Soapbox Engage Blog

Is your growing nonprofit interested in implementing AI? If so, you’re in good company.

According to a Twilio study, 90% of organizations surveyed in the nonprofit, education, and healthcare sectors are leveraging AI for one or more engagement and marketing use cases. Plus, nonprofits are adopting AI faster than the for-profit sector.

However, like any fundraising tech, AI offers advantages and challenges, especially for growing organizations with specific budgeting or staffing concerns. This guide reviews common challenges in the implementation process and strategies for overcoming these obstacles to make AI work for your organization. Ultimately, you’ll have practical tips for leveraging AI to improve all fundraising initiatives, from major campaigns to annual fundraising.

Table of Contents

1. Earning stakeholder trust and approval.
2. Gathering high-quality, accessible data.
3. Working within a budget.
4. Gaining technical expertise.

1. Earning stakeholder trust and approval.

The general public hasn’t universally embraced AI solutions. In fact, according to a Pew Research Center survey, 52% of Americans are more concerned than excited about AI in daily life, compared with just 10% who say they are more excited than concerned.

As a result, when implementing AI, your nonprofit may face the common challenge of earning the trust and acceptance of stakeholders, including staff members, supporters, and board members. Let’s review the typical concerns of these individuals and ways to alleviate them.

Staff members

Concerns: Staff members may hesitate to adopt new AI solutions, which can significantly change your fundraising process. They may also have concerns about the security of their jobs amid the introduction of new technologies.

How to address their concerns:

• Clearly articulate your nonprofit’s perspective on AI usage and how these tools will fit into your current fundraising and engagement strategies.
• Outline precisely how AI tools should be used and any processes they shouldn’t be involved in.
• Incorporate staff feedback into your implementation process.
• Offer comprehensive staff training when implementing new AI solutions.
• Emphasize that AI solutions are meant to be resources and tools to enhance staff members’ work, not replace them.

Donors and other supporters

Concerns: Donors may feel anxious that their personal data may be leaked through the use of AI solutions. They may also be concerned that they won’t get the same personalized experience they’ve come to expect from your nonprofit communications, such as tailored donation requests or impact updates.

How to address their concerns:

• Work with your nonprofit’s legal counsel to create a comprehensive data privacy policy that donors can view on your website.
• Allow donors to opt out of data collection and respect their choices if they do.
• Explain exactly how your organization uses AI, emphasizing that it will not replace personalized, genuine interactions between donors and staff.

Board members

Concerns: Board members may be wary of adopting AI solutions because if data is mishandled, it could lead to liability for your organization.

How to address their concerns:

• Give board members the opportunity to ask AI-related questions at board meetings.
• Review the steps your organization is taking to maintain legal compliance, including data governance and incident response plans.
• Ensure board members understand the potential return on investment (ROI) gains your organization can earn through AI use.

For all concerns, start by hearing your stakeholders out and taking their concerns seriously. Their support will be essential to the implementation process, so you should do everything you can to incorporate their feedback.

2. Gathering high-quality, accessible data.

High-quality data lays the foundation for successful AI implementation. As BWF’s predictive AI explainer states, “The accuracy of your predictive models relies on the internal donor data you use to train and test the projections.” As a result, your nonprofit’s data must be clean, organized, and updated.

Ask yourself the following questions to help confront data-related issues in the AI implementation process:

• Do you have enough supporter data to create useful models?
• Is your data complete, or will you need to conduct a data append?
• Is your data updated?
• Does the data represent your total audience, or does it exclude certain groups?

Through this auditing process, you may identify gaps in your data collection process or outdated information. Create a data hygiene process to get your data in shape. NPOInfo’s data hygiene guide recommends starting by eliminating duplicate data, systematizing your data entry procedures, and training your staff on standardized data processes so everyone is on the same page.

3. Working within a budget.

Your growing nonprofit may face a common concern that all nonprofits must contend with: a limited budget. To ensure you can effectively pursue your mission, your nonprofit must balance making strategic investments with finding ways to maximize fundraising revenue.

Adopting AI solutions at your nonprofit will come with a variety of costs, including:

• Implementation
• Training
• Consulting
• Ongoing support and maintenance

Keep in mind that AI solutions have the potential to significantly increase your fundraising ROI because they allow you to focus on prospective donors that can offer the greatest value to your organization. Run a projected ROI analysis to understand the revenue gains you can expect from AI implementation and whether they offset these costs.

4. Gaining technical expertise.

Most growing nonprofits don’t have AI experts on staff. Therefore, working with an AI fundraising consultant to help get up and running is often in your best interest.

These experts have the experience and knowledge necessary to help you adopt AI efficiently and securely. They can help your organization:

• Create tailored AI models using your unique dataset.
• Maintain transparency with robust AI and privacy policies.
• Enact security measures to protect donor and constituent data.
• Confront and correct bias to help create an ethical, responsible AI approach.
• Train staff members and establish uniform AI protocols.

Choose a consultant who’s dedicated to taking the time to get to know your nonprofit’s mission and stakeholders on a personal level. That way, they can ensure their AI implementation recommendations are aligned with your organization’s values and philosophy. This thoughtfulness will help you maintain audience trust and ensure your AI solutions help your community instead of harming it.

As mentioned above, although working with an AI consultant will require an investment, it’s ultimately worth it in the long run because you can fundraise much more efficiently when your AI solutions are set up correctly.

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AI implementation may challenge your growing nonprofit, but these solutions are worth the effort. In the years to come, AI fundraising will be key to growing your organization’s fundraising capacity, supporting every initiative from year-end fundraising to major gift cultivation. Working through these growing pains now will put your organization ahead of the curve and set you up for fundraising success.