Harnessing AI to boost your nonprofit’s capital campaign
An upcoming capital campaign can be equal parts exciting and nerve-wracking for any nonprofit. Raising major funds to invest in much-needed growth requires careful strategy and a lot of effort. Thankfully, advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) are making it easier than ever for nonprofits like yours to execute smarter, more effective capital campaign fundraising.
So, how exactly can AI lend a helping hand with capital campaign fundraising? Here, we break down five key ways.
Gather clean donor data for your capital campaign
The key to maximizing gifts from individual supporters lies in understanding each donor’s preferences, habits, and motivations. But collecting complete data on a large pool of contacts takes massive manpower.
AI tools can compile information on current donors as well as conduct prospect research to identify potential new supporters. This includes sifting through unstructured data from social media platforms, surveys, phone conversations, and more to piece together detailed donor profiles, which is especially important since recent research by Capital Campaign Pro points out that 35% of nonprofits say that identifying top prospects is the most difficult part of a campaign.
Feed data through algorithms using AI
Once quality data is aggregated, machine learning algorithms can work their magic. These AI programs are designed to model human logic and analyze datasets for significant patterns and relationships.
As an example, algorithms can classify donors by attributes like geography, income level, age bracket, etc. Some AI enabled fundraising tools can also uncover connections between frequency of volunteering and amount typically donated. By processing large volumes of input data to detect these meaningful insights, AI allows you to deeply understand donor segments.
Find patterns and get predictions
Not only does AI pick out important patterns, but next-generation tools can also make predictions about fundraising metrics—like the probability of someone giving or volunteering again. AI examines multiple combinations of donor traits and historical actions to forecast behaviors. These predictive analytics are remarkably accurate, giving your nonprofit critical visibility into projected campaign success.
Make decisions based on patterns
Now that you have intelligent analysis of donor data and activity, how does this inform real-world decisions?
Advanced AI engines will take it a step further by serving up strategic recommendations for which donors to engage and when and how to do so. For example, AI may identify that email appeals sent early on Monday mornings garner the most clicks and donations from monthly givers under 40. Armed with insight like this, you can then design targeted outreach sure to delight supporters.
Use AI suggestions to create personalized donor experiences
The ultimate goal for effective fundraising is to be able to craft meaningful interactions with each of your donors, no matter where they fall on your gift range chart. With AI systems tracking things like individuals’ preferences, interests, and communication styles, you can hyper-personalize your donor communications and stewardship at scale. From sending customized stewardship packages to delivering tailored messaging, your nonprofit can make every supporter feel valued, understood, and invested in your mission. Smart AI tools enable this by revealing what will resonate most with specific segments of your donor base.
Kick your capital campaign into high gear with AI
If you are getting ready for a capital campaign, you’re likely prepared to do as much as you can to ramp up your fundraising. All of the elements described above will improve your fundraising program, but focus them on your major donors and you’ll start to see the magic work. By embracing AI’s capabilities for data analysis, prediction, and recommendation, your nonprofit can drive fundraising efforts like never before.
