Name: The Status of ANZ Fundraising 2025
Uploaded: 2025-06-19T02:31:17.830Z
Duration: 1 h 56 s
Description: The Status of ANZ Fundraising 2025

Transcript for "The Status of ANZ Fundraising 2025": Hey, everybody. Good morning. Happy Thursday. Welcome to, the Blackbaud status of ANZ fundraising benchmarking report. We are very excited to have you here for the next, hour or so. We have got, quite a few people on the call today, and hopefully, you'll get some really great value from the con that we're sharing, with you today. Alright. Let's, start with the acknowledgment to country. I want to acknowledge the traditional custodians, the land on which we meet and work, and all traditional custodians of country throughout Australia. We recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' continuing connection to the land, water, and community, and we pay our respects to their cultures, country, and elders past, present, and emerging. So before we get started, we will be sending a recording of this webinar. So if you're frantically taking notes on all the amazing graphs that we have, don't worry about it. You can get a copy of the presentation afterwards by email. The audio for this webinar is being broadcast from your computer. So if you have any, issues, check your volume, or, if you have to restart for any reason, do that. And you can see on the right of your screen that we have some boxes. We have a chat box where you can enter comments and thoughts. We have a docs section where we have a copies of the report that this presentation is based on, as well as a copy of this presentation itself, that will go up there as well. Then we have a q and a section. If you wanna ask a specific question, you can stick in the q and a or in the chat. And, we'll be trying to answer it through the webinar, but, also, we'll follow-up with anyone, afterwards. So I hope that is clear for everybody on the call. A little bit about me. This is actually the third year in a row that I've presented, this session, so I'm excited to share some trends as well as new data. I've been, with Blackbaud for over twenty years. I have worked in a number of other organizations before that, clearly in marketing and sales management. And when I'm not working, I am walking my lovely kaboodle lily or, trying to improve my skills in pottery, which seems to be a lifelong ambition. And, hopefully, one day, I will master it, but I am not quite there yet. Alright. So let's dive into the content. I'll talk a little about our report and and the research methodology and why we've gone about doing this report, and that will give you an insight into the the data and how we capture it, and and what value it potentially be for you. So we do this research every year. We're doing it for four years, and we also do it in, Canada, UK, so our Commonwealth, colleagues. But this year, we've also done it in The US. So in this report, we're not comparing to The US data. We are comparing to Canada and The UK, but not not necessarily The US data. But The US report is available online, and if you are interested in understanding what's going on in US fundraising, and trends in that area, it might be worth a read. It's it's quite interesting. So we do this research to to inform ourselves about what's going on in the market, to understand what the trends are now and into the future, to understand what is happening in the sector in terms of fundraising income, and outcomes, and how people are going relative to the expectations they set for themselves. Now today, we will touch on some aspects of the report, but not all aspects of the report. It's a 30 plus page document rich in content and data. And so, you know, forty five minute or so session, I'm not able to touch on all aspects on it. So this is really just a a taster of what is is in the report, a little bit more benchmarking with our colleagues, in The UK and Canada, and then some insights, from myself that I've gleaned from reading the report and also talking to customers over the last, twelve months or so. But I do encourage everyone to take the time to download and read the report. It does go into more detail. It does segment the data by, more areas that I'm able to present today, and it definitely requires, a little bit of of focus, focused attention. So encourage you to to read the report, as you see fit, and perhaps after this, you might be more interested than, I guess, you have been previously. So today, we're gonna go into, the key findings, of the report, which really focuses on on three areas, income, so fundraising trends, and the drivers of growth and decline. So, you know, are are we growing, or not? What's driving growth? What's driving decline? I'm gonna talk a little bit about artificial intelligence and technology because, clearly, it's a it's a hot topic. It's on everyone's minds, and it's interesting to see, what charities are thinking, and there's some really fascinating insights in that area. And then, we also talk about CRM. So clearly, I work for a CRM vendor, Blackbaud. But this report, and it's very important to to to share, is not, specific to Blackbaud customers. We had, hundreds of Australian charities who