TL;DR
- Lead with your mission. Use AI to free up time for meaningful work.
- Keep donor relationships human. Personalization alone doesn’t create connection.
- Be transparent. Build trust by being clear about how and why you use AI.
- Use AI intentionally. Consider what AI should do, not only what it can do.
- Equip your team. Give employees a clear purpose and guidance for using AI.
AI is making it easier for nonprofits to personalize donor communications, analyze information, and complete work that once required significant time and effort.
But as these tools become more capable, nonprofit leaders face an important question: How can you use AI to strengthen donor relationships without losing the human connection that makes fundraising meaningful?
On an episode of the Responsive Lab podcast, Scott Holthaus spoke with Matt Randerson, founder and CEO of Human Culture, about navigating AI adoption while keeping people, relationships, and trust at the center.
During their conversation, Randerson made an important distinction:
“I think it’s the difference between someone saying this organization knows a lot about me versus someone saying someone here actually knows me.”
It’s a distinction worth considering as AI makes personalized fundraising more accessible.
Your organization may know a donor’s giving history, interests, and previous interactions. You might even be able to deliver the right message at the right time. But does that mean the donor feels genuinely known?
The answer depends on how you use that information and what role human connection plays in the experience.
Check out their discussion in the video below:
Now, here are five ways nonprofit leaders can approach AI adoption while keeping their mission and donor relationships at the center.
1. Start With Your Mission Before Choosing AI Tools
When nonprofits begin exploring AI, it’s natural to focus on what the technology can accomplish.
Can it write emails? Analyze information? Help employees work faster? Which AI model should the organization use?
Those questions are important, but they don’t necessarily address why your organization should adopt AI in the first place.
Start by identifying what you want your people to accomplish with the capacity AI creates.
For example, if AI helps your fundraising team complete certain tasks more efficiently, consider how that additional time could support the work at the center of your mission.
Could your team spend more time building donor relationships? Could employees contribute to new ideas or initiatives that weren’t previously possible?
The purpose behind AI adoption should be clear before the technology becomes part of your daily operations.
How to Connect AI Adoption to Your Mission
As you evaluate potential uses for AI, consider three questions:
- What are we trying to accomplish? Identify the organizational or mission-related goal behind adopting AI.
- How could AI help us accomplish it? Consider which capabilities could help your team work more effectively.
- What will we do with the additional capacity? Think about how employees could redirect their time and attention toward meaningful work.
These questions reflect an important principle: Greater efficiency is useful, but nonprofit leaders also need a vision for what that efficiency makes possible.
2. Use AI Personalization to Support Genuine Donor Relationships
Personalization has long been an important part of fundraising. And with AI, nonprofits have new opportunities to make their communications more relevant to individual supporters.
AI can help organizations work toward communications that reflect a donor’s interests, giving history, preferred language, and timing.
But there’s an important distinction between personalization and personal attention.
Personalization helps an organization communicate in a way that’s relevant to the individual. Personal attention involves the human connection that helps someone feel genuinely known.
Both have a role in donor engagement.
A donor might receive a message that reflects their interests and previous support. That relevance can create an opportunity for connection.
But building a relationship involves more than delivering relevant information. It also requires authentic communication, human attention, and an understanding of what matters to the person.
How to Think About Personalization and Personal Attention
As your organization uses AI to personalize donor communications, ask:
- Are we communicating about what matters to this donor? Consider how their interests and previous engagement inform the message.
- Are we creating opportunities for connection? Think about whether personalized communication helps enable a relationship.
- Does the interaction feel authentic? Consider how human attention and genuine communication contribute to the experience.
The goal is to use personalization as a way to support relationships, rather than assuming personalization automatically creates them.
AI can make it easier to communicate with individual donors in relevant ways. But the human element remains essential to building meaningful connections.
3. Decide What AI Should Do and Where Humans Should Lead
As AI becomes more capable, nonprofits will have more opportunities to use it across their organizations.
But there’s a difference between what AI can do and what you want AI to do.
A tool might be capable of writing a message, analyzing information, or completing a task. That capability alone doesn’t mean your organization should remove human involvement from the process.
Instead, nonprofit leaders need to think intentionally about how AI and human contribution work together.
Three Questions to Guide Your Decisions
1. Can AI perform this task?
Start by understanding what the technology can accomplish.
AI tools can support activities such as writing and analysis, potentially helping employees complete work more efficiently.
2. Should AI perform this task?
Next, consider whether using AI would create the experience or outcome you want.
Faster and more convenient aren’t always the most desirable options, particularly when an interaction involves personal connection.
3. What role should humans continue to play?
Consider how human judgment, discernment, and relationships contribute to the work.
The objective isn’t to create a shrinking list of responsibilities that AI cannot perform and assign whatever remains to employees.
Instead, think about how human abilities and AI capabilities can complement one another.
Why Human Involvement Still Matters
Consider the difference between an interaction optimized for convenience and one that creates a meaningful personal experience.
In some situations, people may prefer the faster option. In others, they may value the opportunity to connect directly with another person.
Fundraising involves deeply personal motivations. People give to organizations because they care about a cause, have experienced its impact, or feel connected to its mission.
As your organization adopts AI, consider how technology can support those relationships without overlooking the value of human contribution.
4. Build Trust Through Transparency and Clear Intentions
Trust is fundamental to the relationship between nonprofits and their supporters.
Donors want to know that an organization is honest, capable, and committed to delivering on its promises.
Those expectations don’t disappear when AI becomes part of the donor experience.
In fact, AI introduces new questions about how organizations communicate, why they use technology, and where human involvement fits into the process.
