How can we deploy AI as a tool for fundraising?
Question submitted by: Angonimi David-Imeh, Hope Raisers Global Foundation, Nigeria
AI has become an important tool in the 21st-century working environment. One can equally use AI in the fundraising process by deploying the tool ethically and pragmatically.
AI can be utilised in several ways.
Analyse Calls for Proposals
One can use AI to interpret complex calls for proposals and identify eligibility criteria and donor thinking processes. It helps design an appropriate plan and deliver a relevant, fundable proposal. This remains an intrinsic and primary tool for AI.
Review Proposals
You can upload your complete grant document to the AI platform and ask it to assess whether it meets the donor’s requirements. This can help you adjust your documentation in line with the proposal instructions.
Generate Project Ideas
It is important to teach AI your programmatic pillars, mission, vision and aims. Once the necessary documents are fed into the AI system, you can ask the platform to generate draft ideas in response to calls for proposals based on your baselines, past experience, and founding objectives.
Draft a Theory of Change and Result Pathways
Once an NGO has chosen a project and identified the societal gaps and their root causes, you can ask AI to combine this into a critical platform.
It is important to note that many organisations have been tempted to use AI to create grant proposals, but this often results in unsuccessful submissions. Donors can easily distinguish between a genuine grant application and one generated by AI, particularly due to the level of contextual analysis of local issues and the clarity of the problem statement, among other factors.
You should use ideas generated with AI to develop your own proposals.
(This answer was provided by Wycliffe Nyafuanga, a Kenyan resource mobilisation expert and grant funding strategist)
