Using AI Responsibly in Donor Research: A Quick Guide

Using AI Responsibly in Donor Research: A Quick Guide

Running a nonprofit involves managing a large amount of supporter data. When your community members trust you with sensitive data, from their personal addresses to their financial information, you have a duty to make sure it remains secure. In the new age of artificial intelligence (AI), data privacy remains more important than ever for building trusting relationships with your supporters.

However, AI is a valuable tool for the nonprofit sector. Automated systems reduce administrative time and expand your ability to analyze engagement habits, giving your team more capacity to cultivate relationships with donors and community members alike. This article explores how you can use AI to improve your organization’s donor research processes without compromising data security.

1. Conduct security audits for predictive models

Nonprofit software vendors are increasingly including AI models within their fundraising systems. When selecting software providers, it’s important to review their data policies to make sure they comply with industry privacy standards.

360MatchPro recommends using a uniform set of data standards when exploring AI solutions. Data governance policies establish privacy rules for your organization, including who can see what information, what to do in the case of a data breach, and best practices for maintaining security. When applying these policies to AI models, make sure that the software you choose restricts its use of your data to within your organization. This means that your data doesn’t leave your servers when using automated systems.

For example, you may use a predictive AI model to assess your donors’ major giving potential. However, you should create parameters to make sure the AI works only with the provided data from your donor database and prospect research platform and does not share the information it receives with outside servers.

2. Prioritize data anonymization in broad-scale analysis

One of the biggest benefits of AI for nonprofits is its ability to assess and synthesize insights from large amounts of data without much administrative labor. Many nonprofits use this ability to reduce the administrative time required to identify potential major donors, run renewal campaigns, and cultivate donations. However, feeding large datasets into AI engines that allow public access exposes your organization to risk.

Before using AI to read your data, strip any personally identifiable information (PII) from your data set. Typical PII includes full names, contact details, financial information such as credit card numbers, and social security numbers. If you don’t give AI access to sensitive personal information, you can still guide your fundraising strategy using large-scale automated data analysis without the risk of a data breach.

You should also anonymize any data you use to train organization-specific AI models. While a custom AI program is designed to exactly fit your organization’s needs, using synthetic or anonymized data to train your system protects your real donors’ privacy while you develop new workflows.

3. Establish access controls for donor profiles

According to DonorSearch by EverTrue, a donor profile is a centralized record created within a nonprofit’s database or constituent relationship management (CRM) system that stores all of the important information gathered about a current or prospective donor. Nonprofits often use AI to analyze this data across their donor base to gather behavioral insights about giving trends, popular engagement types, and initiatives that matter deeply to their constituents. Your team can then use these insights to create programming and outreach initiatives that reflect donors’ interests, driving up retention.

While donor profiles are a useful tool for building an understanding of your donor base, storing a large amount of sensitive information about your donors in one place leaves you vulnerable to leaks. The first step in responsible data governance is making sure only authorized personnel have access to these detailed profiles. Enable two-factor authentication and identity checks in your login procedures, and use access controls to make sure only team members who work directly with donors can view your profiles and conduct AI-powered analyses of them.

4. Maintain human oversight

Successful donor relationships are built on human connection. While automation can provide an incredible amount of administrative assistance in your daily workflows, it’s important to remember that your donors care about your organization because of the community you’ve built and the cause you work toward together. Have your AI workflows manage the data-centric elements of the prospect research process, and use the additional time your administrative team gains to foster relationships within your donor base.

Another important thing to consider when building a balance between AI and human-led workflows in your donor research process is AI bias. Since AI operates off of the models it’s trained on, its assessments sometimes lack nuance or inadvertently provide incorrect information due to input data that isn’t inclusive. Your team should closely monitor your AI outputs to make sure they remain accurate and representative of your supporter base.

Assign a team member to spot-check your AI workflows, automation systems, and data outputs for inaccuracies or hallucinations. This recurring audit will help your team flag any areas of your AI workflows that need tweaking or that are producing inaccurate results. Regular AI reviews also minimize your risk of sharing private data with the public.

