The reality is that AI is no longer a futuristic concept, but a practical tool used by people today for maximizing limited resources in every area of fundraising, from grant applications to event preparation to preparing donor communications.

Let’s review 3 key trends in fundraising AI that your nonprofit can act on today.

1. Personalizing donor journey mapping

Nonprofits are moving from simple donor segmentation to hyper-personalized donor journey mapping powered by AI.

Traditional segmentation (like grouping all lapsed donors together or filtering donors by giving level) often overlooks nuance. AI changes that by combining historical giving data with real-time online behavior to predict the next best action for each donor.

Here’s how to put this trend into action:

• Analyze donor behaviors: Use AI-powered tools to evaluate all supporter interactions (such as email clicks, event attendance, or even donation frequency) to flag early signs of disengagement. For example, CharityEngine explains that donor behaviors can offer a glimpse into lapses in engagement, so your team can promptly respond and retain the donor’s support.
• Target the right ask: Review AI insights to segment your donors more intelligently and reach out with messaging tailored to their interests and giving history. For instance, a donor who previously volunteered with a food bank’s meal delivery program might prefer appeals grounded in storytelling about the organization’s beneficiaries.
• Predict donor responses: Are donors more responsive to your social media posts, or do they spend more time on your website? Let AI determine whether a donor is most likely to respond to a text, an email, or a mailed appeal. Then, automate communications accordingly.

Bonus Tip: Ask AI to summarize batches of donor profiles to quickly identify patterns or similarities. For example, discover what all of your monthly donors have in common, and use that insight to retain future ones.

2. Using generative AI for donor communications

Your fundraising team is likely already crafting thoughtful communications to steward donors and secure future support. Generative AI speeds up and standardizes this process across different channels.

Generative AI refers to tools that can create tailored content, like text or images, based on your inputs. In fundraising, it can help you rewrite, repurpose, and personalize donor communications in seconds.

Here’s how to apply it:

• Standardize your brand voice: Feed your AI tools materials that define your mission and tone, such as your impact report or donor testimonials. This helps the AI generate future content that stays aligned with your brand.
• Repurpose content: Use AI to transform a single piece into multiple formats. A lengthy appeal letter can be transformed into a social media post, a concise donor email, and a brief board update in minutes.
• Instantly rewrite for clarity: If your copy is heavy on technical language, ask AI to rewrite it at a fifth-grade reading level. This helps ensure your messaging is clear and emotionally resonant for general donor audiences.

Bonus Tip: Continuously A/B test your communications to ensure AI models are delivering the highest possible conversion and engagement rates. AI can certainly do a lot of the heavy lifting, but the best communications still must have a human touch. AI cannot replace people, but it can provide much needed assistance to save your team time and do work your may not have the capacity to do on your own.

3. Automating the donor experience

It’s clear that AI can handle the transactional parts of fundraising, which frees your team to focus instead on relationships. However, these tools can also offer support on the relational side. For example, it can offer personalized donation amount recommendations and instant answers to questions like, “Is my gift tax-deductible?”

Best of all, AI-driven tools allow you to streamline various methods of giving and engagement since your fundraising software already consolidates different campaigns. For example, AI-powered fundraising software that hosts your donation form and offers event management tools can streamline both online giving and marketing materials for your upcoming gala.

Use AI to automate the donor experience by:

• Editing and enhancing multimedia elements: Audit your website and other digital channels to assess the performance of any multimedia elements you use. Use AI to resize, crop, or apply filters to photos and videos instantly, so your appeals and event materials stay on-brand across several channels.
• Providing chatbots to answer donor questions: Train an AI chatbot on your FAQs and mission content to deliver quick and accurate answers to donor questions. This will improve trust, reduce friction, and save staff time on answering emails/phone calls.
• Using AI-powered dashboards to evaluate performance: AI analytics tools can offer real-time insights into donor engagement, campaign performance, and giving trends, enabling your team to make informed decisions more quickly.

Bonus Tip: Employ AI to analyze donation form data and identify points of friction in the checkout process. Use its automated suggestions to tweak your donation form as needed, then track cart abandonment and conversion rates to see the results.

AI is not replacing fundraisers; rather it’s empowering them. By embracing these tools, your nonprofit can deliver more personalized experiences, save time on administrative tasks, and ultimately raise more money for your mission (which is the ultimate goal!).

Here are the basic steps you can follow to start implementing AI in your nonprofit’s workflows:

• Assess your current processes to identify inefficiencies.
• Decide how AI could fill in these gaps.
• Audit your nonprofit’s existing technology.
• Research and demo software with AI capabilities that could address your organization’s needs.