Microsoft bringing new AI solutions for Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit

Last Monday, Microsoft Corporation is unveiling a collection of fresh artificial intelligence initiatives and enhancements for the Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit, aimed at revolutionizing the charitable sector and the way development professionals interact with supporters, orchestrate campaigns, and streamline their tasks. Furthermore, the tech giant is rolling out a selective early preview for charitable organizations, introducing them to a novel AI-driven model to refine fundraising strategies. The preview enables these groups to evaluate groundbreaking AI resources that guide fundraisers in predictive analytics for finance targets and pinpoint contributors who are more inclined to financially back a campaign, cause, or significant donation.

“To put it simply, AI holds the potential to be transformative for charitable groups and development professionals,” proclaimed Justin Spelhaug, Vice President and Head of Tech for Social Impact at Microsoft. “Our latest AI innovations are intended to bolster charitable organizations and development officers in reaching greater heights and foster a more impactful and satisfying donor experience.”

In the present fiscal climate, charitable organizations are under persistent pressure to extend their limited budgets further and amplify their impact with dwindling assets. Since the onset of 2020, numerous development officers have witnessed a continual dip in donor numbers. While data supports charitable groups in detecting and prioritizing promising supporter prospects, forecasting donor tendencies, and gauging fundraising results, the availability of such data and the competency to draw actionable intelligence from donor analytics present a significant impediment for many establishments. A report by the National Council of Nonprofits suggests a scant 18% of nonprofits claim to possess and leverage all necessary data in virtually every decision they undertake.

The Microsoft Cloud for industries delivers potent, cohesive and custom-tailored sector solutions and processes, empowering organizations to unlock noteworthy value while striving to surpass expectations and lay foundations for future prosperity. Moreover, with AI now taking on a supportive role, the Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit is launching newfound capabilities, enabling development officers to utilize data dynamically to augment, secure and expand their supporter networks.

Recent introductions encompass:

• New Fundraising Insight panel. Microsoft unveils a pioneering Fundraising Insight panel aimed at refining fundraising initiatives, thereby enabling nonprofit heads to dissect performance and swiftly react to the fluctuating landscape of philanthropic contributions. This panel harnesses real-time information to present interactive depictions of campaign efficiency, donor conversion, and additional fundraising metrics, all resting upon Power BI’s superior platform for data visualization.
• Incorporating Dynamics 365 Marketing with Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit. Dynamics 365 Marketing simplifies the assembly of communications for benefactors and volunteers, spanning bulletins, program details, and further correspondences. By harnessing the Nonprofit Common Data Model, seamless and effortless integration is assured, significantly enhancing personalized engagement through data incorporation.
• Including AI Copilot in Microsoft Viva Sales and enhanced features in Microsoft Teams Premium. AI enhancements have now been weaved into the Fundraising and Engagement apparatus of Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit.
  • Viva Sales aims to aid nonprofit entities in customizing, managing, and deepening relationships with donors by introducing AI-assisted functionalities that generate email replies using CRM data, refresh CRM records, encapsulate Teams discussions, and more.
  • Furthermore, the Fundraising and Engagement suite benefits from the integration of AI-enhanced features from Teams Premium, which are meticulously designed to elevate productivity and assure that supporters, constituents, and staff reap maximum advantages from meetings.

Through these newly introduced resources, Microsoft aims to furnish a comprehensive suite of tools for thoroughgoing fundraising management — charting strategies for fundraising and execution, stewarding campaigns and assessing impact, managing gift processing and reconciliation, to ultimately culminating in the acknowledgment of donations.

Innovative fundraising models

Supplementing the novel AI offerings in Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit, Microsoft is forging an AI-driven propensity model focused on donors, conceived to assist organizations in identifying individuals with a higher likelihood to support specific campaigns or causes, as guided by forecasts of donor actions. Charitable entities intrigued by this prospect are invited to enroll in this confidential preview, where contributory nonprofits will partake in honing the model via anonymized data sharing and assessment trials. This solution is predicted to be broadly accessible later in the year.

Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit is specifically engineered to cater to the needs of the nonprofit arena, slashing the hours these organizations spend administering overhead, thereby delivering mechanization and productivity on frequently encountered and essential operations. These nascent AI initiatives are swathed in the reliability, security, and scalability of the trusted Azure cloud platform by Microsoft. Furthermore, they are cohesively integrated with Microsoft’s suite of solutions already serving nonprofits, ranging from Microsoft 365 — inclusive of Outlook, SharePoint, and Teams — to Power Platform, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and LinkedIn.