Content check: Detect risks & errors automaticallyCopy
This workflow creates a systematic “pre-flight checklist” for your nonprofit’s content, using AI as a second pair of eyes to ensure everything you publish is clear, compelling, on-brand, and optimized for its goal. 🎯
Whether you’re writing a grant proposal, an annual report, a blog post, or a simple social media update, this system helps you catch critical issues, strengthen your messaging, and protect your organization’s reputation before you hit “publish” or “send.”
Benefits
- Improve Quality and Consistency: Systematically check all content against your brand standards and strategic goals.
- Reduce Risk: Catch compliance issues, factual errors, and sensitive language that could damage your reputation or lead to rejection.
- Increase Effectiveness: Audit your message for clarity, persuasiveness, and a strong call-to-action to better move your audience.
- Ensure Inclusivity: Make your content accessible and welcoming to the widest possible audience.
- Save Time: Dramatically reduce manual review hours and build confidence in every piece of content you release.
Resources Needed
⏰ Time
- Quick Check: 5-10 minutes for routine content.
- Deep Dive: 30-60 minutes for high-stakes content.
👤 People
- One person who created or is responsible for the content.
🛠️ Tools
- ChatGPT
- Optional: A dedicated grammar tool like Grammarly for a final polish. For heavy fact-checking, an AI tool with web access (like Perplexity or Gemini) is ideal.
📂 Internal data
- A final draft of the content you want to review.
- Your organization’s brand voice guidelines.
- Any relevant guidelines or requirements for the content (e.g., a grant RFP, a campaign brief, submission criteria, SEO keywords, etc.).
The Workflow: Choose Your Path
This workflow offers two options:
- For routine content like social media posts, use the Quick Check.
- For important content like a fundraising campaign, a major report, or a strategic grant proposal, use the Deep Dive.
Option A: The Quick Check (5-Minute Review)
Use this single, consolidated prompt for a rapid and effective quality check on your everyday content. It’s designed to catch the most critical issues fast.
Act as our nonprofit's quality assurance editor. I need you to check a content draft.
# DATA:
## Our Brand Voice:
**PASTE your brand voice description here. Example: "Our tone is hopeful, authoritative, and community-focused. We use clear, simple language and avoid jargon. We aim to inspire action, not guilt. We like the words A,B,C and want to avoid using the words X,Y,Z"**
## Content Goal & platform:
**Briefly state the goal and where it will be published. Example: "We want to get existing supporters to sign up for our new volunteer day. It will be published in our newsletter and blog."**
## Content Draft:
**PASTE the full text of your social media post, short email, etc.**
# REQUEST:
Check if you find any errors or big improvement opportunities in the draft. Focus especially on these these four areas:
1. Brand Voice Alignment:
Does the tone match our brand voice? Point out the biggest misalignments if they exist.
2. Clarity & Purpose:
Is the main message and call-to-action (CTA) perfectly clear?
3. Inclusivity & Risk:
Are there any red flags related to exclusionary language, potential bias, or insensitive phrasing?
4. Critical Errors:
List any critical spelling or grammatical mistakes that harm credibility.
# OUTPUT:
Provide a list of specific improvement ideas. Give priority to the biggest errors and risks.
If there are no errors or clear things to improve, just say "Looks OK".
Option B: The Deep Dive (Comprehensive Audit)
Use this multi-step process for a thorough, strategic review of your most important content. Conduct all steps in a single AI conversation to maintain context.
Step 1: The Requirements/Compliance Check
Before analyzing the writing, ensure the content meets all its foundational requirements. Missing these can lead to automatic failure.
You can skip this step if you don’t have specific guidelines or requirements to follow (content brief, platform restrictions, legal requirements, instructions from key stakeholders, funder RFPs, etc.)
Start a new ChatGPT conversation and upload your content draft and any relevant guidelines.
Act as an expert compliance officer and project manager. I need you to perform a detailed compliance and goal-alignment review of my draft against its requirements.