As AI-generated and AI-assisted interactions become more common, nonprofits need to consider how their use of technology affects trust.
Four Foundations of Trust to Consider
Drawing on Stephen Covey’s framework, Randerson discusses four elements of trust that remain important in an AI-enabled organization.
Integrity: Are we being honest?
Consider whether your organization is transparent about its use of AI and how the technology contributes to interactions with donors.
Intent: Why are we using AI?
Examine the motivations behind your AI initiatives.
Are you using the technology to serve donors more effectively and advance your mission? Are you focused on efficiency or reducing costs? What do those goals mean for the people your organization serves?
Capabilities: Can we do what we’re promising?
Consider whether your organization has the skills and capabilities necessary to use AI effectively.
AI may help employees develop new capabilities, but organizations still need to think carefully about their ability to deliver.
Results: Are we delivering on our commitments?
Evaluate whether your organization is accomplishing what it set out to do.
Trust depends in part on the ability to follow through on promises, regardless of which technologies support the work.
How to Apply These Principles
When introducing AI into a fundraising process, consider the following:
- Can we clearly explain why we’re using AI?
- Are we honest about how AI contributes to the donor experience?
- Do we understand what the technology can and cannot help us accomplish?
- Are we delivering the outcomes we’ve promised?
These questions also apply internally.
Employees need to understand leadership’s intentions and the organization’s vision for AI, particularly as the technology becomes a larger part of their work.
Building trust requires attention to both sides of the organization: the people supporting your mission and the people carrying it out.
5. Help Your Team Understand Why and How to Use AI
Choosing an AI tool is only one part of organizational adoption.
Even when employees recognize the technology’s potential, they may struggle to use it consistently if they don’t understand its purpose or how it fits into their work.
Through his work with the Human AI Index, Randerson has observed that employees often demonstrate curiosity, a willingness to experiment, and an understanding of how AI could help them do their jobs.
Where organizations can struggle is leadership transparency.
Employees may not have a clear understanding of why AI is being implemented or what leaders hope to accomplish with it.
For nonprofit leaders, that creates an important responsibility: Give employees a compelling reason to use AI and help them understand how to use it.
Explain the Purpose Behind Adoption
Simply telling employees that AI will improve efficiency or productivity may not be enough.
If your organization expects AI to create additional capacity, explain what you hope to accomplish with it.
What new ideas, initiatives, or mission-related work could employees contribute to?
A clear vision helps connect AI adoption to the work employees already care about.
Provide Guidance on How AI Fits Into Their Work
Employees also need to understand how to use the technology.
This includes thinking beyond access to a particular AI model and considering how the tool fits into organizational processes.
For example, having individual employees experiment with AI is different from having documented, repeatable workflows that people can use consistently.
It’s important to move beyond isolated experimentation and help employees understand how AI can be deployed across an organization.
That includes clarity about what employees can use it for and how it fits into their existing responsibilities.
Don’t Assume Switching Tools Will Solve Adoption Challenges
When employees aren’t using AI consistently, it’s tempting to look for a different platform.
But changing tools doesn’t necessarily address the underlying problem.
An organization might move from one AI model to another and still encounter the same adoption challenges if employees lack a clear purpose or practical guidance.
Before switching platforms, ask:
- Do employees understand why we’re using AI?
- Have we explained how the technology supports their work?
- Do we have clear expectations for how it should be used?
- Are we helping employees move from experimentation toward repeatable processes?
The specific AI tool matters, but successful adoption also depends on the people expected to use it.
FAQs About AI Adoption and Donor Trust
How Can Nonprofits Use AI Without Losing Donor Trust?
Nonprofits can focus on transparency, clear intentions, and human involvement when adopting AI. The goal is to use technology to support the mission and donor relationships while remaining honest about how AI contributes to the experience.
Can AI Personalization Replace Personal Donor Relationships?
AI can help nonprofits tailor communications to individual donors, but personalization alone doesn’t guarantee a meaningful relationship. Human attention, authentic communication, and personal connection remain important.
What Fundraising Tasks Should Nonprofits Use AI For?
AI can support activities such as writing, analyzing information, and personalizing communications. Nonprofits should consider both what AI is capable of doing and whether using it creates the experience they want for donors.
Why Is Transparency Important When Nonprofits Use AI?
Transparency helps donors and employees understand how and why an organization uses AI. Being honest about the technology’s role supports the integrity and trust that nonprofit relationships depend on.
How Can Nonprofit Leaders Encourage Employees to Adopt AI?
Leaders can explain why AI is being introduced, how it supports the organization’s mission, and what employees can use it for. Providing a clear purpose and guidance can help teams move beyond individual experimentation.
The Future of AI in Fundraising Is Still Human
AI will continue to expand what’s possible for nonprofit organizations.
It can help employees work more efficiently, support increasingly sophisticated personalization, and create opportunities for teams to redirect their time toward mission-centered work.
But technological capability shouldn’t be the only factor guiding how nonprofits use AI.
Human judgment, discernment, trust, and personal relationships remain essential considerations, especially in fundraising.
As you explore new AI tools and workflows, return to a few foundational questions:
- Are we using AI in service of our mission?
- Are we helping donors feel personally known?
- Are we being intentional about human involvement?
- Are we building trust through honesty and transparency?
- Do our employees understand why and how we’re adopting AI?
The opportunity is to bring AI capabilities and human contribution together in ways that support the relationships at the heart of fundraising.
Because while AI can help your organization know more about its donors, building relationships still requires people who genuinely care about knowing them.
