全球视野 | 并不是在偷懒：人工智能如何帮助筹款人提高工作效率？

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文章《Fundraisers Reach for A.I. to Boost Productivity/筹款人借助人工智能提高工作效率》文章发布在《慈善纪事报》上。作者是Rasheeda Childress，她是慈善纪事报负责筹款相关的高级编辑。这篇文章探讨了在筹款领域广泛使用人工智能工具的趋势，以及可以如何利用人工智能来提高生产力。在近一年多以来，ChatGPT和其他A.I.工具已经被广泛应用，而且使用率仍在不断增加。《慈善纪事报》与一些非营利组织进行了交流，了解它们如何在筹款中使用人工智能。

Fundraiser Ali Colbran had heard the buzz about development professionals using A.I. tools in their work, but she was reluctant. Colbran worried that “donors will feel like this is being lazy as opposed to being connected and engaging.” 

筹款人阿里·科尔布兰听说了开发专业人士在工作中使用人工智能工具的风声，但她并不是很愿意使用人工智能。科尔布兰担心：“捐赠人会觉得这是在偷懒，而不是与他们建立联系和互动。” 

But what Colbran learned is that A.I. has given her more time to connect with donors, not less, she told participants at a recent Chronicle event. Colbran is not the only fundraiser to test out A.I. and like what she finds, says CJ Orr, president of the Orr Group, a fundraising consultancy. 

但科尔布兰在最近一次的《慈善纪事报》活动中告诉与会者，她了解到人工智能反而让她有更多时间和捐赠人联系。筹款咨询公司奥尔集团总裁CJ·奥尔说，科尔布兰并不是唯一一个尝试使用人工智能，并对其印象深刻的筹款人。 

“You’re able to save time,” he says. “You’re able to put out more letters, send more emails, do more proposals, more solicitations, more meetings and raise more money. At the end of the day, it is really just making fundraising more productive.” 

CJ·奥尔说：“你可以节省时间。你可以发出更多的信函，发送更多的电子邮件，做更多的提案，寻求更多的支持，召开更多的会议，筹集更多的资金。归根结底，它实际上是提高了筹款的效率。” 

It’s been a little more than a year since ChatGPT and other A.I. tools began being used widely, and the adoption of artificial intelligence continues to increase. The Chronicle spoke with several organizations to find out how they’re using A.I. in fundraising. The applications run the gamut, from simple tasks like helping fundraisers generate appeals or thank-you letters to sophisticated ones like identifying which donors to target. 

距离ChatGPT和其他人工智能工具的广泛使用，已经过去了一年多的时间。人工智能的应用仍在不断增加。《慈善纪事报》与一些组织进行了交流，了解它们是如何在筹款中使用人工智能。这些应用程序涵盖各种各样的任务，从帮助筹款人生成倡议书或感谢信件等简单任务，到确定目标捐赠人等复杂任务。

Many fundraisers in small shops are using free and low-cost tools like ChatGPT or Google’s Bard, to tackle the many writing duties inherent in development. 

许多小型组织的筹款人正在使用免费和低成本的工具，如ChatGPT或谷歌的Bard，来应对开发过程中许多固有的写作任务。 

“For organizations with less resources, these tools are a game changer,” Orr says. “A one-person shop could only reach out to 100 people over the course of a year. Now that one-person shop can ramp that up and do a lot more. So these are going to be so helpful for smaller shops without a doubt.” 

CJ·奥尔说：“对于资源较少的组织来说，这些工具改变了游戏规则。”一个单人组织在一年内只能联系100人。而现在这个单人组织可以扩大规模，做更多的事情。毫无疑问，这些工具将对小型组织大有帮助。 

More advanced, paid tools help fundraisers figure out which donors to contact. These tools offer analysis of a nonprofit’s donor database and suggest which donors, based on their previous gift patterns and interactions — such as events attended, emails opened, etc. — might be likely to give, might need outreach from the nonprofit, or might have the deepest connections with the organization. Barbara Coury, vice chancellor for development at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, uses the A.I. tool Levitate to figure out which alumni to target for communications and solicitations. 

更先进的付费工具，可以帮助筹款人找出需要联系的捐赠人。这些工具对非营利组织的捐赠人数据库进行分析，并根据捐赠人以往的捐赠模式和互动情况（如参加的活动、打开的电子邮件等），建议哪些捐赠人可能会捐赠、可能需要非营利组织的联系，或者可能与组织有最深层次的联系。北卡罗来纳科学与数学学院负责发展的副校长芭芭拉·库里使用人工智能工具Levitate，来确定要针对哪些校友进行沟通和请求。 

“We were able to focus on a few hundred likely supporters and then communicate in a meaningful way,” she says. 

库里说：“我们能够专注于几百名潜在的可能支持者，然后以有意义的方式进行沟通。” 

Using the software, their email open rate shot up from 20 percent to 80 percent. She attributes this to better targeting of alumni with content aimed at appealing to them. Coury says that in one targeted mailing, the organization “raised twice what the service cost us [for the whole year] in one day.” 

使用该软件后，他们的电子邮件打开率从20%激增至80%。她将这归因于更好地针对校友来提供吸引他们的内容。库里表示，在一次有针对性的邮件发送中，该组织“在一天之内筹集到的资金是其（全年）服务费用的两倍”。 

Colbran, who oversees fundraising at Feeding San Diego, has been using the A.I. platform RAISE, which combs through her donor database and suggests people to contact. The software might suggest she contact someone because they gave at this time last year or to wish them a happy birthday. Knowing who to reach out to when makes her more efficient, without being impersonal. 

