If you've followed Funraise through the years (thank you; it's mutual), you know that we constantly deliver innovative foundational fundraising tools that boost nonprofit revenue—because we're on a mission to see your mission funded.

Today, we're proud to announce our next area of focus: Fundraising Intelligence!

Funraise already offers industry-leading reporting tools, but the next phase in nonprofit growth will be fueled by brilliant dashboards, reports, and artificial intelligence, aka Fundraising Intelligence. Don't worry; we'll continue to take our leading fundraising and donor management features to ever-higher heights—and now, Fundraising Intelligence will join those core features, strengthening your ability to grow and make impact.

So, why is Funraise prioritizing enhanced technology now?

Three important reasons:

First, it's SO COOL.

We could talk about Fundraising Intelligence for daaaaays. Yes, we're nerds who would love to geek out with you about all the cool insights that data has in store for your nonprofit. We're also serious about making advanced tools accessible to nonprofits everywhere.

And second, AI's coming, y'all. In fact, it's here. And this futuristic (actually-not-futuristic-because-it's-here-now) technology will allow nonprofits to compete for the same dollars that for-profit companies with massive AI and data intelligence tools have been getting for years.

Funraise CTO and Co-founder Jason Swenski notes, "Nonprofits play a critical role in society, so it's essential that they have access to technology that maximizes their impact. By leading the way to a future of AI-backed data intelligence, Funraise empowers organizations to make world-changing difference."

Working with nonprofits all these years, we've seen firsthand how the power of data intelligence can sustain and accelerate life-changing impact. Funraise's core mission has always been to provide nonprofits with access to the same (or better!) technology that their for-profit counterparts have been leaning on, launching our world into a future where actionable insights increase impact in a big way.

Finally, donor retention needs to be solved. Most nonprofits lose up to 50% of their donors each year. 

The ability to sustain and increase revenue is currently a critical concern for nonprofits, with donor retention rates falling below 50% in 2022 (AFP). While new AI and data intelligence solutions alone won't fix this problem, they can play a critical role in decreasing donor churn.

Justin Wheeler, Funraise CEO and Co-founder, says, “Funraise has seen firsthand how the power of data intelligence can sustain and accelerate life-changing impact. We’re excited to increase the accessibility of this technology because we know nonprofits are poised to launch into a future where actionable insights will increase impact in a big way.”

When you're growing revenue, it can be easy to overlook the revenue you're losing. With faster insights and more actionable data, we have a real chance of putting the donor retention challenge behind us.

So, what can Fundraising Intelligence do for your nonprofit?

We thought you'd never ask! Here’s a quick preview:

Campaign-specific dashboards

Visualize donor and donation trends at a glance to identify success stories and pain points with configurable charts, graphs, and diagrams. Discover how to maximize what's working and minimize fundraising flops in realtime.

AI trend forecasting

Not all revenue is easy to forecast, especially when your business model is dependent on generosity. With AI Revenue Forecasting by Funraise, you'll get a better handle on future revenue and future donor activity using AI models powered by your past performance.

AI explanations

What's the Why underneath your data? Data Explanations are like the Sherlock Holmes of reporting—they help you uncover unexpected patterns contributing to growth or decline in your fundraising performance and finally understand the logic supporting your data!

Prebuilt template library

Stop building and re-building the same reports! For some of you, it probably feels like your entire job is building reports, and as lovers of reporting, we feel your pain. Fundraising Intelligence (and Funraise, by extension) has your back, with time-saving report templates built by fundraising experts.

Completely configurable nonprofit reporting

This is what we call "reporting without limits." Build completely custom fundraising reports and dashboards with cross-object reporting, formula libraries, and conditional formatting. And feel free to do a happy dance while you're at it.

But here's the #1 thing Fundraising Intelligence allows you to do:

Do more than just report on fundraising performance; visualize performance.

Fundraising Intelligence makes it possible for your organization to visualize your data, to see patterns before they become problems or opportunities before they pass. You don’t need to be a data analyst to be the smartest and most insightful fundraising strategist on the team—you just need Funraise’s Fundraising Intelligence.

Create custom campaign Command Centrals

One of the most powerful aspects of Fundraising Intelligence is the ability to set up custom dashboards with charts and graphs to actively monitor each campaign. The ability to configure your own dashboards enables you to build highly specific (and awesome!) reports.

Types of campaigns you should absolutely be monitoring:

• Peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns
• Monthly donor campaigns
• Lapsed donor reactivation campaigns
• New website launches
• Donation page A/B campaigns
• Annual capital campagins

Isn't that, like, a lot of work?

Running nonprofit fundraising campaigns is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do—that’s true. But that doesn't mean you should spend your time spinning your wheels endlessly. Fundraising Intelligence makes the hard parts of data analysis accessible in a way they never have been.

Here’s some features of Fundraising Intelligence that'll have you delivering insights to your team lickety-split:

Prebuilt dashboards

Access a library of prebuilt dashboards that our nerdy nonprofit data chums put together. Customize existing dashboards to meet your campaign’s strategies. And tell us how much you love them. 

Intuitive data visualizations


From bar charts and pie charts to maps and goal progress meters. Just start adding data and let Fundraising Intelligence suggest widget types. Yes, that table makes your revenue look big. 

Scheduled reports


Send pre-scheduled (daily or weekly) PDF reports of your dashboard to yourself and your team members via email. It's like getting presents in your inbox!

