Charity Fund Raising
Most of the time I write in this space about putting artificial intelligence to work in economic development, targeting industries, building lead lists, and sharpening our research. But the same tools that help us serve our clients can serve our communities just as well. Here is a recent example from outside the office.
My Rotary Club was recently challenged with a fund-raising matching grant to build clean-water wells in Ethiopia. Rather than start from a blank page, I engaged Claude, the AI assistant from Anthropic, to help us brainstorm. Within seconds it offered a series of fund-raising ideas, and one stood out: a community treasure hunt. After our Rotary board approved the concept, I asked Claude to fill in the details, and that is where the exercise became eye-opening.
It began with a local map of stops, one for each of Rotary’s seven areas of focus: peacebuilding and conflict prevention, disease prevention and treatment, water and sanitation, maternal and child health, basic education and literacy, community economic development, and supporting the environment. Each stop was tied to a familiar landmark where participants completed a small task before receiving the clue that pointed them to the next location. The route ended at a local bar and restaurant, where prizes donated by area businesses were awarded to teams based on the points they accumulated along the way.
From there, Claude kept going. It drafted the clue card for every stop, wrote the riddle leading to the next, identified the landmarks that anchored the course, and laid out the ground rules along with a few sensible cautions: no trespassing, public access only, and no speeding between stops. It even anticipated the safety and liability questions a board would want answered before signing off.
Within a matter of minutes, we had a complete plan: the event concept, a list of tasks to be assigned to volunteers, a registration form, a participant fee structure, and an estimate of the funds we could expect to raise. What might have taken a committee several meetings to assemble was sitting in front of us in a single afternoon, ready for review.
With just a little adjustment to reflect our town and our volunteers, we had the Rotary Treasure Hunt, planned, mapped out, assignments handed out, and well on our way toward funding the water project.
The lesson for those of us in economic development is a simple one. AI does not replace the judgment, the relationships, or the local knowledge we bring to the table. What it does is clear away the blank page, so we can spend our time on the work that matters most, whether that work serves a client or a cause.