In a world where more than half of nonprofits now use artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, fundraising professionals are finding increasingly innovative ways to support their efforts and boost their organizations’ missions. AI fundraising use cases run the gamut from identifying prospective donors to supporting grateful patient programs and much more.
However, 40% of nonprofits said no one in their organization has AI education, representing a major opportunity for fundraising professionals to upskill by getting more comfortable with using AI in various contexts.
This guide offers tips for getting started with AI fundraising at your organization and deploying AI tools in a wide range of situations. We’ll explore:
- How can AI be used in fundraising?
- General AI Fundraising Use Cases
- Sector-Specific AI Fundraising Use Cases
- Leveraging Donor AI in Multiple AI Fundraising Use Cases
How can AI be used in fundraising?
First, let’s quickly review the AI fundraising process and which tools will help support various AI fundraising use cases. The two primary types of AI solutions that support nonprofit work are generative AI and predictive AI. Here is a comparison of these solutions from our guide to predictive AI:
Generative AI
Generative AI describes solutions like ChatGPT that generate content in response to inputs. Here are a few examples of prompts your nonprofit can ask a generative AI tool:
- Suggest three taglines for an upcoming digital fundraising campaign to support my university’s annual giving efforts.
- Please proofread the following email to a major donor. Specifically, look for grammar and spelling errors, ensure the email is compelling, and verify that it flows naturally.
- Generate an outline for a nonprofit website blog post recapping a recent fundraising gala event.
- Organize this list of mid-level donors by giving amounts from smallest to largest.
Generative AI is most effective when it’s used as a brainstorming tool—not a complete replacement for all of your team’s creative efforts. These solutions can still have issues with inaccuracy and bias, so you should carefully review all outputs before using them in your communications or fundraising efforts.
Predictive AI
Nonprofits can use predictive AI tools to anticipate future donor behaviors or campaign outcomes. These solutions leverage historical data to forecast the results of upcoming efforts based on past data trends.
BWF’s Donor AI is a top example of a predictive AI solution. This tool is powered by IBM Watson’s industry-leading predictive analytics and allows nonprofits to identify prospective donors for different campaigns or giving levels more easily. This includes prospective major and planned donors, as well as supporters who are most likely to renew or upgrade their giving.
General AI Fundraising Use Cases
AI benefits nonprofits across various sectors looking to streamline fundraising and increase organizational efficiency. Some ways you can use AI to support your fundraising efforts and campaigns include to:
- Segment donors
- Identify prospects
- Increase donor retention through targeted engagement
- Map donor journeys
- Automate routine administrative work
- Plan and model campaign success
Sector-Specific AI Fundraising Use Cases
Whether you’re raising money for a healthcare organization, higher education institution, environmental organization, or other nonprofit, AI solutions can boost your efforts. Here are a few ways to leverage AI tools across different fundraising sectors, along with context and ethical considerations for each use case.
Healthcare and Academic Medical Centers
AI Fundraising Context
Healthcare fundraising requires effectively connecting with patients, their families, and other community members to secure their long-term support. Recent healthcare fundraising statistics illustrate the importance of being proactive when reaching out to prospective donors; 75% of patients who became new donors did so within the first four months of being contacted.
With the help of AI solutions, healthcare organizations can identify their top prospective donors quickly and reach out to them with personalized messages.
AI Fundraising Use Cases for Healthcare
AI solutions like BWF’s Donor AI can help identify patients and community members with a high likelihood of giving. Factors the AI solution will look at include:
- History of involvement with your organization (i.e., length of time as a patient, volunteer hours, etc.)
- Giving capacity, as determined by wealth factors like real estate ownership or stock holdings
- Previous philanthropic gifts to your organization or similar organizations
With this information, you prioritize your prospect list to guide your outreach efforts. You can also personalize your donor communications to tailor them to each prospect’s interests and motivations.
For example, let’s say you have a prospect who was treated at your hospital for a month because of a long-lasting illness. They’ve given smaller donations to your institution in the past, but based on their wealth indicators, you determine they have the capacity to increase their giving amount. You can personalize your outreach by thanking them for their previous gifts and emphasizing your institution’s special relationship with them as a former patient.