Slack notifications


Get notified when you reach specific goals or an anomaly is detected in your data. No one has the time to stare at a dashboard to watch it update. With Data Alerts, you'll receive automatic email or Slack messages for revenue thresholds and performance anomaly detections.

See the future with AI-backed revenue forecasts

Nonprofiteers are a funny group. We're forever looking into the future to try and make the world a better place, but when it comes to reporting and data, we're perpetually looking into the past.

Funraise’s AI-backed Fundraising Intelligence is your tool to stay focused on the future, both on future impact and on future revenue. Your past data will light the way (if you have Funraise, anyway), but what you expect to raise next month is always going to be a greater motivator than what you raised last month.

Understand your data with AI explanations

The ability to see your fundraising over time is the first step to data awareness. For example, you probably (repeatedly) make a line chart that goes up or down. That's the easy part. (If you’re saying to yourself, "No, it’s not", Fundraising Intelligence is definitely for you).

The hard part, and the whole point of data analysis, is to understand why. The why behind your data is where the insights and lightbulb flashes of genius are living.

If donations spiked unexpectedly last week (congratulations, btw), you could sift through hundreds of donations to try to find a pattern. ...or you could use Funraise’s AI to explain the anomaly to you in seconds.

Maybe a team member launched a new donation form that's converting like gangbusters, or donors pounced on a campaign because a local celeb promoted it. Either way, half of knowledge is knowing where to find knowledge. Taking action on that knowledge is the other half—and the whole reason that fundraising intelligence exists.

The ability to organize your data to gain insights is the foundation of Fundraising Intelligence

For a moment, let's imagine you're unswayed by Fundraising Intelligence's bells and whistles. You're cool as a cucumber, unflappable, unruffled, unimpressed.

We've still got stuff for you. 

Fundraising Intelligence is a core feature of fundraising science. Even if you take out all the AI, Funraise's advanced tools are the best reporting tools out there. Natural Language Queries (Coming soon!) make it easy to get what you need, security through permissions keeps your data tight, and anomaly alerts monitor your fundraising campaigns when you're in line at Disneyland.

It's nerdy, but you'll thank us when you try building a complex report and you don't need any special syntax or fancy formatting to get the data insights that you need fast.

Why Fundraising Intelligence matters to your nonprofit

If our earlier deliberation didn't sway you, give us another chance to make our case because Fundraising Intelligence is truly amazing. When it comes to Fundraising Intelligence, here's what's in it for you.  

But... we already have reports.

We hate to break it to you; your existing reporting is the problem. LYBUNTs are essential, no doubt, but traditional reports that tell us what happened in the past are rarely actionable (other than appeasing a board member’s request).

Fundraising Intelligence is a new way of understanding data. Imagine having it all laid out for you: the right steps today for efficient growth into the future.

It's time to move beyond endlessly building the same report over and over. Start monitoring performance with Fundraising Intelligence and catch opportunities before they pass and problems before they occur.

Successful donation campaigns require more than a launch

Launching a fundraising campaign is one of the most exciting parts of a nonprofiteer's job. But launching a campaign is just the first step of running a successful campaign; every campaign requires constant monitoring, tweaks, or new initiatives to keep the campaign on track to reach goals.

Think about other industries: One of the most critical aspects of a space shuttle launch is Mission Control, where hundreds of engineers watch screens with live feeds of thousands of different metrics that ensure every aspect of a launch is on track. Fundraising campaigns may not be rocket science, but nonprofits are too often launching a spaceship into the dark without the support of Mission Control.

It’s not about raising the most money, it’s about making the most impact

Nonprofits constantly need to plan ahead. With programs and people and communities requiring support before funding has arrived, the more efficiently your organization can predict and grow revenue, the more impact you can have in your community.

When it comes to practicing predicting, Fundraising Intelligence isn't exactly a crystal ball—it's far more precise in its predictions! (Which begs the question: Why aren't crystal balls clearer?) Running the most successful nonprofit isn't a competition to raise the most money, it’s a team effort to make impact together. You may rely on it!

AI is good at searching massive amounts of data, fast. Humans, not so much.

There’s a lot of chatter about AI. About how it will create new jobs or replace jobs; change our world for better or worse. Pick a side, and you’ll find an article to support your case.

While this conversation is incredibly important, it sometimes misses the point: AI is a tool. Funraise is on the side of nonprofits, which means that we use AI to boost your human-powered creativity and progress—including writing this article!

No, AI is not a better writer than a human writer (Hi, 👋, I'm Erin!)—but it’s a great partner! And it has its superpowers; for example, when it comes to data, AI is absolutely better (and faster) than humans at quickly recognizing patterns in large amounts of data. Fundraising Intelligence will never do your job for you, but it’s brilliant at helping you uncover your next great fundraising insight.

Donor retention is a BIG problem.

In fact, we would call it an emergency.

With Fundraising Intelligence, Funraise customers enjoy powerful data visualizations highlighting their most significant challenges and opportunities as well as a ton of AI applications that make data analysis, report building, and forecasting accurate and efficient.

Fundraising Intelligence gives nonprofits a path toward eliminating donor churn, retaining revenue, and accelerating impact—and is a huge step toward a solution to the donor retention crisis our sector is facing. 

Fundraising Intelligence puts control back into your hands and makes hard fundraising decisions easy simply by presenting existing information in a way that is digestible, friendly, and enlightening.