For the past two decades, SEO has been the leading strategy for increasing your nonprofit's online visibility to potential new donors, supporters, and clients. While SEO is still an important part of your digital strategy, AI search is rapidly transforming the ways in which people look for information online. Savvy nonprofits are adopting AI search optimization alongside their SEO strategies in order to capture the attention of new donors, no matter where they're searching.

If you're not sure where to start in the world of AI search optimization, we recommend turning to the expert - AI itself. Below we've created a prompt that you can use to task ChatGPT's newest model (GPT-5) with auditing your nonprofit's presence in AI search results and designing a strategy to improve your visibility.

What is AI search optimization (AISO)?

AISO focuses on ensuring that your nonprofit's digital content is easily discoverable through AI search (such as when a potential donor asks ChatGPT, "what organizations are fighting for housing affordability in LA," or "where can I volunteer with animals in Austin?" It is an evolution of traditional SEO, which optimizes for keyword matching, backlinks, structured data, and site quality signals to rank in Google/Bing SERPs. AISO optimizes for large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, which generate answers rather than simply listing links. LLMs pull from training data, real-time search, and curated sources, not just a static index, and often blend multiple sources into a conversational answer.

What are the differences between traditional SEO and AISO strategy?

Traditional SEO's primary goal is to be listed as one of the top 3-10 links displayed by search engines for target keywords. With visible placement, you can see how your content ranks and observe change over time. AISO's goal is to be named or cited in the AI's answer text - there is no position ranking to climb, either you are included, excluded, or summarized without mention. LLMs may paraphrase your content, meaning direct mentions can require more deliberate prompting from the model.

While SEO focuses on ranking for high-value keywords, AISO focuses on natural language queries and often requires creating content that directly answers complete sentence questions. As such, FAQ pages, about pages, lists of services, and explainer pieces that can be dropped directly into an AI generated response may prove more effective than traditional keyword-driven blog posts. Additionally, third-party mentions matter just as much as your own site content, because AI may trust an external source more than your self-description.

How to build an AI search optimization strategy

The prompt below will help you get started by auditing your organization's current visibility in AI search answers, identifying opportunities for you to improve your presence, and creating a content calendar plan aimed at optimizing your presence in AI searches. Start by copying and pasting the prompt directly into GPT-5, inserting your nonprofit's name and location.

The prompt (copy and paste directly)

Role & Goal:
You are an AI search visibility strategist for nonprofits. Your goal is to audit a nonprofit’s current discoverability in AI-driven answers and search, produce a prioritized optimization plan, generate many practical long-tail keywords, and estimate the annual donation value they are missing because of unoptimized search visibility.

Input: I will only provide the nonprofit’s name and location.

Actions (required):

