How America’s Favorite Charities Are Figuring Out Tech

When donors participate in a fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (No. 2), such as a walk or a gala, they register once, and then all their information carries across whatever they do at the organization.

T-shirt size for an event. St. Jude remembers. Name and address. St. Jude remembers. You always want the vegetarian meal at events. No need to fill that out again.

St. Jude, which is run by the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities, uses technology to help make donors’ lives easy.

“Not every donor can receive a phone call and have that one-on-one personal relationship,” says Ike Anand, CEO of ALSAC. “How do you personalize relationships at scale? The way to do that is using technology.”

The focus on using technology to make the donor experience easy, so supporters feel like they’re interacting with a friend who knows their needs, has paid off.

“Our digital revenue through our own channel is north of half a billion dollars,” Anand says. He notes that the organization uses both its website and apps to connect to donors; he believes organizations get the biggest bang from channels they control.

Many nonprofits on the America’s Favorite Charities list are using technology both to move their missions forward and better connect with their donors. Technology is something that all groups who want successful fundraising should be leveraging, says Wendy McGrady, president of the Curtis Group, a fundraising consultancy.

“The effective ones have had a proactive adoption of technology,” she says. “Whether that be effective use of your database — which can do a lot of things for you in communications — to AI.”

Tailored Recommendations

Feeding America (No. 24), a charity that battles food insecurity, has been using data analytics both for mission and to connect with donors, says Casey Marsh, chief development officer. Feeding America is a national network of food banks. Sometimes there are regions that have surplus food donations while other areas have deficits. Technology helps the organization get food to where it’s needed most.

The group also analyzes data to look for donor trends to better understand what matters most to them, Marsh says. “We’re customizing the message to ensure that we’re responding to what our donors are finding meaningful.”

Organizations like St. Jude also use the data they collect to make tailored recommendations for supporters based on what the organization knows about them.

“You’re able to see events in your neighborhood based on where you live,” Anand says. “You can see opportunities for you to volunteer with us and any special stories that we think that you would be most interested in based on your past interests.”

Technology should make giving as easy as possible for donors, says Byron Garrett, chief revenue officer at the United Way Worldwide (No. 1). Because the United Way operates as a federated model with local chapters in each state, the national organization has worked hard to make online donations uncomplicated.

“In disaster season, we may have multiple United Ways that are in a service area — like this past fall with hurricanes Helene and Milton,” Garrett says. “A donor is saying, ‘I want to support disaster relief,’ but they’re not trying to figure out how do I go through 20 or 30 different options. We want it to be as easy as possible.”

Some groups, like Teach for America, are incorporating tech into their signature events to make them more interactive. Text messaging at the group’s signature gala helps donors give in a communal way.
“It’s an integrated technology that syncs up with our CRM, so that folks live in the room can text message a number with their pledge amount,” says Amy Blais Malloy, senior vice president for development. “They have the option to make that visible or not. We sync it up and are able to process all the donations as we normally would, but it actually creates some fun, interesting community dynamic in the room. You can put a note on the screen, you can broadcast it.”

Teach for America also uses technology to advance its mission, says Joy Okoro, vice president for field impact and integration. For example, the group organizes “hackathons,” where teachers collaborate to solve classroom problems using technology. One issue tackled at a recent hackathon: caseload management overload in a resource-stretched classroom with a large number of special-education students. Events like this are inspiring some of their tech-savvy donors to give.

“They want to fund that because they also want to be on the cutting edge,” Okoro says.

Make Sure Tech Stays True to Mission

Whether new tech tools are behind the scenes or something that donors see, it’s important to use technology in a way that stays true to mission and brand, even as technology shifts, says Anand.

To that end, the hospital uses AI and other advanced technology for research and treatment. For fundraising, however, the organization generally uses machine learning and predictive modeling forms of AI. It doesn’t use generative AI to create text or images, Anand says. That’s to protect the brand’s high trust among donors.

“We use absolutely genuine patient images and patient stories,” Anand says. “We do not use AI for creative purposes. We have to always remember that technology is a double-edged sword, where you want to reach out and meet the donor where they are, using scale and technology, but you also don’t want to annoy them and feel creepy. We are very careful about it.”

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Image at top: St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (No. 2) uses technology to make donors’ lives easier by remembering their preferences across different events.