Donor Segmentation Enhancer
Supporter Services Chatbot
Landing Page Personalizer
Social Donor
Journey Mapper
AI pilots are your pathway to practical innovation – allowing your organization to learn by doing while carefully managing risks. These contained experiments let you test AI solutions in controlled environments before making larger commitments.
Why the time is right for AI Fundraising Pilots
- Running an AI pilot lets you validate potential benefits with clear metrics and outcomes, building confidence for wider adoption
- Pilots provide a low-risk way to test AI solutions that doesn’t disrupt your day-to-day operations or existing workflows.
- Pilots generate practical insights and learnings about what works and what doesn’t before making larger AI investments.
- A short 6-12 week timeline means you can quickly determine if an AI solution is worth pursuing further.
Learn more about planning and running an AI Pilot Project for your nonprofit or charity:
> Guide to AI Pilot Projects
> Scoping Your AI Pilot Project
> Expectations and Cautions
Costs vary depending on scope and scale of the pilot, but typically run between $2,500 and $7,500.
Choose an AI Pilot that fits your needs
AI Pilots can be focused on any part of your fundraising process. You could try analyzing historical donor data to uncover giving patterns, experiment with AI-powered content tools for internal communications, or explore automated donor engagement tracking.
Below are examples of real, doable AI fundraising pilots that could provide significant learning and value to your fundraising program. Each of these pilots is self-contained and focused, and could be run with minimal disruption to your core fundraising processes while delivering valuable insights into AI value. Use these examples to help you identify the best AI pilot match for your fundraising program.
Donor Data Insight Pilots
Donor Data Insight Pilots use AI-powered machine learning to enhance traditional development analytics, building more value from your existing donor data.
Donor Reactivation Predictor
Uses AI to inspect your lapsed donor data and identify patterns among those who have successfully reactivated. These insights will help your team work smarter by focusing their efforts on the most promising recovery candidates. Even a small improvement in reactivation rates can justify the experiment.
Donor Persona Builder
Transforms your donor data into dynamic, actionable personas that bring your supporter segments to life. The AI-powered system identifies meaningful patterns in donation frequency, gift sizes, preferred causes, digital engagement, event attendance, and other indicators. These data-driven personas are then enriched and validated by experienced fundraisers, and used to build deeper connections with your donors.
Mid-Level Donor Pipeline Identifier
Uses AI to examine and interpret giving histories and engagement patterns, identifying regular donors showing similar characteristics to those who successfully transitioned to mid-level giving. Begin with a small test group, allowing your relationship managers to validate and refine the AI’s recommendations.
Donor Segmentation Enhancer
Uses AI-powered insight to analyze your entire donor data, uncovering nuanced patterns and refining traditional segments like age, income, and giving history with behavioural and engagement insights. Human fundraisers review and validate these AI-driven segments, ensuring they are actionable and aligned with campaign goals.
Digital Fundraising Pilots
Digital fundraising is an area of constant innovation, and it is highly likely that your digital fundraisers (or your agency partners) have already been educating themselves and experimenting with AI-powered fundraising tools and tactics.
Email Appeal Optimizer
Analyzes email appeal results for insights to improve email campaign performance. Start by optimizing one specific type of appeal – like monthly giving requests. Use AI recommendations to generate multiple versions for testing, always keeping your brand voice and donor engagement principles in mind.
Social Donor Journey Mapper
Optimizes how supporters move from social media engagement into the giving funnel and convert to financial supporters. Begin with just one platform, using AI to identify patterns in supporter behaviour that lead to donations. This insight can help your team better time and target their social media appeals.
Landing Page Personalizer
Optimizes donation page content based on how visitors arrive at your site. Start small by testing personalization such as featured content, customized giving arrays, and preferred payment options on one or two key landing pages, measuring the impact on conversion rates. This pilot can demonstrate the potential of AI-driven personalization while containing any risks
Donor Engagement Pilots
AI can boost donor engagement programs by delivering personalized donor experiences at scale while preserving the authentic human connections at the heart of philanthropy
Event ROI Optimizer
Analyzes historical event data – costs, attendance, giving outcomes, and follow-up success – to identify what drives success. Start with data from just one type of event, looking for patterns that could inform future planning. The insights gained can immediately improve your next event’s planning process.
Supporter Services ChatBot
Enhances donor service with a friendly, knowledgeable, and 24/7 accessible conversational chatbot. Begin with a clearly defined scope – perhaps handling common donation process questions during off-hours. Human oversight remains essential, ensuring responses align with your organization’s voice and values.