Fundraising platform JustGiving has launched what it describes as the “UK’s first” AI fundraising coach.
The platform’s virtual coach, named Hope, will provide personalised advice to members of the public with fundraising pages to help boost donations to their chosen cause.
JustGiving made the announcement after conducting internal research which showed that the period after creating a fundraising page can be “quite daunting”, particularly for those raising money for the first time.
It aims to address this through its AI coach, which will operate through a dashboard with an integrated chatbot and is designed to deliver a “human-first experience”, without “unnecessary automation”.
Platform users will be first asked a short series of questions to enable the AI coach to understand what help they need and the potential donors they want to reach. It will then use this information to provide personalised advice.
Pascale Harvie, president and general manager of JustGiving, said: “We are always looking at ways we can innovate to help our fundraisers reach their goals and the launch of Hope marks a huge step forward in that respect.
“This is the very first time an intuitive fundraising coach, which can support people throughout their fundraising journey, has been made available in the UK.
“We’re tremendously excited about the impact it will have and proud to be at the forefront of bringing these new capabilities to the market.”
The launch of Hope follows JustGiving becoming the first online fundraising platform in the UK to integrate generative AI in 2023, when it released its Story Enhancer service to help users write stories for their fundraising pages.
It also comes shortly after Ben Cohen, director at Good Innovation, programmed his own AI fundraising agent to promote his JustGiving page when running the London Marathon for charity Dogs for Good.
