Can Artificial Intelligence Solve the Gaps in Peer-To-Peer Fundraising?

Peer-to-peer (P2P) fundraising can be a cost-effective way for nonprofits to raise funds and grow their supporter base. The opportunity and challenge for nonprofits lies in converting P2P donors into long-term supporters. 

But typical P2P conversion campaigns perform very poorly.

That’s likely because most nonprofits don’t really understand who their P2P donors are or what motivates their giving. And while many research projects have tried to address this, there is no definitive answer or framework to help charities understand their P2P donors better.

Compounding the issue is the fact that charities collect very limited data on P2P donors (name, email) and sometimes donor data is stored across multiple platforms, preventing a single view of the donor and their past actions.

The other challenge is most charities running P2P events are sitting on thousands or even millions of donor records that they simply don’t know what to do with. In doing so they are missing out on donations while absorbing higher database costs.

Fundraisers know what needs to be done to steward P2P donors for a direct gift. But with so many people in their database whose affiliation to the cause is undefined, it’s hard to know which P2P donors are the best prospects to contact. 

So what’s the solution?

New innovations like artificial intelligence (AI), could hold the key to enhancing a charities understanding of their P2P donors and unlocking the true impact of P2P giving.

In late 2022 Dataro will embark on a year-long experiment with a small group of Australian nonprofits to try and solve the biggest problem facing P2P fundraising – how to convert P2P donors to give directly to the cause.

The initial aim of this collaborative project is to develop two new AI-powered propensity models that can predict which P2P donors are most likely to:

1. Give a single gift
2. Give a recurring gift

Using AI-powered donor predictions it is hoped that fundraisers can identify the best P2P donor prospects to convert to either single or recurring giving, using either mail, phone or email. 

Through early discussions with fundraisers, we have already identified an additional P2P problem to solve – how to convert P2P donors to fundraisers. 

Want to help us solve the gap in peer-to-peer fundraising strategy?

At Dataro we believe charities and businesses like ours must be bold and do things differently to address the biggest challenges we face collectively.

This project is an example of true collaborative innovation, bringing together technology and new ideas from the fundraising sector to try and solve the biggest gaps in P2P fundraising strategy.

It’s a passion project that we are extremely excited about and we’re thrilled that forward-thinking charities have taken a leap of faith to tackle the challenge head on with us. Because the opportunity to positively impact the rest of the global fundraising sector is worth the risk.

We’re still looking for one more Australian-based charity to join us on this adventure. If you are interested to learn more please email ash@dataro.io for more details.