Publicly prioritizing data privacy and governance policies builds community trust. Make sure to publish an updated summary of your AI use and data privacy standards on your website so your supporters know that their data is protected within your systems. Innovative use of modern systems, grounded in data privacy, allows your organization to use AI to improve your donor research and fundraising processes while maintaining strong relationships with your donors.

How to Turn Nonprofit Volunteers Into Donors (& Vice Versa!)

How to Turn Nonprofit Volunteers Into Donors (& Vice Versa!)

As a nonprofit leader, you know that it takes multiple types of support for your organization to truly thrive. Your donor community provides the material resources you need to fund your mission, and your volunteers expand your team’s capacity by giving their time and skills, which together lead to a greater overall impact than either type of support could have alone.

One of the best ways to fill gaps in your support needs and keep loyal supporters involved with your nonprofit is to present them with new potential methods of involvement. You may have consistent, high-impact donors hidden among your volunteer base—you just don’t know because you’ve never asked them for a monetary gift. Similarly, the last time you launched a volunteer recruitment campaign, did you think to reach out to your longtime donors first, or have you left that potential source of enthusiastic volunteer talent untapped?

In this guide, we’ll walk through four strategies for cultivating your nonprofit’s volunteers as donors and vice versa to help you boost engagement and contributions. Let’s get started!

Segment supporters for targeted outreach

The first step in getting supporters involved with your organization in new ways is to pinpoint the individuals who would be most interested in doing so. Use the information in your volunteer management platform and donor database to compile the following supporter data:

Demographics. Information about age, location, education, marital and family status, and wealth lays the foundation for understanding who your donors and volunteers are. It can also help you start to narrow down the possibilities for cross-cultivation—for example, a donor who lives close to your nonprofit’s facility may be more interested in volunteering than one located far away.

Psychographics. Understanding supporters’ hobbies, interests, lifestyles, and motivations for supporting your mission creates a more complete picture of who they are than demographics alone could. Even if a donor may seem like a good fit for your volunteer program in some ways, they might not be if they have a very busy lifestyle that doesn’t leave much room for a volunteer commitment.
Giving and engagement history. Naturally, if a volunteer has already donated or a donor has volunteered, they should be at the top of your list for engaging through their previous secondary method of support. Frequency of giving or volunteering is also a strong indicator for potential further involvement (often even more so than total amount given or hours served), and supporters who have engaged in other ways like attending events or participating in advocacy activities are worth considering as well.

Once you’ve identified who to cross-cultivate, send them personalized messages on their preferred communication channels. Make the next step clear by linking to your donation page or volunteer signup form in each message, and time them strategically. For instance, a solicitation for a volunteer to donate would be much more appropriate on GivingTuesday (when they might expect donation requests from nonprofits they’ve engaged with) than in an appreciation message for their volunteer service (which could be perceived as undermining your gratitude).

Use new engagement methods to combat churn

In the process of finding loyal volunteers to ask for donations and repeat donors to volunteer, you may also come across supporters on both sides who are at risk of disengaging from your nonprofit. Depending on their reason for lapsing, you may be able to re-engage these supporters by offering them a different involvement method.

According to DonorSearch’s donor retention guide, two common reasons for donor attrition are uncertainty about the impact of monetary gifts and changes in financial circumstances. If donors at risk of lapsing for the first reason volunteer, the hands-on work may give them a deeper understanding of the difference they’re making with your organization. And in the second case, volunteering is a great way to stay involved in your work at no cost until donors’ personal situations or broader economic conditions change and they can afford to donate again.

On the volunteer side, Better Impact explains that uncertainty about impact and changes in circumstances are also common causes of churn, although these circumstances are usually related to time or proximity. Emphasizing to volunteers in the latter situation that donating to your organization takes very little time and can be done from anywhere may keep them involved while they’re too busy or far away to serve. In the former situation, let volunteers know what giving specific dollar amounts can do for your mission so they understand their impact up front.

