, improper use, right? Sort of mentality, psychology around fundraising, right? So we've got demonstration day on Tuesday and then discussion day on Fridays. Each episode will be somewhere around 15 to 20 minutes. That's our goal. We wanna keep these tight. We wanna keep them helpful, and that's where we're gonna go over the 20 weeks. Yeah?
Jenni: Yeah, exactly. This is because we are gonna do demonstrations. We're gonna work through this with you step by step together. But to do those demonstrations most effectively, it's very helpful if you can watch the video. You can always listen to it and then check back with the video. But if you're able to watch the video and of course subscribe to the channel so that you can get our updates every single week.
Andrew: Great. And just a couple of links so that you've got them petrusdevelopment.com is where you can go and learn more about Petrus and find access to all of these episodes, and Pete as well. We've got our YouTube channel where all these episodes will live. You can listen to the podcast anywhere you can listen to podcasts. I believe Spotify, you can watch the videos as well. Like you said, there are some demos, and so that'll be helpful. And then a couple of other websites. We've got our fundraising community, which is the Harbor. And so you can go to petrusdevelopment.com/harbor and that's a great place for you to learn from peers, for you to encourage each other, for you to access all the rest of our courses that Petrus has produced over the years. Jenni, you've been part of the planning and the creation of a lot of those courses. There's a community forum. You can get access to Pete through the Harbor. So,those are kind of some just some useful links for you to store away and come back to as you need them.
Jenni: Yeah. And I'll just highlight this for the people that if you join the Harbor membership, Pete is free, so that's a big perk in my mind.
Andrew: Okay, so you mentioned demos, so let's start it. Give us our first demo that you're gonna be working through this week.
Jenni: So today is our launch week, so we're gonna start at the very beginning about how you make a difference in what AI can give you and what Pete can give you. So, today we're gonna discuss a good prompt versus a bad prompt. And by bad, I just mean insufficient. There's not enough information there to give us a good output.
Andrew: Okay. So prompting is this idea that probably, you know, it, it had a very different definition five years ago, right? But now, we understand in the space of AI, a prompt is basically you are activating your AI chatbot, you're activating your AI tool to do something for you, whether that's produce content, whether that's answer questions, whether that's do some research. And so prompting is the way that we communicate primarily through typing,right, but there are some some AI tools that you can talk to. They're multimodal. But prompting is basically sort of how you activate your, your AI. And so what you're gonna talk about is how do you activate it in ways that are more helpful to you, and how can you activate it in ways that kind of leave more, leave information on the table. Yeah?
Jenni: Yeah. Exactly. Think of it as directions in the simplest way.
Andrew: And we mentioned Pete early, but we're not using Pete for this episode. We're using... What are you using for this episode?
Jenni: I'm gonna use ChatGPT. Uh, we wanted to use Pete the whole time, but Pete would not let us give it a good, a bad prompt. It kept asking more information to try to get some of this context. So for today we're using ChatGPT. I mean, that's one of the reasons why Pete was created, to help us do fundraising better.
So, let's take a look here. Here's my generic ChatGPT window, and what we're gonna tell AI to do today is to turn some information into a paragraph for our newsletter. I have four basic made-up facts about our recent March leadership retreat. We have 42 people attended. 11 came from parishes we've never served before. The retreat filled two weeks early for the first time, and our next retreat is June 13th through 15th. Registration opens May 1st. So let's see what it comes up with for that.
All right, so the paragraph is: Our March leadership retreat was a tremendous success, welcoming 42 participants, including 11 people from parishes we have never served before. For the first time, the retreat reached capacity two weeks ahead of schedule, a wonderful sign of growing interest in leadership formation. Our next leadership retreat will take place June 13th through 15th, with registration opening May 1st.
All right, what do you think about that, Andrew?
Andrew: Okay, so I, I think it's good, right?
It'smatter of fact. It took your four bullet points. It gave, you know, structure, right, a paragraph structure to it. You could drop that into your newsletter, and people would understand how many people came the, how the retreat signed up early or filled up early, and when the next retreat is.
Jenni: It basically took the information, made it a paragraph. Great. All right. So now we're gonna add some details. I'm gonna put all those same facts in there, but I'm gonna add, "Turn these into a paragraph for our monthly e-newsletter," which is a little bit of context. Readers are parishioners in our diocese, most of whom have never attended one of our programs. Keep it to 75 words, plain language. End with the June date and how to register. All right, let me add those to it.
Andrew: Okay, so you're giving the same four factual bullet points, but now you're giving a little bit more direction to the AI and what to do with those four bullet points, yeah?
Jenni: Yeah, exactly. Let's see how that's different. Our March leadership retreat brought together 42 people from across the diocese, including 11 participants from parishes we have never served before. The retreat filled two weeks ahead of schedule for the first time, showing growing interest and opportunities to strengthen Catholic leadership. We are grateful to everyone who joined us and look forward to welcoming new participants. Our next leadership retreat is June 13th through 15th. Registration opens May 1st at registration link. All right, what do you think of that one?
