Democratising fundraising growth with AI

Because our traditional fundraising model is stalling; with donor participation plummeting, especially among younger audiences, the sector is facing a 'product issue' not a trust issue. 

We cannot drive growth by endlessly reworking the same old asks.

Real growth requires a radical shift: moving from what charities want to what audiences need. And for the first time, we have a way to make that possible at a speed and cost that were previously out of reach - AI can empower charities to rapidly invent and test these new, relevant ways to engage new audiences.

Much of public fundraising has been built around a simple commercial model: find a donor, convert them into a regular giver, keep them engaged for as long as possible, and hope they leave a gift in their will. There is nothing wrong with that and it's served the sector well; regular unrestricted income is the bedrock of charity finances. It provides confidence, stability and the ability to plan. Legacy income is transformational. But something is not quite right.

The model we have relied on for growth is under pressure. Not because the need has gone away, and not because charities have stopped mattering, but because fewer people are signing up in the first place. The data is hard to ignore. CAF’s UK Giving Report 2026 found that the British public donated an estimated £14 billion in 2025, down from £15.4 billion in 2024, with around six million fewer people giving than in 2016. And while we've seen a decline in the volume of donations over recent years, this is the first time we have seen the value collapse as well. 

Among younger audiences, the picture is even more worrying: CAF’s UK Giving Report 2025 found that just 36% of 16 to 24-year-olds had donated or sponsored in the previous 12 months, down from 52% in 2019. 

We have to face the fact that something is going badly wrong and the market is shrinking.

Acquisition is harder. Costs are up. Response rates are under pressure. But despite this, the pressure to grow revenue is relentless. And so, understandably, many organisations are working harder and harder to drive more value from the supporters they already have. Some of this is working: better integration, stronger stewardship, smarter segmentation, more compelling creative, more relevant content and more refined asks all make a difference.

But none of it is enough to deliver the scale of growth many organisations now need.

Real growth will not come from asking the same people to do more of the same thing. It will come from engaging new audiences and welcoming them in. And that will not happen by selling the same fundraising model in slightly better ways. And this is where I think the sector needs to be more honest with itself.

If our preferred model is still regular, unrestricted income acquired efficiently at scale - and the market is showing us falling participation, rising acquisition costs and growing disengagement among younger audiences - then we cannot explain all of that away as a cost of living issue, a channel issue, a creative issue, or even a trust issue.

People have not stopped believing in charities. The Charity Commission’s 2025 research found that 57% of people have high trust in charities, with only doctors ranking higher in its trust benchmark. What we are seeing is the disjoint between what many organisations most want to sell and the ways new audiences want to engage.

The problem is that we are trying to grow by asking audiences to buy into a model of support that does not feel relevant, motivating or rewarding enough.

In other words, this is, at root, a product issue.

That is an uncomfortable thing to say in a sector that has spent years getting better at regular giving propositions, journeys, optimisation and channel activation. But it is where the argument leads.

Too often, when we talk about innovation in fundraising, we begin with the financial preferences of the charity and work backwards. We begin with the thing we most want, usually long-term, predictable, unrestricted income, and then ask how we can make that more appealing.

That is why so much fundraising innovation has historically ended up being innovation around regular giving propositions, journeys and presentation (what we name it), rather than around what audiences actually want and how best to serve them. We focus on the icing, not the cake. We end up with subscriptions, lotteries and new membership models; new ways of packaging regular giving. Some have shifted the numbers at the margins, but they still sit on the same core ask.

That is not a criticism. It is a reflection of how hard genuine product innovation has been. 

We need to look at new ways to engage and bring people into our organisations.

But real audience-led product development is expensive. 

It requires strategy, creativity, technology, testing and iteration, with time, money and in-house capability many charities simply do not have. We can’t build apps, spin up websites, or customise multiple landing pages without significant time and investment. So it is no surprise that most organisations have focused on improving what already exists rather than inventing what comes next. Meanwhile, some of the most successful growth models around giving and participation have started somewhere else entirely: not with what the charity most wants, but with what the audience finds motivating.

