JustGiving has launched an AI-enabled fundraising coach to help fundraisers to achieve their fundraising goals – a first for the UK market.
Called Hope, the new fundraising coach will provide bespoke guidance to users of the UK’s largest fundraising platform, advising them on how to increase awareness and support for their challenge throughout their fundraising journey.
Internal research from JustGiving shows that the period after creating a fundraising page can be quite daunting for fundraisers who have committed to raise money for a good cause but aren’t sure how to reach their target. However, JustGiving data shows that every share a fundraising page receives is worth £63 in donations on average, highlighting the benefits to fundraisers of proactively promoting their challenges.
Hope has been developed to address this by providing support to fundraisers through their whole fundraising journey, helping them to generate and sustain momentum to drive more engagement and donations.
The tool operates through a dashboard with an integrated chatbot and is designed to deliver a human-first experience. Responsible use of generative AI is built in at key points to engender trust and confidence in the coach, ensuring it adds genuine value for fundraisers without unnecessary automation.
Hope will do this through capabilities including recommendations of personalised outreach messages, tailored advice on how to increase the visibility of fundraising pages and how to optimise on-page content.
Fundraisers are first asked a short series of questions to help Hope understand what help they need and the potential donors they want to reach. Hope then uses this information to provide tailored advice – helping to coach the users through their fundraising journey.
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.
“A huge amount of research and development time has gone into making Hope a reality and we’re looking forward to seeing how our fundraisers use the tool to support their own inspirational efforts.”
The launch of Hope follows JustGiving becoming the first online fundraising platform in the UK to integrate generative AI in 2023, when it released Story Enhancer which helps users write compelling stories for their fundraising pages. The business also became the first UK fundraising platform to accept cryptocurrency donations in 2024.
Since it was created in 2000, JustGiving has helped raise more than £7 billion for charities and good causes, supporting more than 13 million fundraising causes.
