What Penname does
You have a donor letter, a spreadsheet, or a report. You'd like ChatGPT, Claude,
or Copilot to help you rewrite it, summarise it, or tidy it up. But you can't
paste it in, because it's full of things you must not share.
Penname fixes that in four steps:
- You open your document in Penname.
- Penname finds the private details and suggests a stand-in for each one.
Margaret Wilson becomes Dorothy Fields. $25,000 becomes $22,500.
- You check the list and change anything you like, then save a safe copy.
That's the copy you paste into your AI assistant.
- You paste the AI's reply back into Penname, and the real details return.
What counts as a private detail? Names of donors, staff and trustees.
Organisations. Email addresses, phone numbers and postal addresses. Gift amounts
and giving histories. Wealth and capacity ratings. Fund, campaign and appeal
codes. Constituent IDs.
What you can open
| You can open | What you get back |
|---|
Word (.docx) | A Word file |
Excel (.xlsx) | An Excel file |
| CSV spreadsheets | A CSV file |
Plain text (.txt, .md) | A text file |
| PDF | A text copy you can paste anywhere |
Penname also knows the export formats of the systems you already use, including
Raiser's Edge NXT, Salesforce NPSP, DonorPerfect, Bloomerang and
Little Green Light.
Scanned PDFs won't work yet. If your PDF is a photograph or scan of a page
rather than real text, Penname can't read it. Copy the text into a Word or text
file first.
Nothing ever leaves your computer
This is the part that matters most, so here it is plainly:
- Penname does not use the internet. Not to check for updates, not to send
statistics, not for anything. You can turn your Wi-Fi off and it works exactly
the same.
- Your documents are never uploaded. They are opened, read and saved on your
own machine, and nowhere else.
- Nothing is sent to Philanthropel. We cannot see your documents, your
donors, or even that you are using Penname.
- The key file is locked. The file that lets you restore the real details is
encrypted, and its password lives in your computer's own keychain.
- You can check this yourself. All the code is public, and everything Penname
needs is included in the download.
The only moment anything leaves your computer is when you choose to paste the
safe copy into your AI assistant. And by then the private details are gone.
Data protection rules, wherever you work
Penname helps you do one thing that nearly every privacy law in the world asks
for: share less personal data than you otherwise would.
Under UK and EU GDPR this is called pseudonymisation, and the law names it
directly — Article 4(5) defines it, and Article 32 lists it as an appropriate
security measure. Elsewhere it goes by other names, but the principle is the
same: don't hand over personal details you don't need to hand over.
| Where you work | The rules that apply | How Penname helps |
|---|
| United Kingdom | UK GDPR, Data Protection Act 2018 | Pseudonymisation is a recognised safeguard |
| European Union / EEA | GDPR | Named in Article 32 as a security measure |
| United States | State privacy laws — CCPA/CPRA in California, plus Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Texas, Utah and more | Less personal information disclosed to a third-party service |
| Canada | PIPEDA | Limits what is disclosed to others |
| Australia | Privacy Act 1988 — especially APP 8, on sending data overseas | An AI assistant is usually an overseas disclosure |
| India | Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 | Reduces the personal data processed |
| South Africa | POPIA | Supports minimality and security safeguards |
| Brazil | LGPD | Supports data minimisation |
| Kenya / Nigeria | Data Protection Act 2019 / NDPA 2023 | Reduces what is shared with processors |
Please read this part
Penname does not make you compliant, and it does not make your data
anonymous. Because the real details can be restored, the safe copy still
counts as personal data under GDPR and most similar laws. What Penname does is
reduce how much personal data you share, which is a genuine and recognised
safeguard — not a get-out.
You are still responsible for reviewing what Penname produces and for
meeting the rules that apply to you. Penname is a tool, not legal advice. If
your work involves health, financial, or children's data, check with whoever
advises you before using any AI assistant.
Installing Penname
Please read this before you download. Penname is free, open-source software,
so it isn't registered with Apple or Microsoft the way paid software is. Your
computer will warn you the first time. That's expected, and here's exactly how to
get past it. You only do this once.
On a Mac — 4 steps
-
Click Download for Mac below. You'll get a file called Penname.dmg.
-
Open it. A window appears with the Penname icon and an Applications
folder. Drag Penname onto Applications.
-
Now one extra step. Open the Terminal app — press ⌘ +
Space, type Terminal, press Enter. Copy the line
below, paste it into the black window, and press Enter:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Penname.app
It will look like nothing happened. That's correct. You can close Terminal.
-
Open Penname from your Applications folder. It will open normally from now
on.
What did that command do? It told your Mac "I downloaded this on purpose."
Nothing more. It doesn't change Penname or give it any new powers.
Right-clicking and choosing Open used to work instead of step 3. Apple
removed that in macOS 15, so the Terminal step is now the reliable way.
This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗
