How To Do AI Fundraising: Complete Guide For Nonprofits

“Soon, it’ll be unthinkable not to have intelligence integrated into every product and service. It’ll just be an expected, obvious thing.” – Sam Altman.

If you’ve landed on this article, you are already thinking ahead of the curve. You’re searching for ways to integrate AI into your fundraising journey.

AI can do wonders for your campaigns. And you are in the right place.

In this article, I am going to tell you all you need to know about AI fundraising.

I’ll also show you how you can use AI for your nonprofits, potential AI use cases, and some awesome AI tools to boost your fundraising game.

So why wait? Let’s dive right into it.

What is AI fundraising?

Let’s see what exactly AI, aka artificial intelligence, is.

Artificial intelligence is the idea of mimicking human intelligence through an extensive machine-learning process.

The main idea is to create an artificial human brain that can calculate, estimate, and follow patterns from previous experiences, like we humans do.

AI fundraising uses these reasoning, logic-based decisions, and the ability to identify patterns in terms of fundraising. And it’s a game changer for your nonprofits.

AI fundraising tools can assess your previous fundraising data, donor retention rates, and donation amounts. And then you can predict the future of your nonprofit.

For example, consider how much you should invest in your future campaigns and how you should approach the donors.

The best thing about using AI in fundraising is that it can handle enormous amounts of information in a short amount of time. And then we can predict both calculative and non-calculative situations. Which is very human compared to past machines we know.

Can AI help with fundraising?

Absolutely, yes.

AI is already making huge waves in the fundraising world. It offers you a wide range of powerful tools and capabilities that can significantly boost your fundraising efforts.

Here are some key ways fundraising AI can help your nonprofits:

Data-driven insights

AI can analyze vast amounts of donor data to identify patterns.

Similarly, AI can segment your donors based on characteristics and giving history, and predict future giving behavior. This helps you target the right donors with the right message at the right time.

Also, AI tools for nonprofits can analyze past campaigns and predict the effectiveness of future ones, helping you make data-driven decisions about messaging, channels, and budget allocation.

Automating tasks

AI can automate tasks like sending personalized emails, texts, and social media messages. So that your team can focus on building relationships and gaining more potential donors.

Also, using AI for fundraising can handle repetitive tasks like processing online donations, freeing up time and resources for other activities. Moreover, AI can generate engaging content for your fundraising campaigns, including website copy, email scripts, and social media posts.

Benefits of AI Fundraising

When done right, AI fundraising can turn the game in your favor.

It can generate awesome AI fundraising ideas. And provide you with step-by-step guides to take your fundraising campaigns to a new level. AI use cases are not limited to just generating ideas.

Here are some of the core benefits of AI fundraising:

Reduce the cost of fundraising

By simplifying the fundraising process, AI can significantly reduce the overall cost of your fundraisers.

Here are some ways AI fundraising can reduce the cost of your campaigns:

• AI can create effective plans for your fundraising campaigns.
• It can provide you with step-by-step guides to execute those plans.
• It can create content plans for your overall fundraising campaign.

Increases the campaign efficiency

When you use artificial intelligence for fundraising, it simplifies the fundraising process.

AI-powered tools handle tasks like donor outreach, campaign management, and donation tracking swiftly and accurately. By automating workflows, you can achieve more with less effort.

Analyze huge amounts of data in no time

One of the most significant advantages of AI in fundraising is its ability to analyze huge amounts of data quickly.

Nonprofits have big databases with donor information, campaign numbers, and money records. AI can understand this data much faster than people can.

Learn about campaigns over time

AI fundraising systems are pretty smart. They can learn from past fundraising campaigns. They can figure out what worked and what didn’t. It can also point out which groups of donors respond the most.

Plus, it helps us see what needs fixing.

Increases the fundraising ROI

You can boost your fundraising ROI using artificial intelligence. With detailed analysis and insights, your organization can spend money wisely. In the end, you’ll see better returns on investment in your fundraising campaigns.

Optimizes your campaigns

AI and fundraising go hand in hand. It can analyze the previous campaigns you organized and learn from them.

AI can create content you need for your fundraisers. And segment them depending on your fundraiser’s end goal.

Assist you with AI chatbots

When you run a fundraiser, you need constant chat support. Because donors tend to question a lot before they donate.

AI chatbots provide your nonprofit with a powerful tool for engaging donors and answering queries in real time. These AI-powered virtual assistants can handle a wide range of tasks.

Use cases of AI for fundraising?

You might search “AI fundraising ideas for nonprofits” on Google and get a bunch of unique ideas. But artificial intelligence in fundraising is more than that. AI can streamline your fundraising goals, make plans that meet your prospects, create content, and contact potential donors for you.

Here are some incredible use cases of AI fundraising:

1. Content generation:

Content generation might sound like a simple task. In reality, it’s a tedious and complex job. There are many ways how fundraising AI tools can help you –

• AI algorithms use a special language model called Natural Language Generation (NLG). NLG tools can automatically generate persuasive fundraising content. These include donation appeals, thank-you messages, impact reports, and social media posts.

• You can use AI to generate personalized content for each donor. AI can use their name, donation history, and interests for unique messages.

• AI algorithms can conduct A/B testing. That’s how it can analyze the effectiveness of different contents. By continuously optimizing content based on performance, you can maximize donor response rates.

• Using AI tools, you can create multimedia content. For example: videos, images, and infographics for your fundraising campaigns.

• AI can manage real-time content updates based on external events, donor interactions, and campaign progress. This ensures that your fundraising messages remain timely, relevant, and responsive to changing circumstances.

• There are incredible AI tools called sentiment analysis tools. These tools can monitor the tone of your messages to maintain authenticity. Also, it can help you avoid creating content that makes a bad impression about your fundraising.

2. Predictive analysis:

Predicting the future based on previous patterns is very important for any nonprofit. This is how AI can change the scenario for you –

• AI can analyze historical donor data and predict future donor behavior.

• You can use fundraising AI to track potential donors who are likely to contribute, their preferred donation channels, and the timing of their donations.

• AI tools can predict the amount donors are likely to contribute based on their previous giving history. This also includes their demographics and other relevant factors.

3. Recommended actions:

Predicting the future is useless if you don’t know what to do next. AI can recommend actions for you. For example –

• AI can suggest engagement strategies for each donor.

• AI tools for nonprofits can suggest communication channels, messages, and timing for outreach.

• Artificial intelligence algorithms can analyze historical data to recommend the best timing for fundraising campaigns.

• Also, AI can analyze successful fundraising campaigns and tell you what went wrong with your campaign. So that over time, you can get better at this.

4. Fundraising simulation:

Creating a simulation of any situation and making decisions based on the results is one of the most important strategies for any organization. AI is a very powerful tool when simulating an environment. For example –

• AI can predict the potential outcomes of different fundraising strategies. This can help in setting realistic goals for your nonprofit.

• Also, you can simulate the impact of different fundraising initiatives. This is how you get to measure nonprofits’ financial health and the chance of sustainability.

5. Telling your story:

There’s a popular saying, “You don’t sell the product. You sell the story.” And AI is a master storyteller. This is how AI can help –

• Every fundraiser needs a good story to collect donations. The better you tell your story, the more donations you get. AI tools can help you tailor your story to your target donors.

• AI tools can simulate public sentiments and analyze how people react to certain words. You can take suggestions and decide how you want to tell your story.

6. Campaign segmentation:

Segmenting the campaign is one of the most crucial jobs of a nonprofit. Often, you need specialists and consulting to do that. But –

• AI tools can segment your whole campaign based on your needs. You can use donor data, financial data, and marketing data. Additionally, AI tools will create sections based on your needs.

• AI algorithms can segment your donor data based on various factors, such as donation history, demographics, and interests. It helps with targeted and personalized fundraising campaigns.

• AI tools can write campaign messages and content for you. This is how you create relevance with your potential donors.

7. Multimedia creation:

Creating beautiful graphics for your campaign is tough. Not everyone is a graphic designer. Or you don’t have to hire one. AI can be your next designer –

• For images, there are AI-powered tools, like Dall-E and Midjourney, that can create realistic, unique images for your fundraising campaign.

• For video editing, AI can do wonders for you. There are AI video editing tools, like Runway and Wondershare Filmora, that can create videos for you. Even if you are not in the video yourself. Cool, right?

