A Fundraiser’s Guide to AI
The landscape of fundraising is constantly shifting. Combine this ever-changing world with the rapid evolution of technology. The pressure to stay on top of it all is daunting.
Our research team takes some steps out of the equation with this holistic guide to a few of our favorite AI tools for Fundraisers. We provide valuable insights and practical tips on how small teams within nonprofit organizations can leverage AI resources to overcome challenges and streamline their fundraising processes.
Use this post as a launch pad to navigate AI tools to improve your fundraising practices and explore the best opportunities and resources for your team. And let us know what you discover in your journey to responsible AI adoption.
Setting Intentions: Considerations for Using AI in Fundraising
When integrating AI into fundraising strategies, nonprofits must prioritize AI Ethics to maintain trust and integrity. A great starting step to learn more is to visit Fundraising.AI, a fully independent collaborative that exists to understand and promote the development and use of Responsible Artificial Intelligence for Nonprofit Fundraising. They have a framework for responsible AI in fundraising. Here is a launching point for important AI ethics to consider:
- Be transparent about how you use AI. Clearly communicate to donors how their data will be used by AI technologies. Ensure transparency about the AI models employed and the nature of the data processing.
- Establish your data privacy policy. Implement strict data privacy protocols to protect donor information. Use encryption and secure data storage methods to prevent unauthorized access and ensure compliance with privacy laws and regulations.
- Monitor to minimize bias. Regularly review and audit AI algorithms to identify and mitigate any potential biases. This includes biases in data collection, algorithm training, and output interpretations that could unfairly influence fundraising strategies.
- Obtain explicit consent from donors before using their data in AI models. Provide options for donors to opt out and ensure that their preferences regarding data usage are respected.
- Prioritize Ethical AI Partnerships: Choose AI technology partners and vendors who adhere to high ethical standards. Ensure that their practices align with your organization’s values and the ethical expectations of your donor base.
AI Tools for Data
These fundraising AI tools offer functions to help you to create reports and analyze data so you can make informed decisions that maximize impact.
- Pros: ARM is an A.I. data analytics platform that allows you to clean, process, and streamline data. This would be the best for organizations that manage ample amounts of data on a day-to-day basis and are looking for ways to streamline their data analytics.
- Cons: The organizations need to do a thorough evaluation of their data analytics and see if this would truly streamline the process. Also, while the implementation of this piece is very simple, it might take a while for employees to get used to this system since this is on a new platform, which would require adjustments in the beginning.
- Ease of use: This would be the best for organizations that manage large datasets and are looking to streamline their data analytics.
- Pros: Sisense is a multipurpose AI-driven analytics tool that can be used to explore, report on, and gain insights from various kinds of nonprofit data. Sisense has three applications:
- Fundraising benefits: The platform can be used to help you transform large amounts of donor or fundraising data into tailored, actionable insights. Predictive analytics can specifically help improve future campaigns.
- Building dynamic visualizations: You can use Sisense’s dashboards and filters to explore data. Furthermore, various kinds of tables and charts can be created to assist in internal operations and stakeholder conversations.
- Streamline general operations. Whether it’s understanding finances or managing workflow, Sisense can help your organization in optimizing outcomes, performance, and operations through data analytics.
- Cons: Sisense has been described as “heavy” in terms of not only the application’s size, but also how much time it takes to set up, learn, and adopt the platform.
- Ease of use: There are built-in predictions and alerts in the Sisense system, enhancing organizational proactivity.
- Cost: Sisense offers flexible pricing. Depending on data size, project size, or other factors, your nonprofit can essentially pay for the specific platform tools it wants to use – making it financially feasible.
AI Tools for Fundraising Operations
Looking for more efficiencies in your internal workflows? These fundraising AI tools offer help with notetaking, accountability, and project management.
- Pros: Users can link their calendar to Otter to keep track of their meetings – for which Otter will transcribe words and give users an interface to take and share their notes.
- Cons: Since all content transcribed is stored on the Otter interface, it technically has access to all conversations users have recorded or transcribed. Because Otter transcribes personal voice data, there are privacy risks involved with applying this tool. This politico investigative article explores how a journalist faced privacy issues after Otter reached out to the journalist regarding a confidential conversation that they used Otter to record.
- Ease of use: It is easy to use across devices, with easy accessibility on mobile devices as well. Apart from increasing efficiency due to automated transcription services, the transcription itself is quite reliable and accurate.
- Cost: The “Free” model allows users to record, transcribe, and summarize conversations; chat live with the Otter AI Chat Assistant; connect Zoom, MS Teams, and Google Meet to write and share notes from those meetings; use 300 monthly transcription minutes with 30 minutes per conversation; the ability to import and transcribe 3 audio or video files.
- Jasper Brand Voice: Every company has their own unique brand and image. Brand voice gives the user the ability to provide Jasper with their company’s specific image or brand. Brand Voice uses this data in order to create artificial intelligence generated content based on the company’s image.
- Product Description: This tool generates information about a specific product and provides key points and takeaways about the product. With the overall goal of persuading individuals.
- Jasper Templates: Jasper has a wide-range of marketing templates ranging from persuasive email headers and illuminating social media captions.
- Pros: Jasper is an Artificial Intelligence tool with the purpose of elevating a company’s marketing abilities. At it’s fundamental form, Jasper Ai is a writing assistance tool. The main users of this tool are content creators and marketing associates, The tool essentially develops top tier content in order to strengthen and boost a company’s image.
- Cons: Jasper’s tools work best for organizations that already have a defined brand and marketing voice.
- Ease of use: Jasper offers 30 specialized free marketing tools. Jasper is a helpful asset for small nonprofits who do not have the finances or capabilities to have a marketing team. Having the ability to voice your image in an efficient and effective way is a necessary component in the world of marketing. Jasper’s variety of content generating tools and also its ability to process company branding data makes this task straightforward.
- Cost: In addition to its free model, Jasper starts at $39 per month/seat.
AI for Accessibility
- Great for larger organizations! accessiBe: accessiBe is an AI tool that enhances website accessibility for individuals with disabilities. It can also lead to better user experience while navigating your website and helps with American Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance. accessiBe will audit your website within 48 hours, after which you’ll be able to integrate its recommendations into your website.
- There is a little bit of coding involved in the beginning if you want to adjust the settings. Also, it is very worthwhile to evaluate whether the website would truly need this feature, because this tool can be expensive depending on the features you would use.
- Great for smaller organizations! UserWay: Fixmycode.ai is a coding tool that will generate code that is compliant with the current Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). This tool is free of charge and ensures that all code used in website creation is WCAG compliant and improves user experience. UserWay also offers AI-generated, human verified accessibility audits for websites and social media applications.
- To support organizations at different levels, The tiered pricing model allows clients to choose the type of membership that best fits their needs based on the size of their online presence. A free accessibility widget is also offered for those who want to demo the tool or for websites with less stringent needs.
Let AI work for you.
By integrating AI into their strategies, nonprofits can not only enhance efficiency but also free up valuable time to focus on advancing their mission and making a meaningful impact in the communities you serve.
AI has a multitude of new tools and opportunities – sometimes it seems like new platforms arise every day. Let us know your discoveries and what’s working for your organization!
Researched by: Michael Emporer, Steven Feng, Kaustubh Jain, Taehwan Kim, Gloria Liu, Dhyana Mishra, Sakariya Mohamud
Lieve Hendren
Senior Consultant, Alford Group
Lieve Hendren is a Senior Consultant at Alford Group, bringing nine years of experience in strategy consulting and project management to her clients. She previously worked with The American Medical Association, The Rockefeller Foundation and Teach for America.