Microsoft Announces New AI Solutions for Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit: A Game-Changer for Fundraising and Volunteer Engagement

Microsoft Corp. on Monday is announcing a suite of new AI solutions and improvements to Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit that are designed to transform the nonprofit industry and how fundraisers engage with donors, manage campaigns and optimize operations. In addition, the company announced a limited private preview for nonprofits to experience a new AI-powered fundraising propensity model. Within the preview, participating nonprofits will be able to test new AI tools that give fundraisers the power to do predictive forecasting of fundraising goals with data modeling and identify donors most likely to donate to a campaign, cause or major gift.

“Simply put, AI can and will be a game-changer for nonprofits and fundraisers,” said Justin Spelhaug, Vice President and Global Head, Tech for Social Impact at Microsoft. “With these new AI solutions, we aim to empower nonprofits and fundraisers to achieve more and to create a more positive and rewarding experience for donors.”

In today’s economic environment, nonprofits are consistently challenged to make budgets go further and do more with fewer resources. Since 2020, many fundraisers have seen an ongoing decline in the overall number of donors giving to causes. And although data can help nonprofits identify and prioritize the most promising prospects, predict donor behavior and measure fundraising outcomes, access to data and the ability to form actionable insights based on fundraising analytics is a major roadblock for many organizations. According to one study from the National Council of Nonprofits, barely 18% of nonprofits reported having all the data they need and using it in nearly every decision they make.

Microsoft Cloud for industries offers powerful, integrated and uniquely tailored industry solutions and workflows designed to allow organizations to realize breakthrough value and more easily achieve success, enabling them to unleash value quickly, build for the future and exceed expectations. And now, with AI as a copilot, Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit is delivering new capabilities to help fundraisers leverage data in a powerful way to attract, retain and grow their donor base.

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New tools include:

• New Fundraising dashboard. To optimize fundraising and help nonprofit leaders understand performance and to quickly respond to a changing environment for charitable giving, Microsoft is introducing a new Fundraising performance dashboard. The dashboard uses real-time data to deliver interactive views of campaign performance, donor conversion and other fundraising analytics, all built on Power BI’s industry-leading data visualization platform.
• Dynamics 365 Marketing joins Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit. Dynamics 365 Marketing streamlines the generation of communications for donors and volunteers, including newsletters, program information and other communications. Because it takes advantage of the Nonprofit Common Data Model, integration of data to help drive more personalized engagement is seamless and easy.
• Microsoft Viva Sales AI Copilot and Microsoft Teams Premium. AI capabilities are now included in the Fundraising and Engagement tools of Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit.
  • Viva Sales will help nonprofits personalize, stay on top of and deepen engagement with donors by providing AI capabilities that assist in crafting email responses based on customer relationship management (CRM) data, update CRM records, summarize Teams calls and more.
  • We’ve also integrated AI-based capabilities of Teams Premium into Fundraising and Engagement that will help nonprofits improve productivity and make sure donors, constituents and staff get the greatest benefit from meetings.

With these new tools, Microsoft is delivering a robust set of solutions for end-to-end fundraising — from fundraising strategy and planning, fundraising campaign execution and measurement, gift processing and reconciliation, all the way through to gift acknowledgement.

New fundraising modeling

In addition to the AI new capabilities in Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit, Microsoft is developing an AI-based donor propensity model to help nonprofits identify constituents most likely to donate or engage with a campaign or cause based on predictive donor behavior. Interested nonprofits can sign up to participate in this private preview and participating nonprofits will help improve the model through contributions of anonymized data and testing. This solution is intended to be generally available later this year.

Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit is tailored specifically for the nonprofit sector, designed to reduce the time nonprofit groups spend managing overhead and delivering automation and efficiency on common and critical workflows. These new AI solutions are designed to help nonprofits focus on mission-critical activities and are built on Microsoft’s trusted cloud platform, Azure, which offers enhanced security, scalability and reliability. They are also integrated with Microsoft’s existing solutions for nonprofits, such as Microsoft 365 — Outlook, SharePoint and Teams — as well as Power Platform, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and LinkedIn.

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