Nonprofit professionals are being asked to do more with less—less time, smaller teams, tighter budgets.
AI is the tool that can help you reclaim capacity, unlock smarter insights, and focus your energy where it matters most: advancing your mission.
It’s not just a future tool—it’s the innovation nonprofits need right now to break through roadblocks, amplify results, and meet the moment with clarity and confidence.
The real risk? Inaction.
The good news: AI isn’t here to replace you—it’s here to empower you to lead, create, and scale your mission with unprecedented precision.
At the Fundraising.AI Global Summit: Amplify Impact, we’re moving beyond hesitation and into implementation.
This is where bold, curious nonprofit professionals come together to unlock what’s possible with AI—and learn how to do it responsibly and beneficially, with trust as the foundation.
You’ll learn how to:
Uncover opportunities with smarter insights
Take control of your data, decisions, and strategy with AI at your side
Focus on impact—build trust, streamline fundraising, and advance your mission
Use AI not just to automate, but to elevate what humans do best: connect, communicate, and create change
Responsible and beneficial AI practices aren’t barriers—they’re the foundation for unlocking powerful, scalable, human-centered AI solutions that can help you work smarter, move faster, and amplify your mission with integrity.
Are you ready to amplify innovation and impact at your nonprofit?
We’re living through a moment of profound change—and fundraisers are right at the center of it. Amid economic shifts, evolving donor expectations, and rapid advances in technology, one thing is clear: the work we do now will shape the future of our sector.
In this energizing opening session, Fundraising.AI co-founders Nathan Chappell and Mallory Erickson invite attendees to explore what makes this moment not just challenging—but full of possibility. Through a values-driven conversation, they’ll unpack what’s at stake, why fundraisers are uniquely positioned to lead, and how AI can become a tool for alignment, not overwhelm. This is not about knowing all the answers—it’s about stepping into the questions together.
Key Takeaways:
As AI becomes an expected and essential tool in modern fundraising, ensuring its ethical development and deployment is more than a best practice—it’s a strategic imperative. This session explores how responsible AI not only upholds transparency, fairness, and accountability but also unlocks new opportunities to engage high-dollar and board-level donors who increasingly expect ethical technology stewardship.
Moderated by Erin McHugh Saif, Chief of Industry Technology and Strategy at Microsoft Tech for Social Impact, this panel will feature leaders who are pioneering ethical AI in fundraising. Attendees will gain insights into how AI can help fundraisers go deeper into mid-level and emerging prospect pipelines—segments often overlooked due to staffing constraints. Through real-world case studies and practical strategies, participants will learn how to scale personalized engagement while maintaining the highest standards of responsible AI.
AI is transforming the way nonprofits fundraise, but for many teams, it can feel hard to know where to start. This session offers a practical, no-jargon introduction to leveraging ChatGPT for fundraising. Whether you’re a one-person shop or part of a development team, you’ll learn how to use AI to save time, personalize outreach, and elevate your storytelling.
We’ll walk through common fundraising tasks where AI can help, share examples from real nonprofits, and explore how tools like ChatGPT can support everything from grantwriting to campaign messaging. You’ll leave with clear next steps, useful prompts, and access to free resources from OpenAI Academy.
attendees to explore what makes this moment not just challenging—but full of possibility. Through a values-driven conversation, they’ll unpack what’s at stake, why fundraisers are uniquely positioned to lead, and how AI can become a tool for alignment, not overwhelm. This is not about knowing all the answers—it’s about stepping into the questions together.
Key Takeaways:
AI governance isn’t just for legal teams or tech giants—it’s for any organization that wants to use AI responsibly, in line with its values. But what exactly is AI governance—and what isn’t it? In this interactive session, Scott Rosenkrans, certified AIGP professional and Chair of the Fundraising.AI Framework Committee, will break down the fundamentals in plain language.
