ML is a sub-field of AI that is uniquely suited to answering fundraising questions.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a field of computer science that focuses on making computer systems that can act intelligently like humans or animals. People have been working on AI since the 1940s when digital computers were first created. Many different ways have been tried to achieve AI since then.
Machine Learning
One way to achieve AI is through Machine Learning (ML), which has become widely used in recent years. ML is an AI technique that uses algorithms to learn from historical data instead of having people manually write complex computer programs.
ML is good for problems where the answer can be described as a number, a yes or no, or one of a limited set of options. It also needs a lot of data to learn from.
Recently, ML has made a lot of progress and is now used for many things, like filtering spam, finding fraud, helping with searches, translating languages, answering questions, recognizing images, helping robots move, predicting the weather, giving recommendations, and more.
While fundraisers have used RFM (Recency, Frequency and Monetary) for decades to identify donors to reach out to, ML can provide more accurate answers by using all the data points that sit in your CRM.
Fundraisers often have questions like "Will this donor give money in the next appeal?" or "Will this donor cancel their recurring gift in the next six months?" ML can help answer these questions by looking at lots of data, taking into account many different factors, and testing millions of possible rules to find the best answer.
ML can also be used for more complex or rare problems where other methods like RFM or segmentation don't work well, such as converting donors to give a recurring gift or managing stewardship programs.
LLMs & Agentic AI
Large language models (LLMs) are advanced AI systems trained on vast amounts of text data that can can generate human-like language in response to prompts. Popular tools like ChatGPT, for example, are powered by LLMs. These tools can assist with crafting fundraising copy, donor emails, social media content, etc —often at a speed and scale that would be difficult for a human to match. They can also support drafting personalised messages or adapting content for different audiences, saving time and improving engagement.
Agentic AI represents the next evolution in AI capabilities, where models not only generate content or predictions but can also autonomously plan, execute, and adapt tasks across systems. In fundraising, this approach can be used to automate tasks like prospect research by finding potential donors, pulling relevant details, and suggesting tailored outreach strategies, reducing manual work and speeding up decision-making.
Looking ahead, AI is likely to support charities across many areas, not just fundraising.