Understanding the latest fundraising and AI trends for charities

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The last four years have been particularly challenging for charities, with a global pandemic, economic uncertainty, and a turbulent sociopolitical climate to contend with. Charities have had to balance rising demand for their services with a difficult fundraising environment, as donor finances wavered and prices rose.  

Supporter care and retention has understandably become a key priority for charities, as individual donations declined, perhaps due to economic pressures stemming from rising inflation and the cost-of-living crisis. More than a quarter of charities saw a drop in individual supporters in 2023, while 28% saw donations decrease, according to the Nonprofit Pulse 2024 report from Salesforce. 

Considering the challenges they are facing, perhaps unsurprisingly, a fifth of charities said they were concerned about the future. However, the charity sector has remained resilient, meeting challenges head on and innovating in order to keep delivering impact for the communities they serve. Almost a quarter of charities (23%) said both digital and channel diversification were their top areas of focus in 2023. 

Though this percentage is lower than in 2022, digital and channel diversification remain the most cited ways that charities are changing their fundraising strategy, suggesting that the dip is not due to other priorities, but to “the dramatic acceleration in digital [...] naturally levelling off as it reaches saturation with more and more organisations adopting digital fundraising and the broader channel reach this can provide”. 

Below, we explore in more detail the challenges that charities are facing and how the sector is seeking to overcome them to achieve more impact in the future.

What challenges are charities facing? 

Recruitment and wellbeing 

The charity sector has always been a challenging one to work in, with pressure to deliver impact resting at the heart of everything charity workers do. The pressure of the last few years appears to continuing to take its toll in 2023, with more than a quarter of charities reporting that the motivation and confidence of employees to work in the charity sector had decreased since the beginning of the year, according to Salesforce’s report. Around a fifth (19%) also highlighted a decline in the quality of organisational culture, while a similar proportion said retaining their workforce was a challenge.  

Fortunately, it seems many charities are already trying to tackle this issue, with 29% of respondents saying the focus and investment on employee wellbeing had increased in 2023. Though 26% of organisations said supporting their staff and their wellbeing was a challenge for them presently, this was a decrease of five percentage points from 2022, showing that the sector has showed some progress in this area. 

The report concluded: “It is ever more apparent that there is a crucial need across the breadth of the nonprofit sector to address staff burnout and a growing skills gap. A key issue now is how we manage recruitment and retain our skilled and experienced fundraisers.” 

Diversifying fundraising 

As highlighted above, fundraising has remained a constant challenge for charities having to balance rising demand for services with an uncertain economic climate. However, charities are tackling this by adapting their fundraising strategies to increase the focus on digital channels, work more collaboratively with other non-profits, and diversifying to work with a wider mix of channels. 

Indeed, the most popular channels for fundraising and engagement changed slightly between 2022 and 2023. In 2023, the most popular channels were social media (cited by 51% of respondents), website (47%), and email (46%). While these channels remained in the top three in 2022, email was far more popular (73%) and was equal with social media, followed by website in third place as a tool for fundraising and engagement 

The report points out that all percentages have fallen for these channels in 2023, and that new channels such as instant messaging have been added to the mix, suggesting “greater diversity and breadth in channel usage”. 

Artificial Intelligence 

The report highlighted a digital skills deficit, with 29% of charities saying that the need for training to make the most of digital delivery remains a high priority. 

The need for training around digital is more urgent given the strides being made with artificial intelligence (AI). The report indicates that, while many organisations have experimented with more intuitive generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, predictive AI requires a more specialist skillset and therefore “presents somewhat more of a challenge despite enormous promise”.  

Almost half of charities surveyed in the report (45%) said that they were optimistic but cautious and wanting to learn more about artificial intelligence in 2023. However, 15% of charities said they didn’t see their organisation using AI at all. The report reasons this could be due to lack of understanding of the benefits of AI, concerns over potential risks, and lack of skills or budget to take it on.  

Data privacy and security were understandably concerns highlighted by the charity sector for both generative and predictive AI. However, while these concerns are valid and charities should embrace AI with caution, the potential benefits AI can deliver for charities remain transformative.  

As the report points out, “in a sector where 37% are worried about workload, and 26% about supporting their staff and their wellbeing, AI has enormous value for improving efficiencies and productivity through the automation of tasks, freeing up valuable time to spend elsewhere. For all these reasons, it’s an area every nonprofit should be looking at.  

“This is the time to be exploring its potential, to find out first-hand just what benefits AI can bring.” 

Ultimately, AI remains a significant opportunity for charities to help boost their fundraising – and it is not the only one.

As the report highlights, technology can have a vastly positive impact on charities and empower them to achieve more with less. For more invaluable insights from fundraising leaders across Europe, and more AI guidance tailored to non-profits in the field, you can download the full report from Salesforce here.