# DATA:
I have uploaded **(or pasted below)** the following:
1. The content draft: **Describe content, e.g., "Annual Report 2025 Draft"**
2. The guidelines/brief: **Describe document, e.g., "Funder RFP Document"**
# REQUEST:
Conduct a thorough check by creating a three-part report:
1. Requirement Extraction: List every single requirement from the guidelines document. Include requirements for:
- Formatting (e.g., page limits, font size, margins, file type).
- Structure (e.g., required sections, specific headers, table of contents).
- Content (e.g., specific questions that must be answered, keywords to include, attachments).
2. Compliance Verification: For each requirement you listed, indicate its status in my draft:
- ✅ COMPLETE: Requirement is fully met (cite page/section).
- ⚠️ PARTIAL: Requirement is partially addressed (explain what's missing).
- ❌ MISSING: Requirement is not addressed at all.
- 🔄 UNKNOWN: You don't have enough info to judge if the requirement is met or not
3. Goal Alignment: Beyond technical requirements, assess if the draft is strategically aligned with its main goal. Is the core purpose of the document clear and consistently supported throughout?
Step 2: The Persuasiveness & Clarity Audit
Now, review the content from your audience’s perspective.
Continue in the same conversation.
OK, now I need you to switch roles.
Act as a member of our target audience:
**Briefly describe your audience, e.g., "a busy foundation program officer," or "a first-time donor who is passionate about our cause but has limited time."**
# REQUEST:
Using the following questions as your guide, identify all issues related to persuasiveness and clarity.
- The Hook Test: Does the opening grab attention?
- The "So What?" Test: Is the core message and its importance immediately clear?
- Friction & Drop-off Points: Are there confusing, boring, or overly technical sections?
- Logical Flow: Does the argument make sense from section to section?
- Call-to-Action (CTA) Strength: Is the CTA weak, unclear, or uninspiring?
# OUTPUT:
For each issue you find, create a list item. Provide:
- Current text: [The specific text with the issue]
- Suggested revision: [Your proposed improvement]
- Reason for change: [Explain why the change is needed based on the assessment criteria above]
Prioritize issues as:
- CRITICAL: Must fix (major clarity or persuasion failures that risk losing the audience).
- IMPORTANT: Should fix (clarity, flow, and logical issues).
- MINOR: Consider fixing (stylistic improvements to enhance persuasiveness).
Step 3: The Responsibility Check (Facts, Inclusivity & Bias)
Ensure your content is accurate, respectful, and welcoming. This step combines fact-checking with a review for inclusive language.
For best results on fact-checking, you may want to run this prompt in an AI tool with web research features (ChatGPT and most of the alternatives have this option, but some don’t activate them by default or for every prompt).
OK, now put on your "editor for responsible and inclusive communications" hat. I need a detailed audit of the content's accuracy and language.
# REQUEST:
Review the draft and create a report with the following sections:
1. Factual Accuracy & Evidence:
- List every statistic, data point, or bold claim mentioned.
- For each, note if a source is cited.
- Flag any claims that seem unsubstantiated and mark them with [EVIDENCE NEEDED].
- Flag any data that appears outdated (e.g., older than 3-5 years) and suggest searching for a more current source.
2. Inclusivity & Bias Scan:
- Language: Flag any language that might be exclusionary or make assumptions about beneficiaries based on geography, socioeconomic status, gender, age, ability, or culture.
- Terminology: Identify any outdated terms and suggest current, respectful alternatives.
3. Language & Framing:
- Deficit vs. Asset Framing: Review how we describe our beneficiaries. Are we using strength-based, dignified language rather than deficit-based "savior" language? Highlight any areas for improvement.
- Power Dynamics: Check for a paternalistic tone. For example, does the language reflect "partnering with" the community versus "helping" or "saving" them?
- Jargon & Accessibility: List any insider terms or acronyms that an external reader might not understand. Suggest simpler alternatives or definitions.
IMPORTANT:
Do your own online research whenever necessary (especially regarding "Factual Accuracy & Evidence"). Don't reply until you have reliable data/links to back your conclusions. If you are not able to access websites or do complex online research, let me know and recommend alternative solutions.