You’ll explore common misconceptions, understand what AI governance looks like in practice, and see why it’s more essential—and more approachable—than you might think. Then, you’ll roll up your sleeves for a guided walkthrough of Fundraising.AI’s governance template. By the end of the session, you’ll walk away with a working draft of your own governance plan—and the confidence to keep building on it.
can become a tool for alignment, not overwhelm. This is not about knowing all the answers—it’s about stepping into the questions together.
Key Takeaways:
As an industry, are we facing first-of-their kind challenges?
As an organization, are the challenges coming at you from multiple directions?
As a leader, do you feel like you’re facing a crisis to not only achieve goals, but survive?
Then join Kelley Hecht from Amazon Web Services for a practical conversation on how to embrace the feeling of crisis to serve as a catalyst to power positive change.
Informed by recent conversations and roundtables with nonprofit leaders from across the country, we’ll explore Amazon’s renowned Culture of Innovation and how it applies to you and your organization. Together we’ll inspect specific cases where organizations have successfully navigated disruption to emerge stronger and more effective, with practical applications of responsible AI to scale resources and enhance outcomes.
More than show-and-tell, we’ll…
Turn our uncertainty into springboards for innovative problem-solving and rapid adaptation
Roll up our sleeves and define applications within your team and organization that can make a difference this year
Cultivate a mindset that drives strategic thinking to seize opportunities amidst an environment of ever constant change
Participants will leave equipped with fresh perspectives and concrete strategies to turn crises into catalysts for their organizations’ missions.
Join us to explore how the nonprofit sector can leverage times of change to spark innovation, drive meaningful progress, and ultimately create lasting transformation in the communities we serve.
In this presentation we map out current perceptions, applications, and uses of AI in nonprofit fundraising in the UK – identifying knowledge, skills gaps, opportunities, and risks. The findings were the result of a research collaboration between the University of York’s (UK) Research Centre for Digital Innovation in Philanthropy and Fundraising and the Chartered Institute for Fundraising. It collected data from a survey and follow up interviews with fundraisers. The survey generated 77 responses and a total of 21 in-depth interviews were carried out with respondents. A key aim of this research is to inform a set of guidelines for ethical, responsible AI in fundraising.
The current hype cycle around Artificial Intelligence tools is getting tremendous attention in nonprofits and society at large. There is a great deal of pressure on leaders to “do AI,” with the strong implication that those who don’t are missing the “Biggest Thing Ever.” What’s the non-technical nonprofit leader to do?
Jim Fruchterman, longtime tech for good leader and Silicon Valley AI tech entrepreneur, will share his Nonprofit AI Treasure Map, helping nonprofit leaders understand a step-by-step process for implementing AI solutions, or not implementing them if they don’t make sense at the moment.
Think you’ve seen it all when it comes to AI? Think again.
Join Tim Lockie (The Human Stack) and Dan Kershaw (The Furniture Bank) for a fast-paced, mind-expanding conversation that will challenge even seasoned AI users to rethink what’s possible.
Dan is doing things with AI that most nonprofits haven’t even imagined—and he’s ready to show you exactly how. From precision prompts that deliver results in seconds to productivity hacks that have transformed internal workflows, this session will give you a front-row seat to the practical, tangible ways AI is saving time, uncovering insights, and scaling impact at The Furniture Bank.
You’ll walk away with:
Get ready to rethink what’s possible. This one’s not theoretical—it’s transformational.
Does using ChatGPT for work tasks like writing weaken our ability to think critically? Several recent studies suggest that over-relying on AI tools could undermine our thinking abilities. Our rush to save time with AI might come at the cost of our core skills. Although nonprofit leaders are stretched thin, today’s shortcuts may undermine the strategic thinking their organizations need tomorrow. We risk becoming “AI passengers” in a driverless taxi rather than “AI drivers” who actively navigate working with AI tools.
This session will offer actionable strategies for you and your team to stay in the driver’s seat to work smarter with AI and augment your work.
Everyone’s talking about AI, but real change doesn’t start with tech—it starts with people.
