Nonprofits have more ways than ever to engage supporters across campaigns, channels, and programs, but more opportunity can often mean more work. You need to balance doing more good, with your ability to actually do more.
This is why it’s critical to identify solutions and software that can make your nonprofit’s development staff more efficient. But modern fundraising efficiency isn’t about doing more faster at any cost, it’s about working more intelligently. You need software that saves time, supports good judgment, and protects donor trust. That’s where ethical, mission-aligned AI comes in.
For the purpose of this guide, we’ll focus on how nonprofits can use a combination of AI-powered intelligence and automation to build efficient, effective fundraising programs. These principles apply whether you’re a small organization just beginning to adopt AI or a larger organization looking to scale proven strategies. Regardless of size, sustainable efficiency comes from having intelligence embedded directly into the tools fundraisers already rely on.
Bonterra brings a unique perspective to this work. Our experience supporting hundreds of thousands of nonprofits — and our responsibility to the communities they serve — has shaped how we approach AI in social good. That expertise is reflected in Bonterra Que, our agentic AI platform built specifically for nonprofits. Designed to be human-led and governed by our responsible AI principles, Que reinforces donor trust by keeping fundraisers in control, avoiding the use of customer data for model training, and prioritizing transparency and ethical use.
Throughout this guide, you’ll see how these principles translate into practical fundraising strategies, helping nonprofits strengthen supporter relationships, raise more, and save time without compromising their values.
AI and automation: two paths to fundraising efficiency
Automation and AI are often mentioned together, but they play different roles in modern fundraising. Automation has long helped nonprofits handle tasks like follow-up emails, acknowledgments, and reminders more consistently. But deciding what to automate, who to engage, and when to reach out still requires insight and judgment. That’s where AI plays an increasingly important role.
To take efficiency a step further, nonprofits are now turning to AI and predictive analytics to analyze large amounts of data and support smarter decision-making. Think of AI as a personal assistant for your fundraising team, helping identify opportunities, prioritize efforts, and reduce guesswork.
Many AI tools stop at insights, surfacing generic recommendations or data points that still require significant manual work to act on. Bonterra Que is different because it’s AI that acts. Instead of stopping at recommendations, it helps fundraisers move from insight to execution by creating donor segments, drafting on-brand emails, building optimized donation forms, and preparing campaigns for launch, all within the tools they already use. Plus, users review and approve every output, so nothing is ever published without human oversight.
When evaluating AI and automation, it helps to understand the distinct, and complementary, value each provides:
This approach allows nonprofits to start with intelligence, not complexity, and grow into automation as their programs and capacity evolve.
Getting started with AI and automation
As you implement AI and automation at your nonprofit, it’s important to focus on programs that deliver meaningful results without adding unnecessary complexity. In our experience partnering with nonprofits of all sizes, there are three foundational fundraising programs that consistently deliver strong returns.
Once these programs are in place, they can be supported by AI-driven guidance and actions for small teams or scaled through automation for larger organizations. No matter your stage of readiness, these programs provide a strong foundation you can build on over time:
Using AI and automation to support these workflows will help you spend your time creating more meaningful engagement with supporters, while also ensuring that they’re receiving the right messages at the right time, and keeping your own workload manageable.
Lapsed donor recapture
Re-engaging lapsed donors is one of the most effective ways to grow revenue, but only when outreach is timely, respectful, and meaningful. Over-messaging or generic asks can do more harm than good. This is where AI and automation can play a key role. Rather than manually tracking which donors have lapsed and spending time writing the right email appeal, use technology to simplify the process.
How Bonterra makes it easier
Across Bonterra EveryAction and Network for Good, Que analyzes donor history, engagement signals, and giving patterns to help fundraisers identify which supporters are most likely to return. It can then provide a list of lapsed donors and draft an email with compelling stories, gentle asks, and merge fields to simplify outreach. For small teams using Network for Good, Que takes the guesswork out of lapsed donor outreach by recommending who to reach out to and what to say, while saving valuable staff time.
Larger teams can take it a step further by scaling their reengagement programs through EveryAction’s automated workflows that function like flow charts. Use automated workflows to win back donors when their commitments end, either after they cancel a recurring gift or when a payment method fails.
Donor renewals
A second opportunity to improve fundraising efficiency is donor renewals. Asking active donors to reaffirm their support is critical to preventing them from lapsing, but it can take a lot of time to identify these donors on a regular basis.
How Bonterra makes it easier
With Bonterra Que, fundraisers can save time pulling the right donor list, generating emails, and building tailored donation forms. Simply ask Que to identify which donors are up for renewal soon, and it can pull a list based on your donor database. It can then draft on-brand communications to encourage renewal, or even upgrades, and create an accompanying donation form tailored to the outreach.
EveryAction makes it easy for organizations with larger donor bases to automate donor renewal emails, empowering donors to engage when they’re most likely to see the message and donate. Network for Good helps small organizations by automatically sending out donation receipts and reminding them to send personalized thank-you messages to aid stewardship.
Once the right donors are identified, Network for Good and EveryAction users can utilize AI-powered Optimized Ask to recommend fair, realistic donation amounts based on a donor’s giving history and peer benchmarks. This helps nonprofits increase conversion while respecting donor intent.
Whether executed through guided actions in Network for Good or automated journeys in EveryAction, AI-powered renewals help teams focus more on stewardship and less on manual setup.
Sustainer upgrades
The third foundational program where intelligent fundraising can save time and increase effectiveness is sustainer upgrades. Sustainers provide reliable, recurring revenue and often contribute significantly more over their lifetime than one-time donors. The challenge is identifying when a sustainer is ready to increase their commitment. Asking too early can feel misaligned, while asking too late can mean missed opportunities.
How Bonterra makes it easier
Bonterra Que identifies the best candidates for recurring giving based on donation patterns and engagement behavior, helping fundraisers ask the right donors at the right time. You can even ask Que when the best time is to reach out to potential sustainers. It will then provide best-practice advice based on the Bonterra Network of 180,000 nonprofits, 20 million supporters, and 25% of all corporate giving.
By using ethical AI and automation to support these key programs, your organization can increase efficiency and revenue, so you can focus on fulfilling your mission.
Partner with Bonterra for nonprofit AI and automation
More intelligent fundraising is about empowering people — not replacing them. Ethical AI that acts responsibly helps nonprofits save time, raise more, and strengthen donor relationships.
Bonterra Que powers mission-aligned intelligence and actions across Network for Good and EveryAction, giving nonprofits of every size the confidence to know what to do next, the strategy to do it effectively, and the capacity to do it well.