Using strategies like this will boost your grateful patient giving program and inspire more former patients to give back to your organization.
Considerations for Ethical AI Use
Consider working with an experienced healthcare fundraising professional like BWF to implement AI fundraising successfully and support grateful patient giving. An experienced partner can provide the expertise and best practices needed to build custom AI healthcare models that fit your organization’s needs.
Partnering with a consultant can also help ensure your AI fundraising strategies and tools align with HIPAA data privacy and security regulations. HIPAA requires private patient data encryption, patient consent management for tracking patients’ data-sharing preferences, and protection against common security threats like malware.
Higher Education
AI Fundraising Context
Higher education fundraising has faced some challenges recently. An EverTrue study noted an 8.2% average decline in gifts for Q1 2024 compared to Q1 2023. Plus, in 2024, there was a slight donor retention rate decline of 2.5 percentage points compared to 2023.
Due to recent challenges, many higher education institutions have turned to AI fundraising solutions to help connect with prospective donors. One recent study found that dozens of universities, including William & Mary, Texas State University, and Wake Forest University, use AI tools in their fundraising efforts.
AI Fundraising Use Cases for Higher Ed
Colleges and universities can leverage AI in a variety of ways, including:
- Identifying high-impact alumni and other prospective donors. AI tools can screen alumni and other prominent community members for wealth markers that indicate a high giving capacity.
- Boosting capital campaign giving. Identify potential major donors for your capital campaign using prospect research tools. You can also identify potential volunteers who would be willing to join your planning committee.
- Supporting long-term growth goals. Use AI solutions to help get in touch with donors who have the potential to contribute legacy gifts to support your institution for years to come.
Considerations for Ethical AI Use
Like healthcare fundraising, higher education fundraising professionals must comply with FERPA to maintain the privacy of student records. Carefully vet any prospective AI solutions your organization is considering to ensure they have measures in place to anonymize student data, encrypt records, and prevent unauthorized data sharing.
Arts and Culture
AI Fundraising Context
Arts and culture organizations, such as museums, cultural centers, performing arts centers, and music organizations, must connect with their audiences’ unique interests to foster long-term fundraising success. The CCS Fundraising 2024 Philanthropy Pulse report provides valuable context for the current fundraising situation in the arts and culture sector:
- The majority of arts and culture institutions (59%) report revenue increases compared to their prior fiscal year.
- At least 64% of participants expect major and mid-level gifts and annual appeals to increase in 2024.
- 58% of all organizations have not addressed the use of AI technology in their operations, but 72% in the arts and culture sector have not.
Plus, according to Giving USA 2024, giving to arts, culture, and humanities organizations rose by 6.6% from 2022 to 2023, hitting an all-time high of $25.26 billion in current dollars.
These statistics show that the arts and culture sector has major fundraising potential, and organizations can tap into this generosity by using AI solutions more effectively.
AI Fundraising Use Cases for Arts and Culture
Engaging arts and culture donors relies on your ability to speak to their unique interests. You must learn how your organization excites and inspires them and use that information to connect with them on a personal level.
With the help of custom AI models, your organization can:
- Identify event attendance likelihood based on indicators like past event involvement and special interests.
- Develop a visitor-to-donor pipeline by identifying top prospects amid visitors or members.
- Foster long-term giving by creating a giving society and finding potential donors for each tier.
Considerations for Ethical AI Use
One of the most important ethical considerations to keep in mind for AI fundraising in the arts and culture sector is combating bias. A study from the USC Information Sciences Institute (ISI) discovered bias in up to 38.6% of “facts” used by AI tools. If your AI solutions are trained using data that doesn’t accurately or completely represent your constituents, you could inadvertently perpetuate bias in your donor prioritization.
To combat bias, ensure the data you use to train AI solutions reflects the diversity of your supporter base. Manually review AI outputs to check for instances of bias and make adjustments to your algorithm as needed to prevent future occurrences.
