We’ve all acquired cringe-worthy fundraising messages that simply don’t really feel fairly human. They’re obscure, don’t clarify the impression of the donation, and ask for an arbitrary amount of cash. If an enchantment feels prefer it was written by a robotic, it probably was generated by AI.
Such subpar messages often is the purpose that 63% of fundraisers really feel uncomfortable utilizing AI for personalised donor communications. Whereas AI is usually touted as a approach to hyper-personalize fundraising efforts, to many fundraisers, AI could make communications appear much less private, much less genuine.
However right here’s the factor: AI doesn’t must really feel creepily robotic or impersonal. When used thoughtfully, AI can truly show you how to be extra human and strengthen your genuine connections with donors. Its worth lies in fixing complicated, role-specific issues—like aiding a fundraiser in making the appropriate ask.
On this article, we’ll discover the ability in aligning AI applied sciences and methodologies by exhibiting you ways AI can assist each stage of the ask, in the end serving to you elevate extra {dollars} on your group, with out being creepy.
Beginning with the Finish in Thoughts: The Good Ask
Earlier than we bounce into AI’s capabilities, let’s cowl the weather of the right ask.
- Proper timing: When to make an ask is determined by quite a lot of elements just like the donor’s curiosity, engagement, and giving historical past.
- Actual relationships: Making an ask for a donation instantly after assembly somebody is like asking to borrow a automobile from somebody you simply met—there isn’t sufficient belief constructed to warrant the interplay. As an alternative, fundraisers ought to create a collection of touchpoints, constructing the muse of the connection earlier than making the ask.
- Real interactions: Once you make the ask, you don’t need it to really feel like a one-to-many communication. You must know the donor properly sufficient which you could reference private information, and pursuits, and make the request for a donation as in case you’re talking to a pal or colleague.
- Resonates with donor pursuits: Understanding what aligns (and what doesn’t) together with your donors’ pursuits can information when to and what to ask for.
- Applicable quantity: Deciding on the correct quantity is among the tougher facets of the ask. Request an excessive amount of and also you danger donors feeling overwhelmed or pressured. Ask for too little and also you miss out on alternatives on your group. Utilizing donor and prospect information, resembling giving historical past and capability, might help you establish the suitable quantity.
Setting the Basis: Pre-Ask Due Diligence
There are a lot of steps within the donor lifecycle earlier than an ask is made. Thankfully, AI may give you a leg up with every stage and, we promise, it gained’t come off as creepy (in case you don’t let it).
Good Donor Analysis
As an alternative of spending hours Googling prospects, looking down LinkedIn profiles, and scanning your CRM for each ounce of knowledge, let AI be your analysis assistant. AI can:
- Flag related information articles about donors’ pursuits that you need to use in your outreach
- Determine potential relationships between donors, resembling household, friendships, or colleagues
- Spotlight vital life occasions which may have an effect on giving
- Monitor engagement patterns throughout your communications
- Use donor location that can assist you decide who to arrange conferences with when touring and optimize routes for a number of donor visits
Professional Tip: Use fundraising-specific AI fashions to assist together with your analysis. For instance, Momentum’s free Chat-GPT is geared particularly towards main present fundraisers.
The Artwork of Timing
As a result of AI can analyze huge quantities of knowledge in a short time, it excels at figuring out patterns that individuals may miss. Use AI to:
- Analyze previous giving historical past to foretell optimum ask timing—this could embrace creating dynamic donor plans so you recognize the very best cadence of communications prior to creating the ask
- Monitor engagement metrics to establish when donors are most receptive
- Monitor donor habits patterns to recommend the very best contact occasions
- Flag potential issues, resembling slipping engagement or doable churn
Professional Tip: Use AI to trace seasonal giving patterns alongside private donor milestones. If a donor sometimes offers in This autumn but additionally makes particular presents round their birthday, you possibly can plan your outreach accordingly.