1. Research & context: Use your internal knowledge plus live web research to build a profile: mission, services/programs, locations served, typical donor profile, event calendar, and existing web properties (main site, blog, donation page, Google Business Profile, Wikipedia/LocalWiki, GuideStar/Charity Navigator entries, social profiles). Cite sources.
2. Identify 20–50 long-tail target queries the nonprofit should rank for (prioritize relevance and donor-intent / service-intent). Group them into buckets: Location-based, Cause/service-based, Transactional/donation-focused, Event/seasonal, and Informational/Q&A. (Provide them in a copy/pasteable list and as a CSV table.)
3. Current Visibility Audit for at least the top 10 target queries: simulate how an AI would answer, record whether the nonprofit appears, its prominence, and which sources AI would likely reference. For each query provide an AI Visibility Score (0–100) and brief rationale. Cite evidence.
4. Flag website technical & content issues: crawl the nonprofit’s public pages and list every public page you find that is missing or has poor:
   • Title tag or has duplicate/empty titles
   • Meta description or meta description too short/irrelevant
   • H1 or poorly structured headings
   • Structured data / schema.org markup (note pages with no schema or incorrect schema types)
   • Open Graph/Twitter Card metadata missing for event and donation pages
   • Crawlability issues (robots.txt or noindex where it shouldn’t be)
     Provide the page URL, the specific missing/poor item(s), and suggested fix for each. (If you cannot crawl programmatically, state that and base the flagging on visible source and meta tags.)
5. High-authority backlink targets: Suggest 8–15 concrete, high-authority backlink and citation targets relevant to the nonprofit’s niche and location (examples: local news outlets, statewide LGBTQ+ orgs, performing arts centers, university community calendars, philanthropy lists, tourism/event calendars, regional foundations, GuideStar/CN enhancements). For each target provide: name, URL, why it’s valuable, and a suggested outreach angle or content pitch.
6. AI-Ready Content Calendar (6–12 months): Produce a month-by-month content calendar mapped to the long-tail keywords. For each content item include:
   • Title/headline
   • Target keyword(s) (from your 20–50 list)
   • Content format (blog post, Q&A, listicle, event page, press release, donor story, video)
   • Publish date (month)
   • Suggested CTA (donate, join, sign up, volunteer) and an explicit donation ask wording or placement recommendation (e.g., inline ask, donation banner, footer)
   • Amplification plan (where to share, outreach partners, PR angle)
7. Donation value estimation (annual) - “Missing Donations” calculation: Estimate the annual donation value the nonprofit is currently missing because they are not ranking for or appearing in the target queries. Do this with a transparent, reproducible model and present a low/medium/high scenario:
   • Steps & assumptions to include and report explicitly:
     • Estimated monthly search volume for each target query (use live web search / keyword tool or conservative proxy and cite source).
     • Expected Click-Through Rate (CTR) by position (use standard CTR curves - cite source) or an AI-answer inclusion rate if modeling AI-driven answers.
     • Conversion rate from site visit to donation (use nonprofit benchmark defaults unless the org publishes its own; report assumed low/med/high e.g., 0.5% / 1.0% / 2.0%).
     • Average donation value (use disclosed avg donation if available or use sector benchmarks - report assumptions).
   • Compute for each scenario: estimated additional monthly visits × conversion rate × avg donation, then annualize. Show the formula, numeric steps, and a one-paragraph interpretation.
   • Clearly label assumptions and provide sensitivity ranges so the nonprofit can swap in their real numbers later.
8. Prioritized Step-by-Step Implementation Plan: Combine technical fixes, content pieces, backlink outreach, local SEO steps (Google Business, directories), event & partnership plays, and AI-specific tactics (structured Q&A content, authoritative lists, Wikipedia/LocalWiki updates, machine-readable event feeds). Prioritize items by expected ROI and implementation difficulty (quick wins vs. medium vs. long term).
9. Example optimizations & templates: Provide ready-to-paste examples: optimized page title + meta description, schema.org snippets (Organization, MusicGroup/PerformingGroup, Event, DonationAction), outreach email templates for backlink requests, and 2–3 social captions that include target keywords.
10. Deliverables & export options: Output all results in both (A) readable report sections and (B) spreadsheet-ready CSV tables for: target queries, flagged pages with issues, backlink targets, and the content calendar. If requested, generate the CSVs or a single .xlsx file.

Output Format (required):

• Executive Summary (1 page): top 3–5 prioritized actions and the midpoint “missing donations” estimate.
• Recommended Target Queries (20–50) as copy/paste list and CSV table.
• Detailed Current Visibility Audit (top 10 queries with AI Visibility Scores and evidence).
• Flagged Website Pages table (URL, issue(s), suggested fix).
• High-Authority Backlink Targets table (name, URL, reason, outreach pitch).
• AI-Ready Content Calendar (6–12 months) as table.
• Missing Donations Estimation section with assumptions, calculations (low/med/high), and sensitivity notes.
• Step-by-Step Implementation Plan with prioritization and estimated effort.
• Example Optimizations & Templates (titles, meta, schema, outreach email).

Transparency & Citations: When you use external data (search volume, CTR curves, benchmarks), cite the sources. For any estimate, show the explicit formula and numbers used.

Special Notes:

• If you cannot access a live keyword tool, use conservative proxy estimates and state that clearly.
• When flagging pages for missing schema, include the exact snippet we recommend inserting; for large sites, list the top 25 pages by importance (home, donate, programs, events, about, contact) and an option to run a deeper crawl later.
• If the nonprofit has multiple locations or chapters, generate separate location-based query buckets and local schema recommendations for each.

Output the full report and offer to export CSV/xlsx files for the tables.

Nonprofit Name: [INSERT NAME]

Nonprofit Location: [INSERT LOCATION]

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