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Insight Report: Rise of the Machines and the Data Scientists Who Shape Fundraising’s Future

The future of fundraising has arrived! And with it, innovative tools like artificial intelligence and machine learning that are leading the way.

We must no longer rely solely on what donors have done in the past to craft our next fundraising campaign. Instead, we can predict what they’ll do in the future thanks to big data and our brainpower. Thus, we can more accurately determine who will and won’t give to our future fundraising campaigns. The benefits are extraordinary.

In the early days of the pandemic, we asked, “How can we create the right opportunities to continue this heightened level of giving?” As the pandemic continued, we asked, “How do we keep these new donors engaged and giving post-media blitz when the coverage dies down?” Today, with many nonprofits and most Food Banks experiencing year-over-year drops in donors and revenue since 2021, we ask, “How long will this decline continue, and how do we stabilize and/or return to growth?”

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Trust The Data

The talented data scientists at TrueSense Marketing have already been hard at work driving better fundraising with the advent of new technologies like our Giving Potential Scores (GPS) and TrueCast® Scenario Engine.

Giving Potential Scores

At TrueSense, we have a predictive model for donor value called GPS (Giving Potential Scores) that’s remarkably powerful. We’re the first marketing agency to bring an algorithm this robust to the nonprofit sector.

GPS utilizes artificial intelligence to calculate every donor’s unique value potential for giving during a campaign. Instead of the recency, frequency, and monetary value (RFM) model, which looks at just three features, GPS examines hundreds of data points for every donor: things like age, net worth, life stage, seasonal donor trends, etc.

Graphic of a sample outcome of TrueSense Marketing's proprietary Giving Potential Scores predictive model.

Unlike RFM and other segmentation models that categorize donors based on what they have done in the past, GPS organizes donors according to what they will do next. That means you can omit names in preferred segmentation that are not likely to give and instead find “nuggets of gold”— potential donors contained in segments you would not otherwise include.

The simplicity of the GPS score is what makes it work. Big data calculates a score that directly relates to the giving potential of the donor. And because we can predict responsiveness and value precisely by the donor, we can tailor each donor’s communication experience.

That means smarter spending, reduced campaign costs, and a higher ROI.

TrueCast® Scenario Engine

The advancement of machine learning predictive tools may someday replace all traditional predictive tools. But in the meantime, they sit alongside the traditional tools that remain effective.

TrueCast® Scenario brings your historical program data together with new, innovative strategies and investment levels to project the future of your fundraising potential.

Forecasting often follows a self-reinforcing cycle: looking at last year’s results to inform next year’s strategy, for example. Unfortunately, that pattern can lead to inaccurate projections.

For that reason, we created our Full-Circle Fundraising framework that includes far more accurate fundraising projections than what have been possible before, tied to your specific potential investment scenarios.

Enjoy Unique, Relevant, Totally Personalized Content for Each Donor

At TrueSense, we have invested in laying the foundation for this vision of the future — in data technology and capacity and, most importantly, in the brainpower that builds, refines, and focuses this extraordinary learning machine.The future of fundraising has arrived. And we’re uniquely positioned to deliver cutting-edge segmentation customized for each of our partners’ donors.

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Discover Bigger Data, Machine Learning, and Predictive Modeling

Where will it lead? Our donor segmentation approach:

  1. Evaluates and scores each donor based on their unique giving behaviors.
  2. Consumes your data to fuel an AI-powered decision engine that predicts future performance.
  3. Considers distinct factors that reveal which donors should or should not be targeted.
  4. Continually accrues, learns, and refines each donor’s predictive data thanks to the power of AI.