completed this report, and about 40% of those were were Blackbaud customers. So not this this data is not specific to Blackbaud. This is a very generic overview of the sector, and it's important to to think about that when you look at these results. But more even more importantly, when we talk about some some of the challenges with CRM, and we're very open, as you as as all of you may know in, having been at this, webinar last year, potentially, we do talk about some of the challenges, and we're very open about the challenges and opportunities charities face as they try to maximize the value of their investments, in their CRM solutions. Alright. So with that said, let's have a look very briefly at who we spoke to. So we did speak to over a 175 not for profit professionals. 57 of them were directly involved in fundraising. Others were were senior executives or ancillary folks in the organizations. And most of them were managers, directors, or high level, individuals in in organizations. Although we did have quite a few database administrators responding as well. And in terms of income mix, we we tended to skew to higher, in charity fundraising income. So 39% of the of the audience that responded were charities that had over $10,000,000 in fundraising income, which, gives us a fairly good feel for the overall sector's, health. So let's take a brief look at the highest level summary of the overall results, and then from there, I'll go into a bit more detail. Alright. So what did we find? Well, firstly, organizations are still growing. And in fact, growth is more positive this year, in this year's survey than it was in last year's survey or in previous years. So the overall trend, certainly in Australia, is that the fundraising sector is, shall I say, rebounding. There's positive momentum in in fundraising income in Australian. All of us are performing better than they have in the past and, importantly, better than expected. What is driving the difference, you'll see, is not a massive surprise. Well, it it might be a surprise to some. It's certainly not, to me in the cuss in some of the customers I speak to, but it's it's major giving, legacies, bequest, etcetera. Technology is having an impact, so we are improving. Vendors are improving and customers are improving in terms of the the value we're providing to to customers and the impact customers are getting from technology and in particular CRM. But it's a huge but. We have a long way to go, and we'll talk about that near the end. So that's a a little sample of the last bit of the section. AI use is skyrocketing, certainly since last year. Data security is less important, and, AI usage is growing in very specific areas. I'll talk about that in a moment. And, of course, for the organizations that have had a declining income, economic challenges are the major one, although there are some surprises in that area as well. So very high level. Hopefully, you'll stick around for the detail. But, if that's all the time you have, that's the, the high level overview of what I'm gonna share today. Alright. So let's jump into the fundraising side of it and talk about where organizations are seeing change in their fundraising income. And we ask the question of our audience, for the survey, how did your fundraising income change year over year? And so as I present this data, it might be really useful for everyone on the call to think about their organization and how this data, compares to their own organization's, outcomes. And I'll also be doing a couple of polls through this to keep, everyone engaged. So, one poll is coming up in a in a moment. So fundraising income changes, there was some really good news here. So 48% of respondents said that their fundraising income had increased year on year, and that's up from 24% in the previous year. So in general, on aggregate across the the responses to the survey, there was more positivity in their fundraising growth changes year on year. So interesting to see if people are aligned with that or not. 25% said it was the same, and 28% said it was decreased. So that's the high level. If we go and look in the detail, and this is the first graph, that I'll be sharing with you today, so I'll orient you to it. And, again, I know you're all fundraisers. You love data. You love details, so you won't be disappointed if I present you with, some of some of some graphs to to analyze today. But you could see on the right hand side, we've got, the increases year on year, and, this is for the last four years. So you could see that, in 2022, the the survey said that 47% of organizations who are increasing year on year fundraising. And then '23, '24, that decline, so there was less increases. The 2022 year was coming off COVID, so that was a COVID bump year. But it's really great to see that, in this year's results, there's been a massive positive increase in organizations seeing a year on year growth in fundraising. And then, likewise, the organizations that were flat was lower than ever, and the organizations that saw a decrease was was pretty much on pile 2222 and and lower than the last few years. So, overall, it was a hugely positive, vibe, I guess you