In this candid conversation, you’ll hear from two nonprofit leaders and two AI coaches who have guided successful AI adoption journeys by focusing less on tools and more on transforming culture. They’ll share how leadership buy-in, curiosity, and intentional change management paved the way for meaningful, measurable wins.
You’ll learn:
Why 90% of successful AI adoption is leadership and culture—and only 10% is tech
What barriers they faced and how they overcame them
What drove them to act (and what held them back)
Specific wins they’ve seen from AI implementation at their organizations
If you’re overwhelmed by the noise and wondering how to actually start, this session will meet you where you are—with honest insights, grounded stories, and actionable next steps.
This isn’t about buzzwords. It’s about real leaders, real change, and real impact.
Many nonprofit practitioners are eager to explore the benefits of using AI to enhance productivity and program outcomes safely. However, AI requires investment, and grantmakers have a checkered history of funding technology, and are also just learning about AI themselves.
This session draws on research into the elements in a grant proposal that matter most to funders who are actively making AI investments in grantees, as well as case studies of AI-powered nonprofits on how to plan for technology investments. Combining research insights with candid reflection, this session is ideal for development directors who are actively raising funds to support ongoing technology investments.
Development directors will gain a clear understanding of how to shape technology grant proposals and will leave with applicable resources to support their future work.
We’ll be announcing the keynote speaker soon!
Artificial intelligence is reshaping our world, but at what cost? From energy consumption and mining to carbon emissions and e-waste, AI’s environmental footprint is real – and growing.
This dynamic panel brings together voices from environmental nonprofits, AI experts, and sustainability advocates to examine both the unintended consequences and the opportunities AI presents in the fight against climate change. Together, we’ll explore:
This conversation isn’t about hype or helplessness. It’s about clarity, courage, and collective action. As stewards of mission-driven work, we have a responsibility to adopt AI in ways that reflect not only our goals but our values. Join us as we explore how to use AI with care – both for our communities and for our planet.
Many nonprofit leaders are asking the same question: How do we harness AI’s potential, inspire and empower team members eager to start working in new ways, but also keep our clients, donors, people (and data!) safe from potential, and largely unknown, harm?
United Way of Central Indiana’s AI Task Force faced this exact challenge when our CEO and board charged us with charting a path to adopting AI, ethically and beneficially, into our work and lead in our region’s human services sector. After nine months of trial and error (and lots of deep discussion), we have a board approved AI Technology policy and are rolling out education and pilot programs, and a replicable process other organizations can use immediately.
In this session we will cover all the steps we took from putting together a diverse, cross-functional team of 14 (that intentionally included some cautious skeptics), the policy we developed (succesfully marrying our mission, vision, values and the fundraising.ai framework), the tools we put together (use case library, risk factor analysis, sample policies, self-service evaluation tool and rubric), and how we’re rolling it out to foster thoughtful, beneficial AI use across our organization.
We will then present a model that attendees can use start policy development and pilot programs at their own organizations. After the session we will provide copies of our resources so other organizations can adapt it for their purposes and situations.
As an added bonus: we will include stories about our early failures, false starts, rabbit holes, and missed opportunities, to save our colleagues from doing the same.
Retention is about relationships. But most donor communications either feel too rushed or too robotic. This session is about doing things differently with the power of AI, done responsibly.
We’re sitting down with three organizations that are using AI to help them show up better for their donors: writing magnetic messaging, personalizing with care + actually deepen connection. We’ll talk about how they’re saving time, scaling touchpoints, and staying true to their voice along the way.
You’ll hear the tools they’re using, the prompts that are working, and where they’ve drawn the line on what not to automate. It’s real talk on using AI to build trust… not just create more output.
If you’re trying to create donor journeys that feel more personal, this is for you.
As generative AI accelerates into the mainstream, it promises a seismic shift in how social impact organizations fundraise, engage supporters, and deliver services. But will it be a net positive—or will it widen gaps, reinforce bias, and create new ethical dilemmas?
Join us for a lively Oxford-style debate where two teams will go head-to-head on the motion:
“Generative AI, on the whole, will be a good thing for the social impact sector.”