阿里·科尔布兰负责Feeding San Diego组织的筹款工作。她一直在使用人工智能平台RAISE，该平台会梳理她的捐赠人数据库，并建议她联系哪些人。软件可能会建议她联系某人，因为他们去年这个时候捐过款，或者祝他们生日快乐。知道什么时候该联系谁，让她更有效率，同时又不会显得没有人情味。 

“Instead of being able to hammer out 10 personalized emails in an hour, I can do 40 because it’s using A.I. to tell me who I should be reaching out to, why I should be reaching out,” Colbran said. “I kinda feel like I have a little assistant right now, a little robot assistant that’s helping me and other front-line fundraisers on our team reach out to donors at an increased rate.” 

科尔布兰说：“我以前在一小时内可以苦心想出10封个性化的电子邮件，而现在我可以发送40封。因为使用人工智能可以告诉我应该联系谁，我为什么要联系他。我感觉我现在有一个小助手，一个机器人小助手。它正在帮助我和我们团队中的其他一线筹款人，以更高的速度接触捐赠人。” 

While much of fundraising is focused on individuals — whether they’re everyday donors or major givers — reaching institutional funders is important, too. A.I. products can also help with grant seeking, Orr says. He has seen programs that help answer foundation questions and learn to improve their responses. 

虽然大部分筹款活动都以个人为重点，无论是日常捐赠人还是大额捐赠人。但与机构资助者取得联系也很重要。CJ·奥尔表示，人工智能产品也可以帮助组织来寻求资助。他见过一些可以帮助回答基金会的问题，并学习改进回答的程序。 

“It just cuts down on the time that it takes to write these large proposals,” he says of such programs. “It’s something that we’re seeing a lot of folks start to use.” 

奥尔在谈到此类程序时说：“它可以缩短撰写这些大型提案所需的时间。我们看到很多人开始使用这种方法。”

Some colleges are using A.I. to better engage donors and other alumni. The University of North Carolina School of the Arts and Denison University use the Protopia A.I. system to connect alumni to students. Students ask questions, and then the system searches alumni databases to find the alum who is best suited to answer. For example, a question from a student majoring in dance might be routed to an alumni choreographer living in New York. 

一些大学正在利用人工智能更好地与捐赠人和其他校友互动。北卡罗莱纳大学艺术学院和丹尼森大学使用Protopia A.I.系统，将校友与学生联系起来。学生提出问题，然后系统搜索校友数据库找到最适合回答的校友。例如，主修舞蹈的学生提出的问题，可能会被转给住在纽约的编舞家校友。 

That exchange is “an opportunity for alumni to easily engage and feel like they’re giving back and contributing and feeling connected,” says Jeremy Serkin, CRM manager at the UNC School of the Arts. 

北卡罗莱纳大学艺术学院的客户关系管理经理杰里米·瑟金说：“这种交流是让校友们有轻松参与的机会，让他们感到自己在回馈、贡献和建立联系。” 

Because neither the alumni nor the student have to register or sign up for a new password — the discussion takes place over email — it has a high adoption rate. Campuses can choose to have A.I. find matches throughout its entire database or limit it to donors, lapsed donors, or other criteria to focus on engaging a specific category of alumni. 

由于校友和学生都不需要登录或注册新密码，而是通过电子邮件进行讨论，因此采用率很高。学校可以选择让人工智能在其整个数据库中寻找匹配对象，也可以将其限制在捐赠人、失效捐赠人或其他标准上，以专注于吸引特定类别的校友。 

The tool also helps update alumni databases. If an alum is tagged as an engineer in the system, but responds that he can’t help with engineering questions because he’s now a poet, that information gets updated. Denison has used the system for just a semester, but in that time, 347 Denison alumni updated their contact information in the course of using it, says Sallie Sistare, executive director of alumni and family engagement. 

该工具还有助于更新校友数据库。如果一位校友在系统中被标记为工程师，但该校友回复说他现在无法帮助解决工程相关的问题，因为他现在是一名诗人。那么该信息就会更新。校友和家庭参与执行主管萨利·西斯塔雷说，丹尼森大学仅仅使用了该系统一个学期。但在此期间，已有347名丹尼森校友在使用过程中更新了自己的联系信息。 

Universities can monitor the communication between students and alumni to ensure nothing inappropriate takes place. That feature allows other uses. At Denison, gift officers are notified when their prospects answer questions. It’s a sign that they’re willing to engage — even if they don’t always return gift officers’ calls. Sistare says she and her colleagues are evaluating how much that engagement improves the likelihood that someone will give, along with other questions. Already, though, the system has helped Denison identify alumni open to more engagement. 

大学可以监控学生和校友之间的交流，以防止任何不当行为的发生。这一功能还有其他用途。在丹尼森大学，当潜在校友回答问题时，捐赠负责人就会收到通知。这是校友愿意参与的信号，即使他们并不总是回应捐赠负责人的电话。萨利·西斯塔雷说，她和她的同事们正在评估，这种参与能在多大程度上提高某人捐赠的可能性，以及其他问题。不过，该系统已经帮助丹尼森大学确定了愿意参与更多的校友。 

“We have a young man who was answering several questions,” Sistare says. “We now have pulled him in as a volunteer to share his experience outside of that platform. It shows you the value and the ripple effect of what’s really possible with this.” 

萨利·西斯塔雷说：“我们有一个年轻人回答了几个问题。我们现在已经将他拉进来，让他成为在平台之外分享经验的一名志愿者。这展示了这种可能性的价值和涟漪效应。”