Leverage peer-to-peer fundraising

Peer-to-peer fundraising may be considered a bridge between donating and volunteering. Donors who participate in a peer-to-peer campaign see what it’s like to contribute time and effort, and volunteers get to experience directly generating revenue for your nonprofit, which can encourage members of either group to cross over to the other side in the near future.

To run a successful peer-to-peer campaign, make sure to:

Incorporate your organization’s branding so donors and volunteers represent your nonprofit consistently, professionally, and in a trustworthy manner.

Let supporters customize their individual fundraising pages to tell their story of why they donate to or volunteer with your organization and inspire contributions.

Provide clear instructions for fundraisers and peer donors to make it easy for everyone to participate.
Gamify your campaign by creating leaderboards of the top peer fundraisers and awarding small prizes to the individuals whose pages bring in the most contributions.

Another benefit of peer-to-peer fundraising is that it introduces your nonprofit to a variety of new contacts who may be interested in donating again, volunteering, or doing both in the future. Their existing connections within your supporter community can be especially valuable for keeping them involved long-term.

Promote volunteer grants

Volunteer grants can also serve as a bridge between donating and volunteering if you position them strategically in your marketing. Donors will know they can still make a financial impact when they volunteer, and volunteers get to make that monetary impact for the first time, which can inspire them to give more.

Also known as Dollars for Doers, volunteer grants are a type of corporate giving program that essentially works like this:

A volunteer serves with your nonprofit and tracks their hours.
The volunteer submits their hours to their employer, usually either at the end of the year or once they’ve reached their company’s volunteer grant threshold.
The employer reviews the submission and confirms with your volunteer program staff that the volunteer’s report is accurate.
Your organization receives a monetary contribution from that company that corresponds in size to the number of hours their employee volunteered.

In addition to increasing supporters’ impact and providing additional revenue for your nonprofit, volunteer grants are advantageous for the businesses that offer them, boosting their reputation as socially responsible companies and helping them form mutually beneficial, long-term partnerships. However, this win-win-win situation will only happen if your nonprofit reminds supporters to check their volunteer grant eligibility and submit their hours!

Volunteers make great donors, and donors make great volunteers, probably more often than your nonprofit might think. Use the strategies above to launch your cross-cultivation efforts, and collect data on how many supporters convert from one group to the other to evaluate your success and adjust your approach as needed. Additionally, remember that the goal is to deepen supporters’ involvement, not completely change how they engage with your mission, and your requests should always reflect that reality.

The Psychology of Endowments: How to Explain the Vision

The Psychology of Endowments: How to Explain the Vision

From encouraging event attendance to crafting winning donation appeals, donor psychology likely plays a key role in all of your nonprofit’s outreach efforts. The more you understand how and why donors make certain decisions, the more you can encourage long-term involvement.

This also applies to major fundraising initiatives like nonprofit endowment campaigns. Endowments have the potential to fund your nonprofit’s programs indefinitely, but supporters often hesitate to contribute to these funds. Due to a mix of negative news coverage and common assumptions, endowments often get a bad rap that your nonprofit will have to counter.

To help your nonprofit earn valuable endowment contributions, we’ll explore how to frame the conversation around endowment giving.

Countering Negative Narratives

Compared with other types of donations, endowments are notably contentious. While endowments have tremendous potential to fuel missions indefinitely, supporters sometimes get suspicious when they see that a nonprofit has a large amount of money that’s not immediately going towards programming.

Here are a few narratives supporters might have heard about endowments and how you can counter each one:

“Nonprofits with endowments don’t actually need the money.” While large institutions like Harvard University and other Ivy League schools do have massive endowments, nonprofit endowments come in all sizes. Infinite Giving points out numerous benefits small and mid-sized nonprofits can earn from endowments: long-term income source, potential to grow assets, and improved ability to attract major donors. Plus, endowment funds are often restricted, which can limit nonprofits’ ability to access funding right away.

