At The Philanthropist Journal, we share the voices and perspectives of workers, volunteers, and leaders in the non-profit sector. Humanity (the word “philanthropy” comes from the Ancient Greek “love of humanity”) is central to the non-profit sector and guides all our decisions, including our generative AI policy.
We believe that the process of creating a story is as important as the final product. Taking the time to think through our ideas; speak with community members, peers, and sources; make messy drafts; integrate feedback; and test assumptions is all part of the learning process that makes writing and sharing ideas valuable to our sector. This is why it’s important that people are are central to the writing, editing, and translation process.
As artificial intelligence grows more present in our lives, it comes with the risk of bias and misinformation and harm to workers and the climate. AI risks undermining our desire to build trust with our readers, information sharing and dialogue.
Our stories come from two sources:
Professional writers
We assign stories to and welcome pitches from professional writers. Writers are paid a competitive rate agreed upon when the story is accepted. Paid writers are not permitted to use generative AI tools to write any part of their stories.
Sector contributors
We accept pitches from (and occasionally commission articles from) sector experts and practitioners on subjects of interest to the sector. Sector contributors, typically writing on behalf of their organizations, are not paid.
Sector writers have unique and original perspectives and expertise, and they are not professional writers. For sector contributors, stories will not be accepted if they are substantially written by AI. However, AI tools may be used in a supportive way, to lower barriers to writing and communicating ideas. Sector contributors must disclose if they have used AI tools to write any part of their stories, and we will share this with our readers.
Regardless of the source of our stories, all of our writing is edited and fact-checked by our human team. When we translate an article, we use paid human translators and illustrations and photography by artists. There is human oversight for every story.
Thank you to our colleagues for inspiring our policy: