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    BWF Donor AI for Nonprofits: Predictive Fundraising Analytics

    Powered by IBM watsonx and 40+ years of fundraising expertise, BWF Donor AI helps nonprofits identify their best major and planned giving prospects, forecast campaign outcomes, and determine optimal ask amounts before a single conversation happens.

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    What BWF Donor AI Does

    Most nonprofits rely on instinct, spreadsheets, and outdated wealth screening to decide which donors to prioritize. Gift officers spend hours in portfolio reviews debating who deserves a visit, and annual fund teams guess at ask amounts based on last year's giving history. The result is a constant mismatch between fundraising effort and actual giving potential.

    BWF Donor AI addresses this by applying predictive machine learning to your donor database. Rather than simply screening for wealth, it builds propensity models that score each donor on their likelihood to make a major gift, establish a planned gift, renew their annual fund support, respond positively after lapsing, and respond to specific communication channels. These scores feed directly into your existing CRM, giving gift officers, annual fund directors, and prospect researchers a data-backed starting point for every decision they make.

    What distinguishes BWF Donor AI from competing tools is the expertise embedded in its methodology. BWF is a fundraising consulting firm with over 40 years of experience working with universities, health systems, arts organizations, and human services nonprofits. The models were built by people who understand that a prospect score is only useful if it translates into a meaningful gift officer conversation, and the platform reflects that understanding at every step.

    Who BWF Donor AI Is Best For

    Organization Types

    • Universities and higher education institutions running capital campaigns or grateful alumni programs
    • Health systems and hospitals with grateful patient pipeline programs
    • Arts, cultural, and faith-based organizations converting attendees and members into donors
    • Mid-to-large human services and environmental nonprofits with mature donor databases
    • Membership organizations optimizing ticket, membership, and donation revenue simultaneously

    Roles That Benefit Most

    • Chief Development Officers and VPs of Development prioritizing portfolio assignments
    • Prospect researchers building identification pipelines and qualifying new prospects
    • Major gifts officers receiving scored portfolios ready for moves management
    • Annual fund directors optimizing ask amounts and segmenting upgrade candidates
    • Planned giving officers identifying hidden legacy prospects in the existing donor base

    Key Features for Nonprofits

    Predictive Scoring Models

    Multiple propensity models covering the full donor lifecycle

    • Major giving propensity scores for identifying principal and major gift prospects
    • Planned and legacy giving identification across your full donor base
    • Renewal and upgrade likelihood scoring for annual fund optimization
    • Reacquisition scoring to identify and re-engage lapsed donors with high potential

    Ask Amount and Channel Optimization

    AI-driven recommendations for personalized donor communications

    • Optimal ask amount predictions for each donor rather than generic ask ladders
    • Communication channel preference prediction (mail, email, phone, digital)
    • Messaging type assessment to match content to donor motivations
    • Dynamic on-demand scoring (not just periodic batch updates)

    Sector-Specific Packages

    Pre-built models tuned for your organization type

    • Healthcare: Grateful patient program prioritization and health system major gifts
    • Higher education: Alumni capital campaign prospects and legacy giving identification
    • Arts and culture: Visitor-to-donor pipeline and event attendance prediction
    • Membership: Ticket, membership, and donor revenue optimization across all streams

    Transparent Methodology

    Model logic that your team can understand and explain

    • Full documentation of model factors, methodology, and scoring logic
    • No black-box scoring, so your team can explain results to leadership
    • Rigorous testing and validation before deployment to your donor base
    • Ongoing model adjustments as your data and donor base evolve

    How Nonprofits Use BWF Donor AI

    Consider a regional health system foundation preparing for a major capital campaign. The development team has a CRM with 50,000 grateful patient records, but only a fraction have been formally qualified by prospect research staff. Without AI scoring, the team must rely on sporadic wealth screening and referrals from physicians and administrators to populate the campaign pipeline, a process that takes months and often misses significant prospects.

    With BWF Donor AI's Healthcare package, the foundation runs major giving propensity and planned giving models across the full database. Within weeks, the prospect research team receives a prioritized list of previously unidentified prospects with quantified capacity estimates and recommended initial contact strategies. Gift officers update their portfolios, drop lower-priority visits, and redirect time toward newly surfaced prospects. One foundation in this situation identified $1.5 million in new gift investments and uncovered three major donor prospects who had never appeared in prior screenings.

    The annual fund team uses the same platform differently. Instead of sending uniform ask arrays to every mid-level donor, they use optimal ask amount predictions and channel preference scoring to personalize both the request and the delivery method. Donors who score as email-averse receive mail appeals. Donors flagged as upgrade candidates receive asks that exceed their last gift by a modest increment. The combination of right amount, right channel, and right timing improves both response rates and average gift size without adding staff.

    Pricing

    BWF Donor AI uses consultative pricing with no publicly listed tiers. Organizations contact BWF for a scoping conversation, after which a custom package is proposed based on organization size, data complexity, and selected models. The following packages represent the structured options described on the BWF website.

    Essentials Package

    Best starting point for most nonprofits

    Contact for pricing

    Four pre-built models, ready to deploy

    • Major giving propensity model
    • Planned and legacy giving identification
    • Renewal scoring
    • Reacquisition model for lapsed donors
    • Designed for nonprofits that can't justify a full custom engagement

    Sector & Custom Packages

    Tailored to your organization's specific goals

    Contact for pricing

    Campaign, Healthcare, Higher Education, Membership, Pipeline, Engagement, and Custom

    • All models from Essentials, plus sector-specific additions
    • Ask amount and communication channel optimization
    • Campaign forecasting and scenario planning dashboards
    • Ongoing BWF data science support and model adjustments
    • Custom model selection for unique organizational needs

    Note: Prices may be outdated or inaccurate.

    Built Exclusively for Nonprofits

    BWF's entire business serves only nonprofit organizations, which means Donor AI pricing is inherently calibrated for the sector. There is no separate nonprofit discount because all clients are nonprofits. The introduction of the pre-built Essentials package in 2024 was specifically designed to make predictive analytics accessible to organizations that previously could not justify a fully custom data science engagement.

    For organizations with existing BWF consulting relationships, there may be opportunities to bundle Donor AI with advisory services. Contact BWF directly at 800.921.0111 or via their website to discuss what package structure makes sense for your organization's data maturity, budget, and fundraising goals.

    Contact BWF for Pricing

    Learning Curve

    Beginner

    For organizations just beginning to use donor data or without existing prospect research processes

    Intermediate

    Recommended starting point

    For organizations with clean CRM data, existing prospect research workflows, and staff ready to act on scoring outputs

    Advanced

    For large organizations requiring custom model development, multi-system integrations, and scenario planning dashboards

    BWF Donor AI is structured as a managed service, meaning BWF handles the technical complexity of model building, testing, and deployment. Your team does not need in-house data scientists or machine learning expertise. What your organization does need is reasonably clean and complete CRM data, an understanding of how prospect research fits into your fundraising workflow, and staff who are prepared to operationalize the scoring outputs within their portfolios and campaigns.

    For organizations with minimal prospect research infrastructure, BWF's consulting background means they can support capacity building alongside the AI deployment. This distinguishes them from pure software vendors who hand over a dashboard and expect you to figure out the rest.

    Integrations and Compatibility

    CRM Integrations

    • Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT (BWF is a recognized Blackbaud partner)
    • Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud (BWF listed on Salesforce AppExchange)
    • Slate for higher education institutions
    • Omatic data middleware for cross-system integration

    Data Partners and AI Infrastructure

    • IBM Watson and watsonx.ai as the underlying AI platform
    • iWave/Kindsight for prospect data enrichment and wealth screening
    • Momentum for fundraising platform integration
    • Output imports into any data warehouse or existing enterprise system

    Pros and Cons

    Pros

    • 40+ years of fundraising domain expertise baked into the models, not generic ML
    • IBM Watson/watsonx provides enterprise-grade AI infrastructure and security
    • Transparent methodology: documented factors and outputs, no black-box scoring
    • Sector-specific packages for healthcare, higher education, and membership organizations
    • Managed service: organizations don't need internal data science teams
    • Documented results: 30% resource reduction and $1.5M in new gifts for one client
    • Works with your existing CRM rather than requiring a platform switch

    Cons

    • No public pricing: requires direct sales contact, creating friction for budget planning
    • No self-service signup or free trial option
    • Likely priced higher than SaaS alternatives like DonorSearch AI for smaller organizations
    • Limited public user reviews since product launched July 2024
    • Implementation timelines depend on BWF's consulting capacity and engagement scheduling
    • Organizations without clean CRM data or prospect research infrastructure may not be ready

    Alternatives to Consider

    iWave (Kindsight)

    Prospect research with AI-powered scoring

    iWave aggregates data from 44+ vetted sources and provides SaaS-style prospect research with public pricing starting around $3,545/year. Better for organizations wanting a self-service platform rather than a managed service. BWF actually integrates with iWave for data enrichment.

    Hatch

    Giving Intelligence Platform

    Hatch provides 70% more donor data than traditional wealth screening through its OpenGiving platform starting at $50/month. Designed for organizations earlier in their data journey who want more donor insight without a full predictive modeling engagement.

    DonorSearch AI

    SaaS predictive analytics platform

    DonorSearch AI offers a self-service predictive modeling platform with public pricing, making it more accessible for smaller organizations. It lacks the consulting depth and sector-specific expertise of BWF but provides a faster path to getting scores in your hands without a custom engagement.

    Getting Started with BWF Donor AI

    1

    Assess Your Data Readiness

    Before contacting BWF, audit your CRM data quality. Predictive models are only as good as the input data. Ensure donor records are reasonably complete (giving history, contact information, engagement data) and that your team understands your current prospect research workflows. Organizations with data quality issues may want to address those first or discuss them openly with BWF as part of the scoping conversation.

    2

    Define Your Fundraising Priorities

    Identify which fundraising challenges matter most: identifying hidden major gift prospects, growing your planned giving pipeline, improving annual fund renewal rates, or reactivating lapsed donors. This helps BWF recommend the right package and ensures the models they build reflect your actual strategic priorities rather than a generic template.

    3

    Request a Consultation

    Contact BWF at 800.921.0111 or through their website for an initial consultation. Be prepared to describe your organization type, approximate database size, CRM platform, and fundraising goals. BWF will recommend the appropriate package (starting with Essentials for most organizations) and walk through what secure data transfer, model development, and deployment would look like for your specific context.

    4

    Build a Plan to Operationalize Outputs

    Discuss with your development team how scoring outputs will integrate into gift officer portfolios, annual fund segmentation, and moves management processes. The platform is most valuable when your team has a clear workflow for acting on scores, assigning follow-up tasks, and tracking outcomes over time. Consider pairing this with internal training on how to read and apply predictive scores.

    Need Help Evaluating Predictive Analytics for Your Nonprofit?

    Choosing the right donor intelligence platform requires understanding your data readiness, team capacity, and fundraising goals. One Hundred Nights can help you assess whether BWF Donor AI, a SaaS alternative, or a combination approach makes sense for your organization's current stage and budget.

    Talk to a Nonprofit AI AdvisorVisit BWF Donor AI

    Frequently Asked Questions

    What is BWF Donor AI?

    BWF Donor AI is a predictive analytics platform developed by BWF (Bentz, Whaley, Flessner and Associates), a fundraising consulting firm with 40+ years of experience. Launched in July 2024, it uses IBM watsonx AI technology combined with BWF's sector expertise to score donors for major giving propensity, planned giving likelihood, renewal probability, and optimal ask amounts. It integrates with existing CRMs rather than replacing them.

    How does BWF Donor AI differ from other prospect research tools?

    Unlike most prospect research platforms that are pure software companies, BWF is a fundraising consulting firm that built AI software on four decades of domain expertise. The models are designed with transparent methodology (not black-box), include sector-specific packages for healthcare, higher education, and membership organizations, and are backed by professional fundraising consultants who understand how outputs translate into gift officer strategy and moves management.

    What nonprofit types is BWF Donor AI best suited for?

    BWF Donor AI has dedicated packages for universities and higher education institutions, health systems and hospitals, arts and culture organizations, faith-based organizations, environmental nonprofits, human services organizations, and membership-based organizations. The pre-built Universal/Essentials package extends accessibility to mid-size nonprofits. Organizations with clean CRM data and an existing prospect research function will see the most immediate value.

    Does BWF Donor AI have a nonprofit discount?

    BWF's entire product line is designed exclusively for nonprofits, so no separate discount program exists. However, because all clients are nonprofits, pricing and package scoping are calibrated to the sector. The Essentials package (four core models) was designed specifically to bring the platform within reach of organizations that cannot justify a fully custom data science engagement. Contact BWF directly for a pricing consultation.

    What CRMs and tools does BWF Donor AI integrate with?

    BWF Donor AI produces scored output that imports into your existing CRM or data warehouse. Confirmed integration partners and compatible platforms include Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT, Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud, Slate (higher education CRM), iWave/Kindsight for data enrichment, Omatic for data middleware, and Momentum. BWF describes Donor AI as working "in harmony with your existing technology, including your CRM, marketing and engagement tools, and data warehouse."

    What measurable results has BWF Donor AI produced?

    According to IBM case study documentation, BWF Donor AI clients have experienced a 30% reduction in resource investment for base program development. One client identified $1.5 million in new gift investments that were previously unknown. Another organization surfaced 3 new major donor prospects that had not previously appeared in their portfolio reviews. These results reflect the managed-service model where BWF handles the technical complexity and works alongside development teams to operationalize the outputs.

    Related Tools

    iWave

    Prospect research platform

    Top-rated prospect research tool with data from 44+ vetted sources. Integrates with BWF Donor AI for data enrichment in full-service implementations.

    Hatch

    Giving Intelligence Platform

    SaaS-style donor intelligence starting at $50/month. A more accessible entry point for organizations beginning to use data-driven prospect identification.

    FreeWill

    Planned giving suite

    Pairs well with BWF's planned giving identification models. Once BWF surfaces planned giving prospects, FreeWill helps convert them into committed bequests through donor-facing estate planning tools.

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