AI for charities: why, why now and how to start

Most charities already use AI. The harder question is whether they use it on purpose. In a recent Dataro webinar, fundraising consultant Darren and Dataro chief growth officer Salvatore Salpietro walked through three questions every charity now faces: why AI, why now and how to start. This is the practical version of that conversation.

## The real barrier is human, not technical

Adoption is already high. Recent sector findings show charities using AI tools rose from 76% to 88% in a year. But roughly three quarters still lack an AI strategy. That gap, between everyday use and any plan to govern it, is the problem.

The barrier is rarely the technology. It's trust. Teams worry about three things: whether AI can be trusted, whether it gets the facts right and whether using it is ethical at all.

These concerns are reasonable. They're also answerable. The question is not "should we touch this," but "what should we use it for, and what stays human."

## Why now: prediction is the new baseline

For years, fundraising teams made targeting decisions with manual segmentation and gut feel. They over-mailed to feel safe or under-mailed out of fear. Neither is defensible when costs are rising and teams are stretched.

Predictive AI changes the starting point. Instead of sorting donors by age, postcode or last gift, it reads behavioral signals and ranks who is most likely to respond. That lets a team decide who deserves attention and set a cutoff they can explain and approve.

The principle the webinar kept returning to is simple: humans lead and AI scales. People set the strategy, the ethics and the donor relationships. AI handles the pattern-finding and the repetitive work no human can do at scale.

## A worked example

Birmingham Women's and Children's Hospital Charity faced a familiar challenge. Its database was growing fast, but the team knew not every ask was right for every supporter.

They made three changes:

- Predictive segmentation to mail only donors likely to respond
- AI-recommended gift amounts tailored to each donor
- A personalized email and a thank-you call for high-propensity donors who had opted out of mail

The results were not marginal. The charity sent about half the mail volume, lifted average gift roughly 28% and moved from a two-to-one return to six-to-one. Fewer touches, better timing, stronger results.

## Why donor-level signals beat arbitrary cutoffs

A $500 threshold for a major-gift list is a guess. The amount a donor gives often reflects what you asked for or the moment they gave, not their real capacity.

Salpietro shared one case: a donor who gave $50 by mobile to a Canadian cancer charity kept topping the predictive list. Staff assumed the model was broken. A phone call revealed one of the wealthiest people in the country, who later gave tens of thousands.

Signals surface what spreadsheets miss. No human can weigh every behavior across a full donor file. AI can, in minutes rather than weeks.

## Retention is a growth lever too

The same approach protects value before it churns. Streaming services and banks already use behavioral signals to spot people about to leave, then act early with a timely, relevant nudge.

Charities can do the same: detect at-risk regular givers before they lapse and make a simple thank-you call. In the webinar's examples, segments that received a call churned far less than those that did not.

## Practical takeaways

- Write an AI strategy for fundraising, not just a policy
- Keep leadership, ethics and donor connection human; let AI scale the repetitive work
- Target on behavioral signals, not arbitrary thresholds
- Set guardrails: who controls the data, who approves what AI produces and when AI use is disclosed
- Start with one measurable decision, such as appeal targeting or retention, then expand

## Conclusion

AI is a lighthouse, not the captain. It can help charities navigate, but people still set the course. Used with clear guardrails, predictive AI lets fundraising teams focus on the right donors, spend less and protect the human relationships that drive giving. The teams that plan for it now will see the next step change first.