Should charities use AI and data analytics to target potential donors?

There is something we need to accept before discussing anything about AI and Data Analytics. Fund raising events, NGO’s and Charities, they all work for something great, some meaningful cause which can help humanity in ways AI can’t. However, the negative press and media attention towards these types of events have brought a lot of devastation onto them. So, is it time to utilize AI and Data Analytics to target potential donors?

Asking a total stranger for funds

Most of the NGO’s depend on different modes of fund collection. It may be Public Fund-Raising events conducted for rich and elite to contribute their share, or going to door to door knocking and asking for funds. But at the end it is still asking a total stranger for funds which they may not be interested to donate in the first place. This wastes a lot of time and foot work of the NGO’s. Alternative is to use a smarter approach. If the particular NGO knows what kind of people are most likely to donate and what type of people are not, then the work is simplified beyond bounds. This is where AI kicks in with predictive analysis.

Customized Fund Donation

AI makes it all the more comfortable to customize the donations according to the individual’s previous donations. Most of the times the predictions are more than accurate which can terrify some people, but everything is under the Privacy rules and regulations. The organizations no longer need to manually evaluate the ask for the donations. Put the previous donations data into the computer and run Machine Learning algorithms, they will be getting a detailed overview of each donor’s capability now and in future. Not only that the problem of asking a total stranger for fund they may or may not be willing to donate is entirely eliminated by this method. Before you even set foot in the donor’s house, you will know what kind of a person he is and what type of donation he is capable of doing. This makes the art of convincing easier. Still there may be tons of people who argue the targeting donors is a privacy violation. However, whatever AI and Machine Learning does is under privacy restrictions, so it can’t be illegal to start with. Also, the person always has the option to ignore these kinds of advertisements if he/she is not interested in that sort of a donation.

In a way, people are losing hope on NGO’s because of the negative press. People are not confident enough to donate to these organizations as they were a decade ago. This begs the help of modern and trending technologies like AI and Big Data. Targeting the specific sector of the people from the huge piling lists helps the NGO’s to have a breathing gap to think of innovative ways to motivate the donors for fund raising rather breaking their heads and wasting all their sweat in just compiling a list of potential donors for the next fund raiser. AI has changed the way we see the world today and it can confidently change the way Charities see the opportunities and help them make better use of their precious resources.