AI in Fundraising: What Donors Actually Want
Your donors may be more ready for AI than you think.
When I talk with nonprofit leaders about AI, the conversation isn’t about technology—it’s about people. It’s about relationships.
Will donors feel differently about us if we use AI? Will interactions become less personal? Could technology create distance in relationships that took years to build?
Fundraisers are stewards of trust. They think carefully about how supporters experience their organizations because they understand that generosity is rooted in connection. So, when a new technology enters the picture, natural skepticism is often a sign that people are asking the right questions.
Over the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to ask a lot of my own questions about how the social impact sector is approaching AI. The Blackbaud Institute has surveyed thousands of donors and professionals in the field, studied adoption patterns, and looked closely at what distinguishes organizations that are using AI effectively from those that are still struggling to move beyond experimentation.
In Bridging the AI Effectiveness Gap, 85% of social impact professionals said they use AI at work, but only about one-third said their organization is using it very effectively. That gap between simple adoption and intentional use can mean a worse donor experience and reduced outcomes.
So, one question we really wanted to answer was: What matters most to donors?
The concern many organizations have is that donors are fundamentally uncomfortable with AI. That introducing AI into fundraising somehow creates a tradeoff between efficiency and trust, or between scalability and human connection.
But that’s not quite what we found.
What emerged from the research was more nuanced—and, I think, more encouraging.
Donors were open to AI when it made engagement more relevant, responsive, or useful, but they wanted clarity about when AI was involved and confidence that people remained accountable.
“I believe AI can help social impact organizations by automating administrative tasks, allowing staff to spend more time directly serving their communities.”
Donors aren’t rejecting AI. Rather, they’re asking questions about how it is being used. Is it transparent? Is it responsible? Does it make their experience better? Is there still a human being accountable when it matters? Can it help the organizations I care about do more, with less burnout?
Instead of asking donors whether organizations should use AI, we can start asking a more productive question: How can AI help organizations create the kinds of experiences donors already want?
Because when you step back and look at what supporters consistently tell us, the priorities aren’t new. Donors want organizations to know who they are. They want communications that are relevant. They want timely responses, less friction, and more confidence that their support is making a difference.
In other words, they want thoughtful engagement.
The interesting question isn’t whether AI will replace human relationships. It can’t. The conversation I’m more interested in having is about whether AI can help organizations create more opportunities for meaningful human connection.
Free Resource
The Assumption That May Be Holding Organizations Back
One of the most common assumptions I hear is that donors don’t want AI involved in fundraising.
I understand where that assumption comes from.
Most of us have experienced technology that made an interaction worse instead of better—I’m looking at you, Bluetooth-enabled toasters. It’s easy to imagine donors feeling that way when AI enters the mix.
But people don’t usually evaluate technology in a vacuum. They evaluate the experience it creates.
Most supporters aren’t actively wondering whether an algorithm helped determine when they received a message. They know it did, the same way an algorithm optimizes every other aspect of our lives.
They’re interested in whether the organization sent information that was relevant to their interests. Did they receive a response when they needed one? Did the interaction make it easier to engage with a cause they care about?
“As long as [AI] is used responsibly I see no difference.”
The more I’ve thought about the findings, the more I’ve come back to this idea. Donors aren’t necessarily looking for less technology. They’re looking for more thoughtful experiences. But most organizations are using AI in fragmented, individual ways, while only about 10% have reached the AI-Adaptive stage, where AI use is more systemic, governed, and connected to organizational outcomes. That top 10% are seeing better donor retention and higher fundraising revenue, rising alongside their AI maturity.
What Donors Actually Want from Smarter Giving Experiences
Donors tend to be practical:
“AI can help organizations operate more efficiently by automating routine tasks like processing donations, managing volunteer schedules, or handling inquiries. It can also improve outreach and engagement by analyzing data to better understand supporters’ interests and preferences.”
- They want organizations to communicate more effectively.
- They want outreach that feels relevant instead of repetitive.
- They want personalization that reflects their interests and history with an organization.
- They want to find information quickly and easily.
- They want a smoother experience when they decide to volunteer, attend an event, or make a gift.
And increasingly, they expect organizations to deliver those experiences in the same way they experience much of the rest of the world—with less friction and greater relevance.
What’s striking is that none of these expectations require organizations to sacrifice human connection.
In fact, I would argue the opposite.
The best use of AI isn’t replacing relationships. It’s helping organizations create more opportunities for them.
If AI can reduce administrative burden, surface more relevant information, or help supporters get answers more quickly, it creates more space for fundraisers to focus on the conversations that matter most. The study reinforces this point: the organizations seeing the strongest results are not simply using AI to save time. They are reinvesting that capacity into the work that supports long-term sector health, including stronger donor retention, revenue growth, and staff productivity.
Donors want technology that’s in service of people.