Personalization That Feels Genuine
Attempt utilizing AI so as to add private touches to your communications at scale for all donors inside your portfolio:
- Create detailed donor profiles based mostly on interactions and pursuits
- Counsel dialog matters aligned with donor passions
- Draft personalized communication factors
- Generate personalised impression tales related to every donor
Professional tip: When utilizing AI to draft communications, immediate it with examples of your best-performing donor messages. Say, “Write within the type of this profitable enchantment…” reasonably than ranging from scratch.
Study why AI is a game-changer for main present officers
Making the Ask: AI as Your Strategic Companion
Discovering the Proper Quantity
One in all AI’s superpowers is its potential to course of staggering portions of knowledge to recommend optimum ask quantities. Once you immediate AI for its advice on the very best quantity to ask for, it offers you an estimate based mostly on quite a lot of information factors:
- Previous giving patterns
- Engagement degree
- Response to earlier asks
- Present involvement together with your group
- Latest life occasions
- Giving to comparable organizations
Professional tip: Take a look at the AI-generated quantity first. Individuals are inclined to rely closely on the primary piece of knowledge they obtain when making selections (also referred to as anchoring bias). On this case, the primary donation quantity you see acts as an anchor and influences how a lot you’ll ask for. By asking AI first, your bias is geared towards a data-informed reply.
Crafting the Good Pitch
AI might help you prep the ask by reviewing what labored previously. Use AI to:
- Analyze profitable previous pitches for commonalities and ideas
- Determine language that resonates with comparable donor teams
- Counsel speaking factors based mostly on donor pursuits
- Put together responses to potential objections
Professional tip: File your apply pitches and use AI to investigate your supply and pacing. You may as well have AI analyze recordings of previous pitches to evaluation metrics like listening ratio, speaker engagement, and total emotional tone of the assembly.
Including the Human Contact to Cut back the Cringe
We’d be remiss to not handle learn how to keep away from being creepy when utilizing AI. Quite a lot of the creepiness stems from both a scarcity of oversight of AI-related use circumstances or forgetting to include the human contact.
1. Add context. Don’t simply settle for AI ideas blindly. At all times ask your self:
- Does this align with what I do know concerning the donor?
- Would I say this in a face-to-face dialog?
- Does this replicate our group’s voice and values?
And if the reply isn’t sure, let AI know. You may present examples of what you’re searching for or give particular suggestions on how AI’s response doesn’t suit your wants. AI learns by means of suggestions and adjusts because it learns extra about your group. Use this potential to study to your benefit.
2. Practice your AI device. In the identical vein, you possibly can practice your AI instruments with data particular to your group. This can assist AI present high-quality responses from the get-go. Give AI entry to:
- Your group’s distinctive voice
- Profitable previous communications
- Donor suggestions and preferences
- Your mission-specific language
3. Don’t use AI for the whole lot. Simply because AI can do many issues doesn’t imply it ought to. Bear in mind, AI isn’t a alternative on your job however a robust device that can assist you streamline your workflow and higher interact donors.
Two examples: you would use AI to create a word-for-word script of what to say in your subsequent name with a serious donor, or you would use AI to create a one-page temporary.
In case you recite the script—cringe alert—you’ll sound unnatural, even robotic. However, in case you use the one-page temporary outlining latest interactions, giving historical past, the donor’s pursuits, and speaking factors, you stroll into the decision ready, not scripted, not creepy.
Let AI deal with vital background information:
- Knowledge evaluation and sample recognition
- Preliminary analysis and draft content material
- Assembly summaries and follow-up duties
- Engagement monitoring
However hold human management over the human parts:
- Last communication approval
- Relationship technique
- Private interactions
- The precise ask
The Ask: Give AI a Attempt
The objective isn’t to automate your entire fundraising course of. It’s to make use of AI strategically and with intention to make each interplay extra significant, extra private, and simpler.
Now it’s our flip to make the ask—are you able to take AI for a whirl? Discover AI options, like Momentum’s AI-powered Donor Engagement Platform. It helps you enhance your ask and attain the appropriate donor on the proper time with the appropriate message. Plus, it seamlessly connects with Blackbaud fundraising options that can assist you take advantage of your donor information with Blackbaud’s Intelligence for Good.