Expect spirited arguments, bold claims, and unexpected insights as we weigh the promise and peril of this powerful technology. Audience members will vote before and after the debate—so come curious and ready to have your assumptions challenged.
Why attend?
This session isn’t about cheerleading or fearmongering. It’s about clarity. Whether you’re an AI optimist, skeptic, or somewhere in between, you’ll leave with a deeper understanding of what’s at stake—and what actions we must take to shape a future where AI truly serves the public good.
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AI can’t replace your people, but it can amplify their brilliance. Discover how nonprofits can use AI to build capacity during the busiest fundraising season of the year. Learn you can use AI to create a powerful “more leads to more” effect: more efficiency, more supporter connection, and more year-end revenue. The future of fundraising is abundant — and it starts with empowering your team.
You’ll walk away with practical ways you can use AI to:
Join us for a behind-the-scenes look at how GivingTuesday organized an AI Learning Circle to help staff explore the value of AI for their work. We’ll talk about why we did this & what we hoped to achieve; how we recruited participants; our participatory approach to teaching; the tools we did (and didn’t) use; and how successful we were at changing work habits.
We’ll explain what we think the current value and limitations of AI are for our staff, and where we hope to go in the future. We’ll also explain why we think the GivingTuesday handraiser model and a solid AI ethics guide are significant factors in our success.
AI isn’t coming for your job—it’s coming for your inefficiencies. In this bold and immersive workshop, Alonda gives today’s leaders the edge they didn’t know they needed. Learn how to lead smarter, faster, and more humanely by embracing artificial intelligence as a strategic partner, not a threat.
From unlocking time-saving workflows to amplifying your leadership voice and decision-making power, you’ll walk away with tangible tools, mind-blowing insights, and real-time demos that will change the way you work.
Whether you’re managing teams, fundraising, building strategy, or trying to keep up with change—this workshop gives you the mindset and skill set to lead in the AI era.
Get ready to level up. Your leadership is about to get supercharged.
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We often talk about AI as a tool. But the real opportunity—and the real risk—lies in what we build around it.
In this closing session for Day 1, Woodrow Rosenbaum, Chief Data Officer at GivingTuesday, challenges us to think beyond tools and tactics and focus on the infrastructure that shapes our sector’s future. From data equity to cross-sector collaboration, Woodrow explores how we can design for more than efficiency—we can design for belonging, participation, and trust.
Because AI won’t fix a broken system. But it can help us build a better one—if we choose to lead with values, curiosity, and a commitment to rebuilding together.
Key Takeaways:
Astro Teller, head of Google X, once said: “The pace of technological change is accelerating faster than humans can adapt.”
It’s a truth many nonprofit professionals are feeling deeply right now.
With AI tools emerging daily, platforms shifting overnight, and pressure mounting to “keep up,” it’s easy to feel like you’re drowning in decisions—and falling behind in the process. But what if the answer isn’t speeding up… but slowing down?
This session is a space to pause, breathe, and re-center.
We’ll explore how nonprofit professionals can navigate today’s fast-moving AI landscape without burning out—by staying rooted in mission, caring for the humans behind the work, and moving forward with values-aligned clarity. Join this grounded and supportive panel to learn:
You don’t need to master everything overnight. You just need to start with what matters—and take care of yourself along the way.
Discover how to leverage human-first AI to create inclusive, equitable, and impactful community support strategies. Featuring insights from the team behind EMPWRD.AI, this panel will provide practical guidance on building AI readiness within your organization.
Panelists will also discuss frameworks for governance, equity, and responsible AI use, addressing the human aspects of AI adoption, including building trust, overcoming fear, and driving meaningful transformation. Additionally, explore EMPWRD.AI’s commitment to data transparency through partnerships with nonprofits and social impact subject matter experts (SMEs), ensuring a genuinely human-led AI platform.
Walk away equipped with actionable insights to amplify your organization’s mission through responsible, inclusive AI.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the fundraising landscape. We’ll explore how AI and Agents can elevate your efforts, enabling more effective donor connections, personalized outreach, and maximized impact.
