Several newer companies including Gravyty, Funderful and Retina.ai are actively looking at ways to incorporate artificial intelligence into Advancement – particularly in facilitating the prospect identification and engagement process up to the point where a fundraiser enters the conversation. Imagine automated text messaging (“chat bots”) or email messages that inquire if a prospect: . . Would like to receive a phone call (or not) from a student in the upcoming phonathon appeal; . . Wanted to RSVP for an upcoming alumni event in their city; . . Is planning to attend the next campus alumni reunion, and if they’d like to make a gift in honor of the occasion; and . . Would like to meet with a member of the Advancement Office who will be traveling to the area soon. The messages aren’t trying to secretly impersonate real people – they’re just functioning as a type of initial interest identification – with several “branches” of the conversation defined depending on someone’s interest. Particularly for institutions with large batches of unengaged graduates or other prospects, the right automated initial touch can add efficiency to fundraising engagement – and the use of real fundraisers. I heard the strategy of retargeting https://annualgiving. com/2018/02/25/retargeting-enhance-fundraising-efforts/ recently identified by a panel of annual and regular giving professionals, as the most likely next new artificial intelligence idea we’d be implementing a year from now. It’s possible (thanks to pixels) to identify those who have visited your giving page (or any other page you identify), and pre-plan follow-up messages that can be delivered to them via email, Facebook, or other online channels. (Just like the Web page you visited to book your next holiday hotel, only to see the same hotel promptly show up in your Facebook feed.) If you can identify those who visited your crowdfunding or giving page without making a gift, should you allow them to just walk away unengaged? There are stewardship possibilities as well, including e-mail and video messages automatically scheduled a meaningful number of days after each donor makes a gift (or in advance of a request) and not merely scheduled according to our all-at-the- same-time mass production schedule. The Alternative Payment Specialist I heard that Advancement job title proposed a few months ago, in a discussion about the increasing proliferation of methods that exist for electronically transferring funds from one party to another. Especially with appeals directed at current students or recent graduates, I’ve had fundraisers plaintively make the case that they could double giving participation if the institution were more flexible (which means current) in its ability to receive gifts through a variety of means. In the U.S., that means fund transfer mobile apps such as Venmo, Apple pay, or bank-sponsored services such as Chase Zelle. Our youngest graduates in the States don’t split a dinner check with cash – they take out their mobile phones and “Venmo” each other the funds. It also includes a range of text-to-give providers in the educational fundraising market, including Relay, Mobile Cause, and Hustle. They’re optimised for a variety of uses, including a text-to-give option in a direct mail appeal, or an on-site giving option at an institution event. Or they can be used by texting volunteers. In the U.K., everyone from street musicians to Labrador Retrievers (image above), is using contactless payment devices for donors that want to simply touch their bank card to a reader and immediately make a donation on the spot. Frankly, your gift processor and your Finance Office may not be the most enthused about offering a variety of new payment options, but that doesn’t mean they won’t need to, sooner or later. And for my alumni-giving-participation-obsessed American college and university friends, the more payment options the better. Anything to facilitate a gift from a first-time donor. ROBERT A. BURDENSKI CONSULTANT, AUTHOR, SPEAKER & TRAINER ROBERT BURDENSKI ANNUAL GIVING WWW.BOBBURDENSKI.COM Image above: ‘Tap Dog’ fundraisers, who wear special dog coats with contactless payment devices fitted in a pocket. Source: bluecross.org.uk DECEMBER 2018 5 7