“Endowments are a waste because the money should just be spent outright.” Rather than viewing untouched endowment principals as a waste, discuss their potential long-term return on investment. Calculate how long an endowment principal could support a given program now, compared to how long it can indefinitely support the program through generated investment revenue.
“Endowments don’t actually make an impact.” Some donors may view endowments as piles of cash that nonprofits are just sitting on and not actually using. Counter this argument by presenting all the ways you plan to use endowment revenue and the impact your endowment will have for years to come.

When approaching donors, don’t bring up any of these narratives to avoid planting negative sentiments in donors’ minds. Instead, be ready with facts and a strategic endowment management plan that contradicts potential negative sentiments if they come up in conversation.

Pitching Your Endowment: 3 Tips

In your pitches for endowment gifts, help donors see your vision by focusing on all of the positives of this giving method.

1. Emphasize the potential long-term gains.

Donors are motivated by urgency, often feeling the need to give to causes where their dollars will make an immediate difference. As endowments slowly generate revenue over time, avoid focusing on short-term gains and instead frame your pitch around the future.

For example, a university might start an endowment for a scholarship fund. Theoretically, if the university used the requested principal to outright pay tuition for students now, it could support 100 students. However, if the university created an endowment, it could support 20 students every year for the foreseeable future. In five years, it can achieve its prospective immediate impact. In ten years, it can double that and continue to support students far into the future.

However, keep in mind that the human brain struggles to conceptualize large numbers, and endowments often deal in very large sums of cash over the course of decades. While donors will likely want detailed reports about your potential impact, focus your pitch on the aspirational impact of helping your mission forever with a single gift now.

2. Focus on potential returns, not upfront costs.

Picture this: A donor agrees to give $1 million to start an endowment fund. The following year, the endowment generates $10,000 in investment returns. For the donor, that might seem like a poor outcome given how much they gave.

When discussing endowments, be transparent about how they are a long-term investment, but stay focused on the potential returns. Donors are increasingly concerned about nonprofit financial transparency, so keep conversations about your endowment honest and realistic while still inspiring.

To find donors who will be receptive to your vision, seek out supporters you already have a long-term relationship with. 360MatchPro’s guide to prospect research suggests specifically targeting individuals who have extensive experience with nonprofits outside of just donating, such as conducting advocacy work or even serving on a nonprofit board.

These individuals understand how nonprofits function and have seen your nonprofit advance its mission over the course of multiple years. This means they already trust your organization and are more likely to be patient when it comes to seeing an impact from your endowment.

3. Center donor legacy.

Endowments are often meant to fund programs indefinitely. As a result, donors who help establish or fund an endowment can create a legacy that also lasts indefinitely. For donors who care about legacy and public recognition, this can be a powerful motivator.

When approaching these major giving candidates, be sure to:

Paint a vision of the future. While you can’t know your endowment’s exact impact until many years down the road, you can discuss what you hope to see. Go into detail about the potential future your endowment can provide thanks to your donors. For example, an animal shelter might paint a vision of how an endowment funding expensive medical procedures will lead to a world where no innocent pet has to be put down unnecessarily and instead gets a new lease on life.

Consider naming rights. If naming rights are on the table for the program or initiative the endowment funds, consider offering them. For example, you might name a scholarship, building, or program after the donor whose gift started the endowment.
Continue stewardship. When a donor’s gift starts an endowment, they have made a lifelong investment in your organization. As their gift helps steward your nonprofit’s funds, you will need to steward the relationship long-term. For these influential donors, you might invite them to speak at events, join your board, or participate in campaign planning committees.

When assessing prospective endowment donors, use your donor database to find individuals who you think would be motivated by legacy. Often, these are older donors who are thinking about the state of the world long after their passing or individuals with young family members who are impacted by your mission.