Andrew: Okay, so I would say that's, uh, a little bit better. Yeah. I mean, it took your bullet points, it stuck to the facts, but then it also, um, it gave context to who the participants are. Itsort of stepped into that impact of what the retreat will mean. I think your, your prompting of it gave it a little bit more license to lean into the impact and not just the reporting of it.
Jenni: I love that. I mean, like, is it revolutionary different? No. But this line right there, the showing growing interest and opportunities to strengthen Catholic leadership, that makes the reader feel like there's momentum. Like if they join this retreat, then they can be part of a force that's growing in the diocese. That is a subtle but powerful difference in how it impacts the reader.
Andrew: Great. So why are we starting this 20-week series with this demo? Tell us a little bit more, what did we learn and, and why is this important sort of as a starting point?
Jenni: One of... I mean, if there's a tagline for my perception of the, the Petrus fundraising philosophy, and something that I say repeatedly in the classes that I teach, is that what we wanna do with Catholic fundraising is be impact-driven and donor-centered. That's it. That's our motto. And when you give Pete or any AI system, when you give it context, when you give it guidelines, when you tell it about who you're talking to and the different things that you wanna do at the end, it's more effective.
And, and in this case, it was very simple. We were asking for one paragraph. But if you're working on your case for support, which we're gonna be doing very soon, or you're working on a letter to ask people to support your mission to give money and to share their own resources with you, giving it better information and giving it a good prompt is going to make a huge difference in the effectiveness. It can't read your mind. It heavily depends on what information you give it.
Andrew: Yeah. And, you know, we're talking about sort of the generative part of AI, right? You asked it to write a paragraph, right? We'll ask it over the next couple of weeks to write appeal letters, to write newsletter articles, write case for support. But another way that we're gonna use AI over the next 20 weeks, and in general, is for helping us to develop strategies, helping us to understand direction, right? It's important to include that context. And so it's important to give the robot, the resource, the tool, some of that background and understanding so that it can help you focus on not just producing or not just taking the next step, but really driving you always towards impact and driving you always towards mission.
And so if you don't provide that context through good prompting, if you're not digging, if you're not asking the right questions, if you're not activating in the right way, then you're gonna get generic advice and generic output like we saw in example one. But if you are, I like to use the word collaborating. If you're being more collaborative with your AI, meaning you're giving it mo-better instructions, you're sort of going back and forth with it, then you're gonna get better advice and you're going to get clearer and more impactful results.
Jenni: Yeah, exactly. I mentioned before we couldn't use Pete because it was asking me all these questions to clarify the prompt. That's because it's based on the Petrus philosophy. So it's a tremendous tool, and we are gonna move that, use that moving forward, and that's definitely going to help get you to the best information at the output. But still, Pete relies just as much on your prompt as any other AI does too. So very important moving forward.
Andrew: Okay, great. So this was episode one really just to kind of get us started, talk about the project, introduce St. Jude Catholic Leadership Center, introduce the 20 weeks of building a strong, effective annual fund, and then a very basic lesson on how to write, how to, how to, how to write good prompts, right? How to provide context and how to draw out from the tool what ultimately you want, which is impact and which is donor-centered language. So I, I think this is a great first episode to start with. Jenni, thanks for setting this up and getting us to this point.
Jenni: Thanks so much for joining us. I'm excited to, to work through it with everybody, and I'm happy that we're gonna have a lot of different perspectives and hear from a lot of different people. Thanks, Andrew.
Andrew: Great. So before we close, just want to mention, I mentioned the Harbor earlier. This episode is brought to you by the Petrus Harbor, and the Harbor really is just a monthly membership community for Catholic fundraising teams. Petrus loves to build community through our conferences, through our workshops, through our events, and now we're helping to build community through the internet, through our online tool. So we created, we created the Harbor specifically for people doing fundraising work for Catholic organizations. It gives Catholic fundraisers the guidance, the tools, the accountability, and the support they need to make progress without having to figure out everything out on your own. So every Harbor membership as well includes a professional level of Pete AI, which is three licenses.
We'll talk about all these terms later, but it gives you the ability to create your own rag, to teach Pete about your organization, to load in content and I think that that's the best way to use AI. It's the best way to use Pete, and it's included with your Harbor membership. So if you're interested in learning more, go to petrusdevelopment.com/harbor to learn more about this great community.
Andrew: So I think that's where we'll wrap up. Thank you very much, Jenni, forputting this together, and look forward to seeing you back on our next episode.
Jenni: Thanks, Andrew. Thanks to everybody for listening.
Andrew: And where are we going with that next episode, Jenni?
Jenni: So for Friday, if today we talked about the first, most basic step of how you use AI well, on Friday, we're gonna step back, and we're gonna ask whether Catholic fundraisers should be using AI in their work, and how we can use it well, and where that line is where you've, we've crossed into not using it well and not supporting the mission of our church. So that'll be a good conversation. I'm looking forward to it.
Andrew: Good. So Tuesdays are our demonstration day, and Fridays are our discussion day. So hopefully, you enjoyed this first episode, and you'll be back on Friday to join us for our discussion on whether Catholics should use AI in fundraising. So looking forward to it. Thanks so much. We'll see you back next time.