could say, from the survey respondents in how they thought about, their year on year results. Now, of course, all of us today are in the middle of our tax appeals. Well, we should all be in the middle of our tax appeals, and we're seeing results coming in that will indicate to us whether that appeal has gone up year on year. And so given the timing of today's webinar, I thought it would be a great opportunity to ask the audience, whether or not your tax appeal for this year is expected to be up, down, or the same as last year. So I am gonna open up a poll in a second for that and ask you to contribute. And then I will share with you Blackbaud data about what we're seeing across our customer base, particularly in the area of credit card giving for the tax appeal. So, June June June month's date versus June month's date last year across all of our 700 plus customers. I'll share that statistic, with you in a moment. But first, let me open up the poll and ask the audience. So here we go. I am opening up the poll. Hopefully, a poll will come up for all of you. I think there is. If you have a look on the poll section of the polls, of the of the chat on the right, you'll see a poll. And I'm gonna ask everybody on the call to answer the question that they're seeing on their poll thing, which says, thinking about your tax appeal and current performance, where do you think you'll end up versus last year? Well down, bit up, same, up, or well up. So give everybody a moment to respond to that. We're getting some really great votes coming in. Just one more moment. I do apologize to those folks in New Zealand. Yes. Your tax year was in March. So for all of you in New Zealand, you can give us actual results rather than estimated results. So even better. Thank you, Marie, for reminding me of that. Okay. So let's take a look. This is gonna be very interesting. I am about to share the polls also. Hopefully, I will be in a moment. Alright. So here we are. So, some of you are well down. Sorry about that, folks. Hope things pick up in the next couple of weeks. A little bit down, 3030% of you. 30% of you are the same. 33%, were up and and 5% for well up. So interesting results because a bit down and and up I kinda leveled out. So what what we're seeing here is that reasonably flat across the audience today in terms of where you'll end up. So, I'm hoping that things do improve and we get some more people in the in the up and well up, group for the rest of the the tax appeal. We hope it it does go go well for you guys. But that is the results today. Fascinating. Thank you for for sharing, and and, again, hope things continue to improve over the next, couple of weeks. So from Blackbaud's perspective, I am now going to go back into the slides, and I will share what we're seeing at least from our customer base in credit card giving. So June year month to date to June month to date last year, as of yesterday, we are seeing a 14.2% increase in volume. And this is for like for like, same same customer base, volume across our our customers. So it does feel, at least from what we're seeing, like there is, an uplift year on year from a from a tax appeal perspective. Now, again, this is only credit cards, not on a not on aggregate, and the appeal, info stuff hasn't come in completely yet. But there there does seem to be, a level of positivity, across our base. So, hopefully, that will continue through the rest of the year. Okay. So moving on, let's then have a look at whether or not, Australian results are aligned with international results. So what we have here is a summary of our colleagues in, The UK and in Canada, where we also ask, was your fundraising performance improved, flat, or declining? You can see Australians were the most positive in overall improvement, had the smallest decline, and, you know, pretty pretty much in in the middle from a flat perspective. So there is overall global improvement with Australia, at least from the survey, leading leading the pack. And from a UK perspective, I find that quite interesting because I do know that The UK is probably one of the most challenging fundraising markets at the moment given what's happening in Europe and the economy. So, the fact that there is some improvement in that space is positive, although you can also see that they had the the largest decline, which which potentially makes sense. So interesting data. Keep up the great work, our Australian, fundraisers. Now the other question we asked, which was interesting as well, is not only how you improved your fundraising or not, but did that exceed your targets? So this is really fascinating because it talks to were we positive in setting our targets, were we expecting a decline, were we expecting things to be flat. Because if you overachieved your targets, then in most cases, the expectation that was that you weren't quite, expecting a a great outcome. So here's what happened when we asked about target setting. 32% of the audience exceeded their targets. 29% didn't reach their targets. 