# OUTPUT:
Give me a prioritized list of all issues found. For each issue, provide:
- Current text: [The specific text with the issue]
- Suggested revision: [Your proposed improvement]
- Reason for change: [Explain the problem, e.g., "Unsubstantiated claim," "Uses deficit-based framing," "Potential for bias."]
Prioritize issues as:
- CRITICAL: Must fix (factual errors, highly biased, or exclusionary language).
- IMPORTANT: Should fix (unsubstantiated claims, jargon, "savior" tone).
- MINOR: Consider fixing (subtle framing improvements).
Step 4: The Final Polish (Proofreading & Brand Voice)
With the strategic checks complete, the last step is a meticulous, line-by-line proofread while ensuring brand voice consistency.
The strategic review is complete. For the final step, please perform a meticulous proofread and brand voice check.
# PROOFREADING ANALYSIS:
Review the text for errors and deviations related to:
1. Grammar, Spelling, & Punctuation: Identify all objective errors.
2. Clarity & Readability:
- Flag overly complex sentences and suggest ways to shorten or split them.
- Identify passive voice constructions that could be more powerful in the active voice.
- Highlight unclear pronoun references (e.g., "it," "they," "this").
3. Consistency:
- Verify consistent use of key terms, capitalization (e.g., organizational name), and acronyms (defined at first use).
- Check that number and date formatting is consistent throughout the document.
4. Brand Voice Tone:
- Pinpoint specific words or sentences that feel "off-brand" compared to our brand voice (explained already in this conversation)
- Suggest alternative phrasing that better aligns with our tone.
# OUTPUT:
Give me a prioritized list of all recommended edits. For each issue found, provide:
- Current text: [The specific text with the issue]
- Suggested revision: [The corrected version]
- Reason for change: [Categorize as Grammar, Spelling, Consistency, Clarity, or Brand Voice Tone]
Prioritize issues as:
- CRITICAL: Must fix (spelling, grammar, or punctuation errors that damage credibility).
- IMPORTANT: Should fix (consistency errors, unclear sentences).
- MINOR: Consider fixing (stylistic suggestions, minor brand voice tweaks).
Step 5: The Learning Loop (Archive & Improve) 💡
This optional final step turns a one-off review into a long-term learning tool for your entire team.
After you’ve finalized and submitted/published your content, use this prompt.
Based on our entire conversation and the review process for this document, please create a concise "Lessons Learned" summary we can use to improve our future work.
# REQUEST:
Generate a brief report with three sections:
1. Strengths to Replicate: Identify 2-3 things (e.g., a strong argument, a well-phrased sentence, an effective data point) from the final version that we should reuse or replicate in future content.
2. Recurring Issues to Address: What were the most common weaknesses you found in the initial draft (e.g., passive voice, lack of evidence, brand voice misalignment)? This will help us identify training needs.
3. Process Improvements: Suggest one concrete thing we could do differently next time to make the content creation or review process more efficient or effective (e.g., "Create a pre-approved statistics sheet," or "Develop a checklist for RFP requirements before writing begins").
Recommendations for Best Results
- Match the tool to the task. Use the Quick Check for 90% of your daily content—it’s fast and catches the most common issues. Reserve the Deep Dive for high-stakes content where nuance and strategy are critical.
- Don’t accept vague feedback. If the AI says “make this clearer,” push back with “Show me how. Rewrite the sentence for me.” Be specific in your requests.
- Trust but verify. AI is a fantastic assistant, but it’s not infallible. Always use your own human judgment, especially for critical facts, compliance details, and nuanced messaging. You are the expert.
- Build a “Swipe File”. When the AI identifies sentences that are perfectly aligned with your brand voice, save them in a separate document. This builds a valuable file of on-brand examples for your team to reference.
- Use this to train your team. This workflow isn’t just about fixing one document; it’s about improving your skills. By repeatedly seeing the AI’s feedback, your team will internalize the principles of excellent, on-brand, and effective writing.