The Real Trust Question Is Transparency
When organizations tell me they’re concerned about donor reactions to AI, they’re usually talking about trust.
Trust is one of the most valuable assets any nonprofit has.
Our findings showed that trust and AI can grow together, with a clear expectation that organizations be transparent about how they’re using AI.
Transparency is not a communications add-on. It is one of the core gaps organizations must bridge if they want AI adoption to translate into trust and impact.
In many ways, donors seem less concerned about whether AI is involved than whether they’re being misled.
“Whatever type of AI they use, I just want to be informed that they are using it and what they use it for.”
76% of donors want to know when and how organizations are using AI. Our research highlights that only 26% of the social impact sector are currently telling them. They want to know:
- How their information is being used
- Whether humans remain involved in important decisions
- What safeguards exist to prevent misuse
- How organizations are approaching ethical AI practices
- When they are interacting with an AI-powered tool rather than a person
Those aren’t unreasonable expectations… actually, they’re best practice.
These are the principles many nonprofits already embrace around accountability and stewardship. When we asked donors across generations about what would earn their trust and increase their likelihood to give again, there was net positive for organizations that publicly disclosed their AI practices, with a bonus for those that can publicly share the responsible AI practices that they utilize.
This is why transparency matters so much. Organizations build trust by being thoughtful and honest about how they use AI.
“I want to know if I’m dealing with a live person or generative AI.”
A donor who understands that they’re interacting with an AI-powered agent designed to answer common questions may be perfectly comfortable with that experience. A donor who later discovers they were interacting with AI without realizing it may feel very differently.
The really great news is that the same best practices that donors expect are also the things that will make your use of AI more effective for your organization. Good donor stewardship and good AI go hand in hand.
From AI Assistants to AI Agents
The conversation around AI is also evolving.
For the last few years, much of the focus has been on generative AI tools that help people create content, summarize information, or work more efficiently. This is still where a lot of fundraising organizations are comfortable.
This is also where the report’s distinction between fragmented use and mature use becomes important. Most organizations are still experimenting at the individual level. AI-Adaptive organizations, by contrast, have moved toward more systemic use supported by governance, data readiness, and transparency.
Now we’re beginning to see growing interest in AI agents—systems that can take action, manage workflows, and operate with greater autonomy inside carefully defined guardrails.
This opens up new possibilities, and new considerations:
- Imagine a supporter emailing a question about a program in the evening and receiving a helpful response right away instead of waiting until the next business day.
- Imagine identifying a donor who has shown signs of increased engagement before that opportunity slips away.
- Imagine providing personalized attention to thousands of supporters in ways that would be difficult for even the most dedicated fundraising team to accomplish manually.
These are real world examples of how organizations are beginning to think about the role AI agents can play in donor engagement and stewardship. It is a fundamental shift in the way that fundraising organizations can expand their reach.
Scaling Engagement Without Losing the Human Touch
Whenever I hear conversations about AI in fundraising, I think about something fundraisers have been wrestling with for decades: scale.
“The primary benefit is that AI handles the administrative burden, allowing human staff to focus on high value work like building relationships and direct mission delivery.”
One on one connection is critical. At the same time, teams are often stretched thin and responsible for more constituents than they can realistically serve through one-to-one interactions alone.
The report calls this the AI Maturity Dividend: the compounding return organizations earn when AI-driven time savings are not simply absorbed as individual productivity gains, but reinvested into revenue and mission-critical work.
This is where AI agents can move the needle. An effective fundraising agent can help maintain engagement, answer routine questions, ensure follow-up happens consistently, and surface opportunities for deeper human involvement. Or a data health agent can continually audit records to recommend and implement fixes. Meanwhile, fundraisers can spend more time doing the work only people can do: listening, building trust, understanding motivations, and cultivating relationships.
“Social impact organizations should have people in the forefront and use AI tech to help them be more productive.”
AI agents are a poor substitute for human connection, which is a good thing because that’s not what they’re there for. They’re a way to make more of it possible.
The Opportunity Ahead
If there’s one thing I hope nonprofit leaders take away from this research, it’s that donor expectations are evolving.
Supporters want organizations to communicate in ways that are timely, relevant, and responsive. They want experiences that respect their time. They want transparency about how technology is being used. And they want confidence that people remain accountable where it matters most.
In many cases, these expectations are exactly what responsible AI adoption can help organizations deliver.
The research makes clear that the path forward is not more AI for its own sake. It is more intentional AI: grounded in strong data, clear governance, and transparency about how the technology is being used.
The organizations that will benefit most from AI won’t be the ones that adopt every new tool that comes along. They’ll be the ones that stay focused on the people they serve and use technology intentionally to strengthen those relationships.
Because the last thing donors—or any of us—want is for the sector to become less human.
So, let’s focus on the next big conversation: how we can use AI in ways that help us become better stewards of the relationships that matter most.
