ARTICLE
There’s Nothing Artificial About Fundraising
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Updated - 12/11/2024
I love technology as much as the next person, and have benefited enormously from its application throughout my personal, professional, and civic lives. Yet, as a lifelong advancement professional for three institutions of higher education, and now as a fundraising consultant/trainer, I have serious questions about the potential of artificial intelligence, or the ubiquitous AI, in the profoundly unique discipline of resource development.
For context, AI is popularly defined as the capability of computer systems or algorithms to imitate intelligent human behavior. For illustrative purposes, in composing documents it takes one word, and through the power of logarithms, finds the word that most naturally follows, and so on and so on. Supposedly, time, effort, and pain are removed from writing projects.
Here’s the rub: There is nothing more profoundly personal and intimate than philanthropy — the voluntary sharing of time, talent, and treasure lived out in a virtually unlimited range of compelling ways to express love of humanity.
The most common concept spoken about in the nonprofit community is being in the business of building relationships. I don’t believe that goes nearly deep enough. I once heard relationships described as something you have until something better comes along. It’s almost transactional. That misses the mark.
In a fiercely competitive environment in which donors make difficult decisions not between the good and the bad, but between the good and the good, the goal needs to be forging, nurturing, and sustaining lifelong friendships. Friendships endure during good times and not so good times.
While AI can and should expedite numerous tasks of organizing and summarizing donor data and records, it is ill equipped to develop and maintain friendships.
AI resources may be rich in data and knowledge, but they don’t have hearts, souls, and personalities. They are completely void of any type of emotion.
Nothing is as personal as fundraising. It demands an unstinting commitment to get donor prospects to know, like, and trust our nonprofits, especially the professionals and volunteers who lead them. Emotion is a chief ingredient of bonding donor prospects with the missions of America’s more than 1.5 million nonprofits.
Take the example of writing thank-you letters. During my career, I took great pride in harnessing everything I knew about the donor to strike home with their heads and hearts. In addition to the standard letters providing documentation for IRS and tax deduction purposes, I made it a priority, especially for major gifts, to send a handwritten note, ideally dropped in the mail the same day the gift was received. How many handwritten notes do you receive via snail mail? This provides a genuine opportunity to stand out and be remembered in a world characterized by a barrage of non-stop communications.
The process of acquiring friends begins with discovering what is important to them. When and wherever possible, a face-to-face meeting held at the convenience of the prospect is the most productive starting point. The issue of money is set aside entirely. Instead, the focus is on active listening and learning everything possible about the donor prospect’s values, priorities, and needs. Learning their personal stories ranks high.
If we want donor prospects to love our nonprofits, we must show we love them first. I don’t understand how AI plays a role in that most powerful of all human endeavors.
Armed with those precious insights, we can move forward with the essential cultivation phase forging a personal and emotional connection between the donor and our mission. This can take a variety of different formats including site visits, one-on-one meetings with leadership, and meeting with and seeing close-up the beneficiaries of donor dollars.
When the time is ripe for solicitation, this is high-touch on steroids. The solicitor must never lose eye contact and emote passion, conviction, and urgency in every verbal and non-verbal ounce of the communication.
More and more, AI is getting better at handling jobs like summarizing meetings and notes, and in doing so, saving time that nonprofits can devote to higher-value functions.
So, let’s consider AI another tool to include in the fundraiser’s toolkit. It has both potential and limitations. When directly addressing donors and donor prospects, it isn’t an acceptable substitute. I might be old fashioned, but give me high-touch over high-tech any day of the week, and I am confident that more money will result.
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