William Bortins

I help nonprofits keep donors and grow the gift. AI is in the toolbox. The conversation is the work.

[William Bortins @WilliamBortins]

Most shops spend the year chasing new donors and lose the ones who already said yes.

I work the other direction. Keep the giver. Then, after a few years, grow the gift. AI serves that, never the other way around.

If you lead a nonprofit and that is the problem you actually have, follow along. I'll write what I'm learning, in public.

[William Bortins @WilliamBortins]

Virtuous’s 2026 Nonprofit Benchmark Report looked at 771 mid-sized shops. Donor expansion, meaning what retained donors gave this year versus last year, sat at 104.42%. In the top quartile, those same retained donors gave 58% more. Keep the giver. Then grow the gift.

https://t.co/wPMx5LNWUM

[William Bortins @WilliamBortins]

@grok @0xCodez @bot You need to dish out more weekly credits for $300. Talk about a product that would close down other LLM projects if you could come down to $200 but I guess you really want everyone to go use @cursor_ai

[William Bortins @WilliamBortins]

Yes, I pay for it. It is the best model on the market. It is worth every penny. Its ability to use a virtual computer to log into accounts and manipulate them is game changing. I’m actually going to move over to @cursor_ai because it’s $200 a month and it provides @grok and the other frontier model for a fraction of the price. Then if I run out of tokens, I’ll just pay for them because of the savings.

[William Bortins @WilliamBortins]

75% of the worlds reported tornados happen in the U.S.A.

[William Bortins @WilliamBortins]

This spring, DonorDock wrote that AI can draft the thank-you while you still make the call. That is the right split. The model does not have the conversation. You do.

https://t.co/Qegmuavqam

[William Bortins @WilliamBortins]

Virtuous’s 2026 Nonprofit Benchmark Report looked at 771 mid-sized shops. Donor expansion, meaning what retained donors gave this year versus last year, sat at 104.42%. In the top quartile, those same retained donors gave 58% more. Keep the giver. Then grow the gift.

https://t.co/wPMx5LNWUM

[William Bortins @WilliamBortins]

Retained donors in 2026 gave 104.42% of last year’s dollars. Top-quartile shops got to 158%. You do not grow a non-profit by replacing people. You keep them, then you ask them to lift the shop.

https://t.co/NeXkueLgwY

[William Bortins @WilliamBortins]

A new tool launched today that lets ChatGPT read IRS philanthropy data. Your 990 is now easier to find than last year's thank-you letter. The software did not create that problem. The shop did.

https://t.co/LXt3mx2Vwu

[William Bortins @WilliamBortins]

The Fundraising Effectiveness Project just compared the first three months of 2026 with the first three months of 2025. Shops raised 4.3% more money and still lost 0.8% of their donors. That donor drop is smaller than a year ago, but it is still a drop, and it is only a quarter. Existing donors carried the numbers. New donors kept falling. Growth is not the same as keeping people.

https://t.co/dU5auhIujj

[William Bortins @WilliamBortins]

This morning, my 2 year old daughter asked if “Mom was going to get in the water during swim lessons today.”

I told her that Mom may or may not swim today, depending on how she’s feeling.

In the most Leave It to Beaver moment imaginable, Violet responded, “Aww, shucks,” and proceeded to fake snap her fingers, as one does in this situation.

Thank God for sweet daughters!

[William Bortins @WilliamBortins]

A new donor who gives once and leaves costs more than a quiet giver who stays. Retention is not a thank-you letter. It is the work.

[William Bortins @WilliamBortins]

Every morning we ask our 28 month old daughter, “What did you dream about?” Violets usual answer is, “popsicles.”

Today, her answer was, “popsicles, meat, ketchup, and dijion mustard.”

I’m not sure what Joseph and his coat would have to say about the dream but I love my little girl.

[Robert Bortins @TheRobertBshow]

I run an organization where we train over 45,000 COOs of multigenerational dynasties each year.

Their protégés call them Mom.
That's Classical Conversations.

[Robert Bortins @TheRobertBshow]

They say Classical Ed is "weak" in the sciences.
Isa Fite (CC grad) just won the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Goldwater winner.
First-author publication in Physical Review A.
Her professor calls her the most accomplished undergrad in 33 years of teaching.
Receipts posted.

[William Bortins @WilliamBortins]

Another Pascha in the books! Time to go to bed. Christ is Risen! ☦️

[William Bortins @WilliamBortins]

FYI… TSA at Orlando MCO is currently between 1-2 hours. That’s with TSA. Thankfully I’m just here to pick up a friend.

[William Bortins @WilliamBortins]

I attempted to instal @openclaw tonight but couldn’t do it. Ran into issues with the instal for Unkown reasons and my @OpenAI pro account (max subscription) couldn’t give me an answer. What am I doing wrong?

[William Bortins @WilliamBortins]

It’s all distraction. Stop paying attention.