TL;DR:
- AI in nonprofit fundraising works best when you start with the tasks you hate doing, not the technology itself
- The average fundraiser spends only about 3 hours a day actually connecting with donors; AI can help double or triple that
- Major giving continues to grow in importance as total donor counts decline, making relationship-focused fundraising more critical than ever
- Impact reporting is what younger donors care about most, and organizations that personalize communication will win their loyalty
- We’re still in the early stages of AI adoption for nonprofits, and the best approach is to start small and let the tools meet you where you are
If you’re a nonprofit fundraiser wondering how AI fits into your day-to-day work, you’re not alone. The conversation around AI in nonprofit fundraising has shifted from “should we use it?” to “how do we actually make this useful?” And that’s a meaningful shift, because it means teams are past the hype and ready for practical answers.
The challenge is that most of the advice out there is either too abstract or too technical. What fundraisers need is a clear starting point that connects to the work they’re already doing.
On a recent episode of The Responsive Lab, hosts Scott Holthaus and Carly Berna sat down with Griff Bohm, co-founder of Momentum (now part of Virtuous), to talk about how AI is reshaping fundraising, where major giving is headed, and how nonprofit teams can start using these tools without getting overwhelmed. We covered a lot of ground, and this post unpacks the biggest takeaways.
Start With What You Want to Stop Doing
When thinking about a helpful starting place for using AI in fundraising, don’t start with AI. Start with friction.
Instead of asking, “How should I be using AI?” flip the question. Ask yourself what part of your day you’d happily never do again. That’s your starting point.
Maybe it’s drafting routine email responses. Maybe it’s sorting through a backlog of Slack messages first thing in the morning. Whatever that task is, there’s likely an AI tool that can take a meaningful chunk of it off your plate.
The key insight here is that AI for the sake of AI doesn’t actually accomplish anything. It has to save you time, reduce stress, or help you do something better. If it’s not doing one of those things, it’s not worth the effort.
Here’s the simplest way to put it: think of something you don’t want to do anymore, then ask AI how you can stop doing it. That’s the advice, and it’s a good starting point for anyone feeling overwhelmed by the AI conversation.
Why “Just Use AI” Is Bad Advice
Telling someone to “just start using AI” is a lot like telling someone to “just start working out.” It sounds motivating, but without specifics, it’s paralyzing.
The nonprofit sector has heard this message loudly over the past two years. And while most fundraisers have at least logged into ChatGPT and typed something, moving from occasional experimentation to consistent, daily use of AI in their work is a different story.
The reason? The technology is still in its early packaging phase.
Think about it this way: we had smartphones (Palm Pilots, BlackBerrys) for roughly 15 years before the iPhone came along and made the whole concept click. AI is in a similar moment right now. The underlying capability is powerful, but the interfaces and workflows are still catching up.
Right now, most AI tools respond with a wall of text, some bolded lines, and maybe a few emojis. It works. But it’s not elegant, and it’s not always intuitive. That’s going to change fast. We’re already seeing tools shift toward more visual, interactive formats, almost like building an app you can interact with in real time rather than just reading a text response.
For fundraisers, the practical takeaway is this: don’t wait for perfect tools. The models themselves (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini) have gotten meaningfully better in the past year. Start using them now, even if the experience feels a little rough around the edges.
The Fundraiser’s Real Job: Being With Donors
Here’s a number that should stop every nonprofit leader in their tracks: the average fundraiser spends only about three hours a day actually engaging with donors. On a good day.
The rest? Email, Slack, internal meetings, coordinating logistics. All of it necessary, and almost none of it the reason someone got into fundraising in the first place.
If you could give your gift officers eight hours a day to just be with their donors, listening, learning, having real conversations, most would jump at that opportunity without hesitation. That’s the vision behind AI in nonprofit fundraising. Not replacing the human relationship, but protecting it.
Because the one thing that hasn’t changed, and won’t change, is this: people give to people, and people give when they’re asked. That’s the fundamental truth of fundraising, whether you’re raising money for a nonprofit, a startup, or a community project. No AI is going to replace the human element of that equation.
What AI can do is handle the work that surrounds those conversations. Think about all the time spent on email, Slack, internal meetings, and logistics. As Griff put it, most internal communication is really just coordinating, things like confirming deadlines and following up on deliverables. Systems can do that for us.
The goal isn’t less human interaction. It’s more. When you strip away the overhead, fundraisers can do what they do best: build relationships that lead to generosity.
Major Giving Is Only Getting More Important
If you look at the long-term trends in U.S. philanthropy, one pattern stands out clearly: total giving dollars continue to rise, but the number of individual donors keeps shrinking. This has been happening for 20 to 30 years.