We’ll demo a live agent and talk through several use cases. Join us to discover AI’s powerful potential to unlock new levels of giving for your organization.
In today’s fundraising landscape, investing in AI isn’t just innovative—it’s increasingly essential. But getting buy-in from boards and executive leadership requires more than excitement. It requires a clear case for ROI (Return on Investment).
This session will equip you with data-driven insights and proven examples that demonstrate how AI adoption can lead to measurable outcomes—from increased fundraising revenue and improved donor retention rates to reduced staff burnout and turnover. You’ll walk away with the financial rationale and mission-aligned messaging you need to confidently present a business case for AI investment—whether you’re pitching to your board, CFO, or leadership team.
If you’re ready to move from interest to action, this session will give you the language, proof points, and strategic framing to make it happen.
As nonprofit teams face increasing pressure to do more with less, the ability to make smarter, faster decisions is mission-critical. This panel brings together leading voices from some of the sector’s most widely used platforms to explore how nonprofits can harness AI for data analytics, audience segmentation, and predictive modeling.
Moderated by GivingTuesday, this discussion will dive into how AI is transforming the way organizations analyze donor behavior, forecast outcomes, and drive more strategic fundraising decisions. Panelists will share real-world insights on improving data hygiene, unlocking trends in supporter data, and using AI tools to personalize outreach at scale—while keeping trust, transparency, and responsible use front and center.
Whether you’re just starting to explore AI or looking to take your data strategy further, this session will give you a practical look at how leading platforms are helping nonprofits turn raw data into real impact.
AI adoption in nonprofits is happening whether leadership knows it or not—staff are experimenting with tools in isolation, without policies, guardrails, or strategic alignment with organizational values and goals. This creates unnecessary risks while missing the transformational opportunities unlocked when AI is intentionally integrated into nonprofit strategy. Join this dynamic keynote as we demystify artificial intelligence and explore how it can serve as a powerful tool to unlock operational efficiencies, expand mission impact, and revolutionize fundraising approaches when implemented thoughtfully and strategically.
This session will address the biggest objections to AI adoption head-on, providing clear, practical solutions to mitigate legitimate concerns around data security, ethical use, and organizational alignment. You’ll discover actionable strategies for building organizational buy-in, whether you’re advocating upstream to skeptical boards and senior leadership or engaging hesitant staff. You’ll leave with concrete frameworks, policies, and implementation roadmaps that enable your organization to embrace AI responsibly at the institutional level—moving from secretive individual experimentation to strategic, values-aligned organizational adoption that amplifies your mission impact.
Learning Objectives:
1. Discover key AI use cases and learn how to leverage AI as a transformational tool to unlock operational efficiencies, expand fundraising capabilities, and amplify mission impact at the organizational level.)
2. Risk Mitigation: Address common AI implementation concerns with practical solutions.
3. Organizational Buy-in: Build support across all levels through effective advocacy.
Are you waiting for a grand AI strategy before taking action? Don’t! Discover how “Conscious Tinkering” can help your organization leap into AI — responsibly, creatively, and without big budgets or risks. Learn how Ashoka’s AI Lab built 25+ prototypes, saved staff weeks of work, and sparked a culture of innovation, before any formal strategy was in place.
Join us to explore practical steps for building AI Readiness, empowering intrapreneurs, and making innovation everyone’s job.
(This teaser was, of course, generated by AI.)
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Hands-on training in writing effective prompts to generate fundraising emails, campaign names, social posts, and grant templates—with built-in bias checks and brand alignment.
Why It’s Hot: Prompt engineering is a superpower. This gives attendees instantly usable skills and builds confidence.
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AI is changing fundraising — but who is being left out of the conversation? This 25-minute session will highlight fresh insights from the AI Equity Project, a cross-sector study exploring how nonprofits and fundraisers are experiencing AI adoption, equity concerns, and opportunities today.
