With AI tools, you can:

• Identify prospects. AI can pinpoint potential donors and volunteers by examining their information for characteristics indicating that they’d be interested in helping your nonprofit. For example, an individual who gives to your organization every few months may be a great candidate to convert into a regular monthly donor.
• Map out the donor journey. The donor journey refers to the steps supporters take to learn more about your nonprofit and decide whether they want to engage with your mission. Use AI tools to map out every step of a personalized donor journey based on interactions with your organization to show supporters that you value them for more than their financial contributions.
• Evaluate perception. AI tools can capture your audience’s feelings about your nonprofit and even provide actionable insights and next steps. With feedback from satisfaction surveys, website analytics, email metrics, and more, you’ll have a firmer grasp of how audience members feel about your organization and what you can do to make that impression more positive.

Run the data in your nonprofit CRM through your AI tools to identify the characteristics that your most engaged audience members and supporters share. Create personas based on these characteristics and develop tailored marketing materials for each persona. Then, segment your supporters based on which persona they fall into and send them the relevant materials to increase engagement.

2. Personalize marketing messages.

90% of leading marketers say personalization contributes greatly to business success, so you need to create personalized marketing materials that each audience segment would be interested in. After all, a young 20-something volunteer with no history of donating would probably not be interested in your planned giving program, so your materials must match up with your segments.

One type of AI tool that can help you with creating personalized marketing messages is generative AI—think ChatGPT, Canva, and Grammarly. Use these tools to personalize your materials, including the following:

• Emails. Use generative AI tools to create snappy subject lines, templates for thank-you notes, and even draft newsletter ideas.
• Infographics. While AI tools aren’t perfect right now and might not be able to generate the exact infographic you’re looking for, they can provide a great starting point for you or a graphic designer to develop.
• Social media posts. Stay on top of trends to support your fundraising with social media. AI tools can generate fun Instagram captions or first drafts for Facebook and LinkedIn posts.
• Blog posts. Use AI to help you get started with blog post titles, outlines, and meta descriptions. You can also use AI to speed up your research process, giving you the baseline information needed to write an authoritative piece.

Generative AI can customize the text or images it creates for a specific audience. For example, if you’re an environmental-focused nonprofit trying to write a blog post about e-waste for your supporters, you could ask ChatGPT to “generate an outline for an informational blog post about e-waste for an audience of individuals who support environmental nonprofits.”

A word of caution here: while generative AI fundraising and marketing tools can be very powerful and helpful, they aren’t always accurate. For example, chatbots invent information between 3-27% of the time. Double-check any content that you have AI create for you to ensure that it is accurate and serves your purposes. Additionally, establish a responsible-use AI policy for your new tools to protect your nonprofit from any ethical or legal issues that arise.

3. Automate outreach.

Most nonprofit marketing authorities recommend using a multi-channel marketing strategy to ensure that you reach as many potential supporters and donors as possible. However, juggling all these different platforms can be repetitive, time-consuming, and even overwhelming.

With employees generally spending 10-25% of their time on recurring tasks, take the opportunity to automate marketing outreach with AI tools. Base your outreach strategy on your audience’s preferred:

• Channels. This includes direct mail, email, text messages, social media posts, and more.
• Messaging. Your supporters are likely interested in different aspects of your nonprofit. Some want to volunteer, some are recurring donors, and others are major donors. AI tools allow you to automatically send messages that the recipient is likely to be interested in.
• Frequency. Automatically send supporters messages weekly, monthly, every few months, or annually, depending on their preferences. For supporters who prefer less frequent communication, don’t be afraid to send longer messages to cover the period since the last message.

For example, let’s consider donor recognition emails. According to Double the Donation, you should recognize donors as soon as the gift is received, ideally within 48 hours of their gift. Even if you receive a small number of donations, manually writing out every thank-you email is bound to be time-consuming and tedious. Instead, use AI tools to automatically send out a thank-you email after a donor makes a gift. That way, you’ll guarantee that you’ll show appreciation promptly.

About the Author

James Barnard

James Barnard, Associate Managing Vice President of Annual Giving and Digital Marketing at BWF. James an integral part of the team at the global fundraising consultancy BWF. He helps nonprofit clients develop digital strategies for fundraising and marketing. James has been active in CASE for a number of years, participating as a conference speaker and CASE District II board member.