What that means in practice is that major giving is becoming a bigger and bigger piece of the puzzle every single year. Most nonprofit leaders already feel this. They know their top 10 or 20 donors by name, because those individuals often represent half (or more) of their total fundraising revenue.
This is exactly why the relationship side of fundraising matters so much right now. When fewer donors account for more of your revenue, the quality of each relationship becomes critical.
And there’s a deeper layer here, too. In a world where many people feel disconnected from their communities, the relationship between a major donor and the organization they support can be a genuine anchor. For donors giving to local homeless shelters, arts centers, or community programs, that connection to mission is a way of staying rooted in something meaningful.
The question for every nonprofit team is: Are you set up to nurture those relationships at scale? Because if we can create that same sense of connection and belonging that the biggest donors feel, all the way through the donor lifecycle, that’s where we start to see a way to grow donors, not just dollars.
Younger Donors Want to Know Their Impact
One of the clearest signals in how donors are changing is this: younger generations want to see where their money went.
If you tell a millennial or Gen Z donor that their $100 went here, here, and here, and it fed this many people, that kind of communication lands far more effectively than a generic thank-you email. Whatever your cause is, that format works.
This isn’t a passing trend. Impact reporting is becoming a baseline expectation, especially among younger givers. And the bar for personalization keeps rising.
Think about how Spotify Wrapped works. Tens of millions of users get a highly personalized year-in-review that feels like it was made just for them. That’s the bar donors are comparing you to, whether they realize it or not.
The key is having that level of understanding: knowing what matters to your donors, knowing what they want to hear, and making sure what they’re hearing from you actually reflects that. When organizations do that, things start to shift.
The organizations that figure this out will be positioned to win the next generation of philanthropic support. And the good news? As millennials age out of student debt and stabilize financially, their giving patterns are starting to resemble those of previous generations. The generosity is there. The question is whether your organization is ready to meet it.
How to Start Learning About AI in Fundraising
If you’re looking to deepen your understanding of AI in fundraising, here’s some honest advice: don’t try to build a separate “AI education” track for yourself. Instead, lean into the things you already care about, and pay attention to how AI shows up in those spaces.
Every industry publication, every podcast, every professional community is talking about AI right now. If you listen to economics shows, you’ll hear it there. If you follow fundraising thought leaders, they’re covering it. Just stay curious and absorb it naturally.
That said, a few practical starting points:
- Use the tools. Just start experimenting with ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. Give them real tasks from your work and see what happens.
- Join communities. The Fundraising AI community is a great third-party resource where nonprofit professionals learn from each other about practical AI applications.
- Follow what you’re already into. There’s almost no corner of the media ecosystem that doesn’t have AI coverage now. Listen to podcasts and read publications you already enjoy, and you’ll naturally absorb what’s relevant.
The technology is moving fast, and it will keep moving fast. But the fundamentals of great fundraising haven’t changed. People give to people. Relationships drive generosity. AI is here to help you spend more time on the things that matter most.
Let AI Handle the Overhead So You Can Focus on Relationships
The future of AI in nonprofit fundraising is about removing barriers between fundraisers and the people they serve. Every minute spent on routine emails, internal coordination, or logistics is a minute not spent building the kinds of relationships that fuel lasting generosity.
If your team is ready to explore how AI can streamline your fundraising workflows, Virtuous Momentum is built specifically for this. It’s our AI-powered fundraising assistant that helps major gift teams prioritize donors, draft personalized outreach, and manage portfolios with AI that adapts to your voice and your data.
Get a Virtuous Momentum demo now.
And when paired with Virtuous CRM+, you get a connected platform that ties donor management, marketing automation, and AI-powered insights into one system.
The opportunity is here. The tools are ready. The question is whether you’ll start today.
FAQs
How should nonprofits start using AI in fundraising?
Start by identifying one repetitive task you’d like to eliminate, then use an AI tool to help with that specific task. Build from there rather than trying to overhaul everything at once.
What is the most important thing AI can do for fundraisers?
AI can give fundraisers back their time by handling routine communication, internal coordination, and logistics, so they can spend more hours actually connecting with donors.
Why is major giving becoming more important?
Total giving dollars in the U.S. continue to rise, but the number of individual donors is declining. This long-term trend means a smaller group of major donors makes up a larger share of total fundraising revenue.
What do younger donors expect from nonprofits?
Millennial and Gen Z donors place a high value on impact reporting. They want to know specifically where their donation went and what it accomplished.
Are we still in the early stages of AI adoption for nonprofits?
Yes. While most fundraisers have experimented with tools like ChatGPT, consistent daily integration of AI into fundraising workflows is still uncommon. The technology is improving rapidly, and now is a great time to start.
