AI In The Nonprofit Sector: A Partnership With People And Technology
From fundraising to data analysis, explore the transformative potential of AI in the nonprofit sector.
Tammy Hammond, chief product officer of Bloomerang, delves into the symbiotic relationship between humanity and technology, showcasing how AI is reshaping how nonprofits operate and amplifying their impact.
The convergence of technology and nonprofit work has ushered in an era of transformative possibilities. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative AI are at the forefront as groundbreaking tools with the potential to optimize processes, enhance decision-making, and deepen impact within the nonprofit landscape.
In fundraising, one of the many hats nonprofit organizations (NPOs) wear, the development teams constantly think about how they can raise funds, how many new donors they can gain, how to retain donors, and the performance of specific fundraising tactics. Software and advanced technology can help streamline these tasks, which are important to NPOs. Let’s explore how AI can benefit NPOs and impact strategic decision-making.
The Investment in AI
For nonprofits, a key element is engaging with people and their passions in various ways. Emotional connections will differ from person to person, but at the end of the day, it’s about finding a connection with someone. NPOs need to create a multitude of content to reach out to constituents.
Creating more compelling and engaging content with generative AI while saving time is a huge opportunity. For teams that are understaffed and don’t have enough resources to balance the workload, generative AI can materially speed up many time-consuming tasks.
Where Nonprofits Should Implement Generative AI?
When nonprofits decide on a starting point for AI, start simple and go from there.
Heavy content creation tasks such as assistance writing grants, building templates for thank you notes, or jumpstarting a message that tells a story of their mission and what a donation means to an organization are all areas where generative AI can be transformational.
There is certainly a place for AI to improve fundraising productivity and efficiency. It can expedite research, help prepare proposals, develop contact reports, and monitor and report on the impact of precious donor gift dollars.
According to our 2023 Bloomerang’s Fundraising Outlook Report, 57.1% of nonprofits don’t have a written fundraising plan. Without a plan, it is difficult to evaluate performance or grow impact in the future. This is another area where AI can help. AI can assist with developing the fundraising plan and goal setting based on past performance.
Within the broader realm, AI can assist with advanced analytics to help development officers to identify potential donors, forecast giving patterns, and tailor fundraising strategies based on data-driven insights. By leveraging AI, nonprofits can craft targeted campaigns that resonate with donors’ interests, thereby increasing engagement and fostering sustainable support for their causes while spending less time. Asana’s 2023 annual work index found that people spent 58% of their day doing “work about work,” including communicating about work, searching for information, switching between apps, managing shifting priorities, and chasing status updates.
Nonprofits can work smarter, not harder, by using generative AI to assist in starting tasks and alleviating the workload.
The other key area where AI has proven instrumental is in predictive analytics and data analysis. NPOs deal with massive volumes of data, including donor information, program outcomes, and community demographics. AI-powered data analytics can process large volumes of data and extract actionable insights, enabling organizations to make informed decisions.
For instance, think about a community director analyzing a GivingTuesday fundraiser campaign. AI can gather insights on the type of donations donors gave, as well as their interests and passions, and provide this feedback to the director to help develop a more effective campaign targeting the right audience with content that is targeted to them specifically. This eliminates wasted work by the nonprofit and frustration or indifference from the donor. No organization wants to have a gift ghosted due to inadequate information, leading to misconnections.
See More: Don’t Go It Alone: Effective GenAI Implementation Requires Collaboration
AI Won’t Solve 100% of Problems
Some groups may be apprehensive about generative AI, so the challenge will be to introduce it in an approachable way. In a 2023 roundtable discussion for Bloomerang, France Hoang, Chief Strategy Officer of boodleAI, explained that AI suffers from the 90% problem. It is right about 90 percent of the time and suffers what the industry refers to as hallucinations – it can generate wrong information that sounds convincingly right. To build an AI program, NPOs must ensure a safe and secure partnership between people and technology.
To clarify, AI will not replace people. Generative AI can generate ideas and analytics to help guide people and enable them to be more effective, but it will not replace the oversight and judgment of an expert. Fundraising boils down to connecting with people and what they care about. AI has the capacity to help nonprofits streamline everyday tasks, giving back more time in the day for higher value-added interactions and work elsewhere.
Limits and Boundaries
There are clear limits and boundaries to be recognized and respected. Ethical considerations, privacy concerns, and ensuring responsible AI governance are critical aspects that demand attention. NPO leaders should also prioritize transparency, ethical guidelines, and robust data security measures to uphold trust wherever the Gen AI technology is utilized.
Despite the vast potential of AI, it cannot build relationships. NPOs are in the business of nurturing relationships and sustaining long-term connections with donors. According to a recent study by The Fundraising Effectiveness Project, donor retention only increased by 0.3% year over year. To this point, NPOs are working hard to attract and retain donors. Nothing can be more personal than establishing, maintaining, and earning relationships. With AI, NPOs can accelerate and amplify their relationship-building to achieve better outcomes.
Navigating the Next Phase
AI stands as a powerful tool for nonprofits. As NPOs navigate an era of rapid technological advancement, the ethical and responsible use of AI in the nonprofit sector will continue to shape its evolution.
By harnessing AI as a tool for innovation, nonprofit leaders can amplify the skills of staff and the organization’s effectiveness as well as scale initiatives. The collaboration between human readiness and technological innovation promises to address complex challenges with this powerful technology, creating positive digital transformations.
How can a nonprofit improving people’s lives leverage AI to amplify its cause? Let us know on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from you!
Image Source: Shutterstock
MORE ON AI TRANSFORMATION