Attendees will learn what the data reveals about readiness, barriers, and inequities in AI use across the nonprofit sector, with a particular focus on fundraising teams. The session will offer fundraisers practical ways to critically challenge emerging harms, and center community and inclusion in their adoption strategies.
This conversation will provide both a snapshot of sector-wide trends and guidance on how to ensure AI tools serve all donors and communities equitably.
Consider this the first place where you will get the full report to the AI Equity Project 2025!
As nonprofits increasingly adopt AI, a critical question emerges: how do we uphold trust in an era of deepfakes, hallucinations, and misinformation?
In this timely session, TechSoup’s Susan Tenby offers a grounded look at how nonprofits can responsibly implement AI while safeguarding credibility and reinforcing community trust. Through real-world examples and lessons from TechSoup’s own work on AI policy, data privacy, and ethical governance, you’ll gain practical strategies to navigate the risks—and build a future where AI strengthens, not undermines, your mission.
You’ll walk away with:
Real-world examples of how nonprofits are mitigating AI-driven misinformation risks
Strategies for maintaining donor, staff, and community confidence in your use of AI
A framework for developing AI policies rooted in transparency, ethics, and impact
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The motivation for donors to make their gift to a specific nonprofit has been a discussion for decades with answers ranging from altruism, to affiliation, to a great swag item, to the timing of the ask. For annual giving teams, the answer can be all four points, and more. One specific area to explore is how to learn from the donors that make their gifts to specific campaigns and, through using AI, motivate new donors to give to similar content.
There are many types of AI to choose from, including predictive, generative, descriptive, and prescriptive. In this session, we will discuss generative and descriptive AI, focusing on a practical use case that applies AI to both segmentation and content creation to drive future giving from an expanded audience. Taking a successful direct marketing campaign, the Shaff Fundraising Group team will highlight how AI can be used to create donor personas that can be applied to non-donors for the next campaign. Similarly, the content from the successful campaign can be edited to create new content to serve up to the non-donor audience for acquisition.
The SFG team takes a human-first approach to using AI, focusing on creating efficiencies instead of replacing humans. This session will be useful for individuals who are starting to use AI and are building their confidence, as well as those who are interested in practical tips in the annual giving space and the wider field.
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The AymurAI project is a pioneering initiative that applies feminist methodologies to artificial intelligence (AI) in Latin America. This project is being implemented in Argentina and Costa Rica. Developed by DataGénero, AymurAI uses AI to make gender-based violence visible by collecting, processing, and using data through an intersectional and decolonial lens.
This talk will explore how AymurAI challenges dominant AI paradigms by centering open software, transparency, community participation, and ethical data practices. We will discuss its role in fostering open justice, supporting evidence-based policymaking, and ensuring AI tools are designed with and for the communities they impact. By highlighting key findings, challenges, and future directions, this session invites participants to rethink AI development from a feminist, Latin American perspective.
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As we close out two days of exploration, one truth stands out: AI isn’t just about data and tools—it’s about how we choose to think, lead, and connect. In this energizing closing session, Nathan Chappell returns to help us reimagine what’s possible when we lead with curiosity, not certainty.
Drawing from over two decades in the nonprofit sector and his work at the forefront of AI and philanthropy, Nathan invites us to challenge what we think we know, embrace the discomfort of innovation, and ask better questions—not just about AI, but about the future of generosity itself. Because the question isn’t whether AI will change the world—it’s how we’ll guide it, together.
Key Takeaways:
Curiosity is a leadership skill—not a personality trait—and it must be protected, practiced, and rewarded.
Successful AI adoption starts with changing how we think, not what we buy.
In a world reshaped by technology, our human capacity for wonder, connection, and values-driven action will define what comes next.
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Join 12,000+ nonprofit professionals at the Fundraising.AI Global Summit: Amplify Impact – a free virtual event on September 15–16.
Learn how to use AI to save time, unlock insights, and amplify your mission—responsibly and beneficially.
Register now for the free Fundraising.AI Summit on 9/15-16 and learn how to use AI to amplify your nonprofit’s impact.