Think about mass participation. Think about the wider peer-to-peer and crowdfunding world. Think about platforms such as JustGiving - they are not built around the proposition, “Please give us a monthly donation forever.” They are built around challenge, identity, community, visibility, team participation and shared experience. The cause matters, but so does the act of taking part. People are not just donating. 

They are joining, doing, sharing and belonging.

Even examples like Omaze point to the same underlying truth, whether or not you like every feature of the model. The motivational starting point is different. It begins with aspiration, excitement, public participation and the feeling that support can be enjoyable and personally rewarding, not just the right thing to do.

These models are very different from one another. But they begin in the same place: with the lived motivations of the audience. 

Challenge. Identity. Community. Visibility. Fun. Aspiration. Belonging. Hope. Urgency. Personal connection. A reason to share. A story worth joining.

That is where more growth is likely to come from.

The problem is that, until now, building products around those motivations has often been too slow, too expensive and too risky for most charities to do at any real pace. It has usually required deep pockets, technical infrastructure and long-term investment. The businesses that have built these models have been profitable commercial organisations, growing their own databases, rather than charities growing theirs.

This is where AI can change the equation.

Not because AI will magically solve fundraising - it will not. And not because human judgment, creativity and ethics suddenly matter less - they matter more. But AI radically changes the economics of innovation, prototyping and product development. For the first time, strategy, creativity and technology can move together at a speed that would previously have been out of reach for many organisations. 

Audience insight can be explored faster. Ideas can be generated and stress-tested earlier. Concepts can be prototyped with digital experiences, websites, apps and journeys being built, tested and improved within days, not months. The distance between thinking and making is collapsing.

That matters because AI gives the sector something it has not had enough of: the ability to test multiple ideas that are truly audience-led, with more discipline and at lower cost.

Of course, it is not that simple.

Charities’ understanding and adoption of AI is variable. The 2025 Charity Digital Skills Report found that 76% of charities are now using AI tools in some form, up from 61% the previous year. The number developing a formal AI policy has tripled, from 16% to 48%, rising to 66% among large charities. 

But at senior and board level, the report found that 44% of charity boards have low AI skills, and 36% of chief executives are in a similar position. Enthuse’s 2026 Charity Pulse found that only 7% of charities are using AI to personalise donor journeys, and only 36% are actively trialling or researching its use.

So while a large majority of charities are already using AI in some form, only a small minority are applying it to deeper fundraising applications such as personalisation, structured testing or product innovation. 

Very few charities have translated early AI use into a strategic growth model.

That gap is important…

Because the real opportunity is not simply using AI to write faster emails, summarise meetings or reduce admin, useful though those things are. The bigger opportunity is using AI, with proper human oversight, to help invent and test new ways for new people to support causes in ways that feel natural to them.

That is a very different ambition. It means moving from a world where innovation is mostly about optimising existing fundraising models to one where charities can start asking bigger questions. How might support feel more participatory? More visible? More social? More flexible? More culturally relevant? More aligned with the way different audiences actually live and connect?

It also means being realistic. Not every idea will be good. Not every prototype should go live. Risk will not disappear. Governance will still matter. Boards and leadership teams will need more confidence. Data, privacy and ethics will remain central.

But if the costs and complexity of experimentation come down, then we have a far better chance of discovering and testing multiple ideas at once: ideas that genuinely expand participation rather than simply redistribute value within a shrinking base. 

We can create products for micro-audiences that genuinely speak to them, meet their needs and drive engagement.

And that, to me, is the real prize.

The future of fundraising growth will not be secured simply by getting better at asking the same people for more money. It will be secured by creating more relevant, motivating and participatory ways for new audiences to engage, give and give again.

And for the first time in a long time, AI gives the sector a real chance to approach that differently. Not by replacing the fundamentals of fundraising, but by making it possible to imagine, build and test what comes next faster and more cost-effectively.

And it will not be one thing. It will be many.

At Open, we’re continuously working on ways to connect with new audiences and help you keep the ones you have; we do this through benchmarking, innovation, and utilising the skills we have across our creative, strategy, and tech teams.

If you’d like to hear more about what we’re trialling with AI, our AI 12-month staff training programme and building new models and prototypes, or about what to expect in 2026 - get in touch.