School fundraising is all about relationships. How and when you communicate with donors has a huge impact on their likelihood to support your school. Donor communication is a large responsibility that can take up most of your time.
Some school development professionals are using AI to craft strategic communications. Keep reading to learn how you can use AI to personalize donor outreach for higher engagement and efficiency.
AI for School Fundraising
According to our recent Artificial Intelligence in K-12 Private and Independent Schools Report, just 25% of advancement and development offices have adopted AI — making them the least likely department to use it. Interestingly, the adoption rate jumps to 58% when broadened to include those who also handle marketing, donor communication, or alumni engagement.
This jump in adoption makes sense as so much of school fundraising revolves around communication, a prime use case for AI. According to our research, the top three ways development professionals use AI is to write appeal letters, draft acknowledgement letters, and to communicate with donors.
Power of Personalized Communications
In the world of school fundraising, a little personalization can go a long way. Instead of sending a blanket appeal and hoping it resonates with donors, you want to recognize each individual supporter and show them that you know them.
Saint Mary’s School in Raleigh, NC personalizes their donor outreach with data from Veracross. Beyond simple names and addresses, they pull in constituent group data, donor types, giving society levels, and giving timeframes to inform their solicitations. This strategic approach has helped the school boost online giving, alumnae contributions, and donor retention.
With AI, schools can not only personalize their outreach but save time on developing the communications themselves. According to our research, generative AI tools like ChatGPT are helping school fundraisers save up to 50% of their time. By using AI to craft donor communications, development staff can focus more of their efforts on donor retention and other critical tasks.
Ten AI Prompts for Advancement and Development
Interested in using AI to communicate with donors but not sure where to start? Try these ten prompts:
- Draft a thank you letter for a recent donation to our school’s [fund].
- Write a compelling email to invite potential donors to our upcoming fundraising [event].
- Craft a newsletter update highlighting the impact of donor contributions on our [project].
- Generate a personalized follow-up message for donors who attended our recent [event].
- Compose a year-end appeal letter to encourage donations for our school’s [fundraising initiative].
- Draft a social media post thanking our community partners for their support during our annual fundraising [event].
- Write a phone call script to thank major donors and update them on how their contributions are being used.
- Compose a press release announcing a significant donation and its impact on our school’s [program].
- Generate a heartfelt letter to alumni and encourage them to contribute to our school’s [fund].
- Craft a thank you note for a corporate sponsor who supported our school’s [program].
You can use these prompts as a starting point but make sure to fill in the blanks with your school’s relevant details. The more specific your prompt is, the higher quality your AI response will be.
More Ways to Increase Development Efficiency
Using AI to assist with donor communications is a great way to get comfortable with the technology. Through proper training and experience, you can also start to harness AI for other use cases like wealth screening and data analysis.
We hope these prompts help you explore AI and see the benefits of a personalized approach to donor communication. To learn more about streamlining your development efforts, watch our on-demand webinar to learn how Veracross Development can help you unlock the full potential of your donor data.
