For a $27 million public-sector behavioral-health proposal with just over three weeks until the deadline, the work extended far beyond narrative writing: workflow design, contributors, communication, platforms, technical inputs, compliance, and movement toward submission.
Climate · AI · dialogue · institutional trust
Helping climate organizations navigate AI without losing the human plot.
I work across development strategy, funder communication, research translation, and complex project leadership. I focus especially on the questions AI is creating inside climate organizations: whether, where, and how to use it, how to explain the choice, and what human judgment not to outsource.
Selected work
What consequential work asks for.
People genuinely want to invest, participate, contribute, belong, and help build something meaningful. Fundraising brings purpose, trust, money, power, timing, and uncertainty into that relationship; the work is to understand where there is a real fit.
As a writer and Stanford Continuing Studies instructor, I make difficult material clear and discussable while preserving the distinctions that good decisions depend on.
Questions that may sound familiar
The issue is rarely just whether to use AI.
“Our funders are asking how we use AI. We do not yet have a shared or credible answer.”
“Some staff want rapid adoption. Others want a moratorium. How do we decide without damaging trust?”
“Our climate solution uses AI. How do we explain its water, energy, labor, and governance costs?”
“We have a policy, but it does not tell people what to do in a real project, proposal, or funder conversation.”
Why this matters now
AI is now a climate question, a funding question, a labor question, a governance question, and a trust question—all at once.
Potential without inevitabilityAI may support meaningful work. Its use is not automatically efficient, responsible, or aligned with mission.
Dialogue without false consensusTeams need ways to act without pretending that legitimate differences have disappeared.
Accountability beyond the policyCredible practice depends on how decisions are funded, documented, communicated, implemented, and reviewed.
What I bring
Research, relationships, and delivery belong in the same frame.
I connect climate and AI questions to the established work of building support, translating evidence, coordinating people, and carrying projects through.
Funding and communication
Build a credible case for support.
Shape funder communication, proposals, briefs, and narratives that connect mission, evidence, strategy, and the people or places at stake.
Research and judgment
Make complexity usable.
Integrate research, surface uncertainty, clarify tradeoffs, and create language that supports real decisions without flattening the evidence.
Project leadership
Carry the work through.
Structure workflows, coordinate contributors, manage requirements, and move consequential projects from ambiguity toward completion.
Questions I’m pursuing
From the language of a workflow to the governance of technological power.
This inquiry draws on conversations with climate scientists, funders, water and conservation practitioners, nonprofit leaders, technologists, and others making these decisions in practice.
What are organizations actually using—and declining to use?
Looking past broad claims to understand concrete applications, constraints, tradeoffs, and reasons for non-use.
What will funders need to understand?
Purpose, evidence, oversight, disclosure, environmental impact, and the forms of judgment an organization will not outsource.
What helps disagreement produce better judgment?
Constructive-dialogue methods and decision processes that do not depend on premature consensus.
How does language shape legitimacy?
The relationship among technical evidence, institutional authority, public trust, and concentrated power.
About Carolyn
Development strategist, writer, and project leader.
I work across nonprofit development, funder communication, research translation, and complex project leadership, with particular attention to the organizational questions AI is creating for climate institutions.
- Development and funding: major gifts, foundations, proposals, stewardship, and funder communication.
- Project leadership: complex initiatives, cross-functional coordination, research translation, and writing.
- Climate and AI inquiry: the choices organizations face around use, non-use, environmental impact, governance, and human judgment.
Work worth carrying through
Have a consequential project, funding question, or organizational decision to move forward?
I help organizations clarify consequential work, build support for it, and carry it through—with particular attention to emerging climate-and-AI questions.
Email Carolyn