AI in Fundraising: It Won’t Replace Your Job as a Fundraiser, but It’s Already Changed It

Nobody cares anymore that I aced Mrs. DeLuca’s legendary 10th grade grammar exam in 1997 — the one we were warned about since middle school and had to pass to graduate. AI has made polished writing the norm and has quietly raised the stakes for what actually matters.

Before AI, I could feel the person behind the message; the quirks, the effort, the intention, the imperfection. Now, every fundraiser’s communication is clean and competent. It’s harder to distinguish what’s personal from what’s been generated or AI-assisted. And in fundraising, where trust and emotional connection are everything, that shift really matters.

As a consultant, I guide my clients to use AI to create efficiencies so they can spend time on what AI can’t replicate: genuine human relationships. 

Across the organizations I work with, AI has created space to shift time toward high-value work. Here are just a few ways this has happened for my clients and may be relevant for you and your team: 

• Leveraging CRM intelligence: Systems like Raiser’s Edge NXT and others use AI to help you surface giving patterns, identify upgrade opportunities, and prioritize outreach based on likelihood to give. Leverage these tools! 
• Summarizing and organizing information: AI can turn your meeting notes into clear summaries, action items, and next steps so nothing gets lost. That said, be careful with AI notetakers when sensitive donor information is discussed; consider who has access, and remember AI isn’t perfect and may misinterpret details.
• Brainstorming campaign names and themes: AI can quickly generate options for teams to react to and refine. I used to spend a lot of time brainstorming appeal and event themes with clients, and AI has streamlined this significantly. Creativity still matters, but ideas spark ideas, and it has reduced the time it takes to land on something strong.
• Translating complex terms into donor-friendly comms: AI can help make dense programmatic or data insights more accessible to donors. The everyday language and complexity in many fields can be translated into clear, understandable messaging without losing meaning.
• Structuring ideas: Use AI to convert narrative content into presentation outlines or deck frameworks that are ready to be refined.
• Supporting data analysis: Fundraising strategies rooted in KPI data have accelerated across my client teams, now that calculations and reporting can happen automatically. Instead of pulling reports and figuring out how to analyze them, teams can quickly access insights via their CRM systems, freeing up time to interpret data, make decisions, and adjust strategy.

And here are some areas where over-reliance on AI can create problems: 

• Sharing sensitive donor information with public AI tools: Entering confidential donor details or full datasets into AI platforms like ChatGPT or Claude creates big risks around privacy and security. Many tools store or learn from inputs, and even when they don’t, be cautious about trusting a third party system with sensitive information. Understand your organization’s policies, and when in doubt, anonymize, generalize, or keep sensitive information out of the prompt entirely. 
• Sounding polished instead of real: When everything is perfectly written, it starts to feel interchangeable. Donors don’t connect with perfection, they connect with authenticity. Be you. Don’t rely on AI to generate emails from scratch, and when communicating at scale, make it personal by referencing unique details tied to meaningful segmentation (e.g. don’t email an entire JCC community with one fundraising message. Instead, segment communications based on user affiliation —ECC parents, fitness users, etc.— and share relevant stories and images) 
• Defaulting to efficiency over connection: Don’t choose the speed and convenience of AI driven communication over phone calls, handwritten notes, and in person conversations.
• Losing specificity: Avoid generic language that could apply to any donor; reference real interactions and details that show you truly know them.

The reality is that AI can create extraordinary efficiencies and give us the insights to maximize the ROI on our relationship-building time. But what AI will never replace is human relationships. 

When AI  gives you time back, be intentional about how you spend it. Meetings and gatherings, whether in person or on Zoom, are where relationships are built. I’m currently taking a facilitation course through the University of Virginia, and it has been a critical reminder that strong meetings don’t happen by accident or by running through a set agenda. You have to design them.

Use AI. Lean into it. But don’t hide behind it. 

Want to connect about AI, your fundraising strategy, major gifts, or an upcoming campaign? Please reach out (info@evolvegg.com) to connect with me or one of our other fundraising consultants.