Insights from the World’s #1 Fundraising Conference, AFP ICON

Earlier this month, Dataro headed to the US to attend the world’s #1 fundraising conference,  AFP ICON. 

Dataro founders Tim Paris, Chris Paver and Dave Lyndon had an amazing time connecting with passionate fundraisers from across the US (and the globe) – listening to their challenges and discussing strategies, technologies and innovations that are changing the face of fundraising.

This was Dataro’s first AFP ICON and our team left the event feeling energised and inspired to keep helping fundraisers change the world through smarter fundraising.

Speaking with fundraisers from nonprofits and charities of all shapes, sizes and causes, here’s a few key things we learned from AFP ICON: 

• Fundraisers want to better understand their donors, at a more granular level.
  Gone are the days of broad segmentation. Fundraisers want to deliver highly targeted and unique donor journeys with personalised communications, which is only made possible with AI technology.
• Fundraisers need quick answers to key fundraising questions
  What’s my average donor lifetime value? What’s my retention rate? Am I recruiting more major givers over time?
  Many fundraisers didn’t have the tools to answer these questions and make data-led decisions quickly and easily.

• Nonprofits could be generating more reliable revenue through recurring giving programs
  Relatively few nonprofits were investing in recurring giving programs which are an incredibly important strategy for generating predictable gifts and de-risking one-off cash appeals. Using AI, fundraisers can easily identify existing donors in their database who would be most likely to convert to a monthly gift.

• Finding major gifts in your database is hard work
  Fundraisers have a strong desire to find major givers in their existing database, but commonly reported it was hard to find these “hidden” givers. AI can be the secret weapon to unlocking the existing data in your donor CRM to uncover those supporters with propensity to give larger gifts.

• Data security and privacy remain a top priority
  Recent data leaks both globally and in the fundraising industry specifically have made data security and privacy a key concern for fundraisers. Many fundraisers expressed disappointment with wealth screening processes that violated privacy, but also returned low matching rates.

• Humans are no match for AI technology in predicting donor behaviour
  Fundraisers who visited the Dataro stand were challenged to ‘beat the machine’ – a mini version of Dataro’s AI brain. The goal: to select the right donors to include in a fundraising campaign. The result: no fundraiser was able to beat the AI brain at predicting who would (or wouldn’t) give to a campaign.
  That’s because Dataro’s AI brain has access to more data than a human brain can crunch. Knowing whether somebody will give or not is an incredibly difficult task for a human – but a relatively simple and quick task for AI. Using AI software like Dataro’s, fundraisers can save time and raise more money, with the same campaigns and less effort. It’s about automating your data selections, so fundraisers can get back to doing what they do best… and leaving AI to do what it does best too!

Heading to the FIA Conference in Sydney or Fundraising Convention in London?

Dataro will be exhibiting at the FIA Conference in Sydney this June and Fundraising Convention in London in July. We’ll be taking our “Beat the Machine” fundraising campaign game with us so you can try your own hand at challenging the Dataro AI brain. We’d looking forward to connecting with you and sharing more about Dataro’s AI and technology solutions to help you fundraise smarter.

Not attending? You can request a virtual demo with our team today to see how Dataro’s AI and Fundraising Intelligence software can help save you time and make your fundraising campaigns a success.