Tips for the Practical Use of AI in Fundraising for Nonprofits

It seems like everyone’s talking about artificial intelligence (AI) these days. Whether you’re excited about it, tired of hearing about it or dreading the need to learn how to use another new technology, it’s clear that AI tools have the potential to help nonprofit organizations do more, faster and possibly better.

But for AI to be truly useful for nonprofits, it must be practical. It can’t simply be a shiny new tool to play with. There must be clear ways to apply it to everyday challenges and use it to help reach goals.  

Fundraising can be a great place to use AI. Fundraising processes can be complex, and some fundraising tasks can be manual and time-consuming. AI has the potential to streamline fundraising processes, making you a more efficient and effective fundraiser. 

Let’s look at some key ideas and use cases to help you start thinking about practical ways to use AI in fundraising for your nonprofit.

Artificial Intelligence Basics 

It can help to start with some fundamentals of AI so that you understand what it is and what it can do.

AI is a broad term that essentially refers to the ability of a machine to imitate or approximate intelligent human behavior. Within AI, you have machine learning, which allows a tool or system to automatically “learn” and improve upon itself.

You might also hear the term “generative AI,” which includes tools that do things, like generate content, summarize text, answer questions and write code. ChatGPT is an example of a generative AI tool. You give these tools prompts that may be in the form of questions or inputs. The accuracy and quality of the responses you get from Chat GPT relies heavily on the prompts you give it.

A couple of capabilities of AI that can be especially helpful for fundraising include:

• Predictive modeling. Finding patterns in data to help predict future outcomes.
• Propensity modeling. Going to the next level to predict the likelihood that individuals will complete certain actions.

Practical Uses of AI for Fundraising

With these basics in mind, let’s look at a few practical ways that your nonprofit could use AI for fundraising. 

Draft a Fundraising Communication

This is a common example of using AI for fundraising. You could use a tool like ChatGPT to generate an initial draft of your fundraising letters or email solicitations, giving you a starting point for your communications and helping you to get those communications completed faster.

Generate a Fundraising Web Page 

You can ask a tool like ChatGPT to create a basic HTML page and see results in just seconds. This could be especially helpful if your fundraising team has limited HTML skills and needs to quickly build a basic HTML page or even help someone on the team with more advanced HTML skills to generate a web page faster.

Identify Prospective Donors 

You can use AI-driven prospect identification tools to determine which individuals in your database are potential major or planned donors. You might also use these tools to do things like identify smaller donors who are likely to renew or upgrade their giving. 

Another possibility is to use these tools to forecast donor contributions. These tools can process your data much faster and at a much larger scale than a human could accomplish.

Develop Personas 

AI tools can help you develop personas — or fictional individuals that represent audience groups. AI tools can help you to identify shared characteristics of your most engaged supporters, which can help you develop more targeted messages for fundraising and marketing. 

For example, using an AI tool, you might find that a large portion of your supporters are in Gen Z and prefer social media communications, which can then help you to create content and use channels that better fit their interests.

Improve Communications 

You can use AI tools to streamline and sharpen your marketing and fundraising communications by helping you determine things like:

• Who you should contact.
• How often to contact them.
• The most effective channels to use.
• How much to ask for.
• What messages to use in your communications. 

Tips for Using AI for Fundraising

As you begin to brainstorm ways your nonprofit can use AI for fundraising, keep in mind these key considerations.

Start Small 

The use cases of AI for fundraising are vast, and more AI tools are becoming available. So, don’t try to use a bunch of AI tools for a bunch of different purposes all at once. Start with one challenge or goal to apply an AI tool toward. Try it. Note what worked and what didn’t. Then, use your lessons learned to make your next AI project even better.

Look at What You Already Have 

Many software solutions are beginning to roll out AI capabilities. Look into what AI tools and functionality your current software offers, and then consider experimenting with them before investing in another AI tool.

Establish AI Guidance

Because AI tools are becoming so prevalent, it’s possible (even likely) that some of your nonprofit staff members are already using some kind of AI tool. It’s a good idea to put together some guidance for your staff around AI to make sure you use it in a way that aligns with your organization’s privacy and security policies.

Be Prepared for Human Intervention 

Keep in mind that even though AI tools can help your organization be more productive, you still need humans to confirm that the results of your AI tools are accurate. Make sure your organization plans for the staff time needed to verify AI outcomes. 

The preceding post was provided by an individual unaffiliated with NonProfit PRO. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of NonProfit PRO.