AI for nonprofits

AI and nonprofits can be the perfect blend for you in this artificial intelligence era. Since you are reading this article, I’m sure you are not lagging behind in the AI revolution.

Nonprofits throughout the world are utilizing AI in their fundraising strategies to ease their workload. With this saved time, they can focus on other important fundraising factors.

AI tools for nonprofits

I am going to give you a list of some AI tools in different categories. These tools can help your nonprofit’s fundraising campaigns.

Tools	Purpose
DonorSearch AI	It helps nonprofits identify and segment potential donors
RapidMiner	This is a data analytics tool that provides AI-driven insights into your donors
AnswerRocket	It’s an analytics AI that can calculate, analyze, and give you insights based on the data you provide
ChatGPT	ChatGPT for nonprofits can write, create, and analyze huge amounts of data for your fundraisers
DALL-E	This is an AI tool for creating original images for nonprofits
Sembly	This is an AI assistant for note-taking and content creation based on your meeting notes
Buffer AI Assistant	It can generate content ideas as per your needs. It also helps you to post, schedule, and repurpose your social media content
Otter	This is an AI meeting tool that can record audio, write notes, capture action items, and generate meeting summaries
Runway	Runway can create videos and clips for your nonprofits based on the text input

How is AI used in philanthropy?

Nonprofits all around the globe use AI to streamline operations and optimize content. Also, they are using NLP to improve their decision-making process. Which, as a result, enhances the impact of the fundraising campaigns.

For example, the combination of ChatGPT and fundraising is doing miracles for nonprofits. They can create better content for their social media platforms. They are calculating huge amounts of donor data and filtering it as per the nonprofit’s needs.

Using AI fundraising tools, nonprofits can create personalized messages that can persuade a specific donor base. Which was a real struggle when AI was not available.

Now you can tell the algorithm your needs, demography, and trigger points. And the next thing is, AI models are coming up with perfectly curated texts or emails that can motivate a specific donor community.

A fundraising case study using AI

A research paper published in the ScienceDirect journal shows that the founders’ age in entrepreneurial fundraising impacts the whole fundraising campaign.

In simple words, the research team used AI to change the age of the founder in fundraising messages sent to potential investors. They found that investors do care about the age of the founder.

When entrepreneurs appear older, they tend to have better success getting funding. Also, when founders are perceived as too old, it can hurt the amount of donations.

So there’s a sweet spot where being older is beneficial, but being too old can be a drawback.

This is an interesting way of using AI in fundraising.

Moral aspects of AI fundraising

The use of AI in fundraising, particularly for non-profits and charitable organizations, brings several moral and ethical considerations:

Transparency and consent

• Donors should be aware of AI use and data handling
• Clearly disclose AI’s role in fundraising efforts

Privacy and data security

• Ensure donor data is secure
• Collect and use data with explicit donor permission

Bias and fairness

• Avoid perpetuating biases present in training data
• Ensure fair and inclusive outreach to all demographics

Autonomy and human oversight

• Maintain human involvement in key fundraising decisions
• Allow donors to opt out of AI-driven interactions

Effectiveness vs. manipulation

• Avoid manipulative techniques in fundraising
• Respect donor autonomy and avoid undue pressure

Effectiveness vs. manipulation

• Focus on fostering genuine relationships, not just short-term gains
• Prevent misuse of AI to maintain trust and reputation

Ethical problems can bring your AI fundraising efforts to a halt. These issues can also damage public trust. It’s important to identify potential problems before they arise.

Addressing these issues early can save your organization from major headaches later. Being proactive will help you avoid big problems down the road.

Summing it up

No kidding, fundraising does look like a daunting task. But some tools can ease your pain.

For example, to accept donations on your website, the WordPress donation plugin Paymattic can help you set up donation forms and accept donations right on your WordPress website.

In this article, I’ve shown you all you need to know about AI fundraising. In addition, I’ve listed multiple AI fundraising tools that can streamline and simplify your fundraising tasks. The combination of AI and fundraising can take your nonprofit’s actions to a new level.

Try to use these AI donation insights in your next fundraising campaign.

Thank you for reading.