Artificial Intelligence

What do you think of when you hear the term Artificial Intelligence? For many, it still conjures up images of big budget movies or sci-fi novels where robots replace humans and pretty much take over the world. Or maybe it’s Alexa, who can turn on your lights, play your music, answer complex questions, and pretty much run your household. However, Artificial Intelligence (or AI) is far less threatening and far more beneficial than you might think.

What is AI and How Can it Help Increase Profitability?

Have you ever ‘googled’ a city or a restaurant or mapped a destination only to have your smartphone make targeted suggestions on dining or parking or things to do in the area before you even get there? That’s AI anticipating your needs and supplying you with options before you even ask for them.

It’s a well know fact that data is king when it comes to understanding, targeting, and creating a competitive advantage in any industry. While analytics can collate mass amounts of data and provide insights on that data, AI takes analytics to the next level. It can process large volumes of data quickly with incredible accuracy and use that data to create predictive models that can profile target markets, identify areas of potential growth, and create a customized consumer journey based on the individual’s online activity. AI is better able to predict what donors and potential donors want. Simply put, AI is the crystal ball of data collection that can anticipate donor and market needs before that need is recognized.

How is AI Used in the Non-Profit Industry?

When it comes to connecting with donors, the single most important strategy is to make people feel like you are actually talking to them as an individual. AI is commonly used to build an effective donor management strategy known as donor segmentation. By identifying core demographics within your donor base and tailoring communications and marketing strategies based on their individual wants and needs, non-profits increase the connection that the donor feels to the organization and the reason why they donated in the first place. Donor profiles are then customized in CRM data bases including fields that tag which segmentation group they belong to and their communication preferences.

Non-profits everywhere currently use chatbots to help automate customer service. Chatbots can quickly respond to and answer commonly asked questions, freeing up live agents to answer more complex queries, save cancellations and upsell to existing donors.

How is Globalfaces Looking at AI?

As we continue to explore AI, we know that there are expanded opportunities to improve our relationships with donors. By learning more about their interests, purchasing history and motivations for giving, we see real opportunity to increase retention and truly connect the donor to the cause. We also see opportunity to get them excited about participating with certain charities by getting to know them better.  

Where is AI Headed for Non-Profits?

With so many charities and foundations in North America, there is no one cookie cutter solution for how and when they will incorporate AI.  In speaking with Amref Health Africa in Canada a charity that has worked with Globalfaces the last few years, they had this to say about their journey with AI, Amref Health Africa in Canada has developed donor personas to deliver quality interactive communications and engagement with supporters in a manor suited to align with their lifestyle and interests.  Amref will begin to embrace these persona’s that AI has played a role in developing.

So What’s Next?

We know that AI is here to stay. The question is, how do we adopt it in a way that works best for our industry and our clients that allows us to integrate the knowledge we garner from our best assets – our fundraisers!  Only time will tell how quickly charities will be ready to adopt this technology but at Globalfaces Direct, we’ll be ready to support our clients every step of the way.