Environmental and Conservation
AI Fundraising Context
As environmental concerns, from wildfires and hurricanes to habitat loss, become more pressing around the world, environmental nonprofits are stepping up to address current challenges. Nonprofits in the U.S. spend an estimated $8-9 billion annually on programs and activities related to climate change. However, environmental nonprofits receive less than 2% of all charitable donations.
This disconnect represents an opportunity for conservation and environmentally-focused organizations to leverage AI solutions to better communicate the need for donations.
AI Fundraising Use Cases for Environment and Conservation Organizations
The most popular AI fundraising use case for environmental and conservation nonprofits is facilitating the member-to-donor pipeline. Your organization can create a model that anticipates which long-term advocates and volunteers are the most likely to become philanthropic donors.
You might set specific indicators, such as length of involvement with your organization, level of advocacy activity on social media, and event attendance, to help identify highly engaged advocates who are likely to be interested in philanthropic giving. Your AI solution can automatically scan your supporter database to identify individuals with these traits and segment them based on their likelihood of giving.
Considerations for Ethical AI Use
Consider the environmental impact of your AI solutions before choosing a tool or provider to work with. Because AI tools can be highly energy-intensive, they can lead to environmental issues such as major carbon emissions that lead to air pollution.
Environmentally-focused organizations like yours must be especially careful about ensuring the AI solutions you use prioritize a smaller environmental impact. Intentionally seek solutions that work to offset carbon emissions and reduce their environmental footprint.
Public and Human Services
AI Fundraising Context
Many Americans are worried about inflation, housing affordability, and mental health this year, so it’s no surprise that public and human services organizations that deal with these issues saw an increased need in their communities.
According to the CCS Fundraising 2024 Philanthropy Pulse report, demand for human services increased in 2023 in the following areas:
- Food assistance
- Mental health assistance
- Housing assistance
The report also found that 54% of nonprofits in the human services sector have not yet addressed AI, which represents an opportunity for these organizations to better leverage innovative new solutions to meet their communities’ needs.
AI Fundraising Use Cases for Public and Human Services
Using AI predictive models, public and human services organizations can:
- Pinpoint community members who are most likely to volunteer. Your AI solutions can identify these individuals based on whether they engage with your marketing materials, including social media posts or emails.
- Identify prospective donors with a personal connection to your cause. Former beneficiaries of your organization’s services are likely to become donors if they have the capacity to donate. Using AI tools, you can identify past beneficiaries who fit the bill.
- Forecast the impact of external circumstances on your fundraising efforts. For example, an uptick in a specific seasonal illness in your community could lead to greater demand for your services and greater awareness of your organization in general. AI predictive models can map the impact of these circumstances on your fundraising capabilities.
Considerations for Ethical AI Use
Maintaining public trust is critical when using AI fundraising solutions. You must reduce potential negative impacts on donor relationships as much as possible. If your AI use runs the risk of damaging your community’s trust in your organization, it’s probably not worth using it at this time.
You can always work with a consultant who specializes in ethical AI use to run an AI readiness assessment and better prepare your organization to leverage AI responsibly.
Leveraging Donor AI in Multiple AI Fundraising Use Cases
If you’re looking for a robust AI fundraising solution to empower your team to make better data-driven decisions, we recommend BWF’s Donor AI. This solution uses statistical algorithms and machine learning to anticipate future outcomes based on past data patterns.
BWF offers multiple models for your organization’s needs, including:
- Pipeline development
- Engagement and building a donor base
- Healthcare fundraising
- Membership growth
If you already have models in mind that will support your strategy, you can build a custom package. If not, we also offer an Essentials starter package with four models: major giving, planning giving, reacquisition, and renewals.
To begin, BWF will securely transfer your data and generate AI models based on your specifications. We’ll then rigorously test the models to ensure their accuracy, deploy them, and adjust them as needed to accommodate changes in your constituency.
Wrapping Up
Now that you’ve reviewed the ways you can leverage AI for different use cases, you’re ready to take the next step! Start with these additional resources to help determine your AI readiness, set ethical AI policies, and implement effective data governance practices.
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