24% did hit their targets. And then, unfortunately, 14% didn't know if they had a target or not. So we'll ignore that group for now, and we'll focus on the folks that actually talked about, where they where they were relative to their targets. So let's have a look at this and and have a look at how, our customer base thought about this response, so I'm just gonna pull that one up. So we were, again, like like earlier on when we talked about exceeding our our our actual app fundraising income, we also, were very bullish and we exceeded our targets. Right? So we we set relatively conservative targets, I would say, in in the in the year, and, more people than not exceeded those targets. So, again, that was reasonably positive. When I talk to our customers about target setting, there was a lot of challenges with thinking about whether or not they would be able to increase their fundraising performance over the last, twelve months. There's a lot of uncertainty with the economy. There was a lot of uncertainty with, the election happening in Australia, and whether or not particularly high net worth individuals, major donors, would con can continue to contribute as much as they did. But the good news, the positive news, is that there was a lot of organizations that did exceed their targets, from from last year. So, that was, again, a positive indication of what's going on in the sector, today. Now, of course, we also asked, the same question of our UK and and Canadian colleagues, And you'll be able to see from this, which I actually find quite fascinating as well, that is that we the the, the Canadian organizations were the most conservative in in target settings. So they, more organizations in Canada exceeded their targets than not. And, The UK, maybe because of what I was talking about earlier, were the most pessimistic and and the least number of organizations exceed their targets. Although, still, quite a few did exceed their targets. So one of the questions that you might wanna ask yourselves is, are you being aggressive enough in target setting? And it's always quite challenging, right, because when you set a target, you don't achieve that target. It's it's difficult. But I will I will say that, ambitious target setting does sometimes drive improved performance. And I would encourage all of you to think really deeply about how you're going about setting your performance targets, for the next twelve months and potentially maybe stretch a little bit because it would be great to see, year on year fundraising performance increased significantly, but meeting your targets, not exceeding them because that's showing that you're setting reasonably aggressive, targets. Now, Karen does mention that we had some unexpected wins, which is, always, nice, but does skew results setting, results, which is absolutely, important. And it's a great segue, Karen, to the next part of my presentation, which does talk about, major major gifts and exceptional gifts, but I'll get to that in a second. So, let's talk about why we saw income growth grow or decline. So firstly, from a decline perspective, nothing new. The economic situation was top of mind for the majority of organizations in terms of why they didn't, achieve income growth from a fundraising perspective. The other important area was donor numbers decreased, which is a classic result and then not adequately resourced. Now the not adequately resourced one is interesting, and I'll talk to that a little bit a little bit later. As is, supporters gave less because, you find that the organizations that saw decline saw supporters give less. But if you look on the right, the ones that saw an increase saw supporters give more. And it's an interesting contrast, which I'll I'll I'll dive into, in a moment. So these are the top reasons. I will now, go into that, in a little bit more detail, for all of you. Okay. So having a look at what drove people's growth. So I absolutely love this this data. I find it very, very interesting. But you can see that, exceptional gifts are, Karen, to your point, sometimes unexpected gifts, but also large major gifts, bequests, etcetera. So if you talk to organizations about what drove their growth, As with last year and years past, you know, large major gifts is driving most of the growth. In some cases, it's still the numbers that are increasing, but that's consistent year on year. There is an a greater focus on the supporter experience, which I'll also talk about a little bit later, and that's really important and great to see. But, our customers are saying that a deeper engagement with supporters, more focus on their experience is helping drive improved, outcomes. There is a drop in different activity, which is so consistent with with what I'm hearing in the marketplace. So there was a lot of testing and trialing through COVID, and then on the back of that, continuing some of those tests. But it does feel like the sector in general is just getting into more of a groove and become becoming less focused on perhaps radical new testing of things and just focusing on incremental quality improvement and execution, and that's driving improved outcomes. So I have personally felt that from talking to customers over the last twelve months, and it's interesting to see that the survey results reflect that. The other thing I'll point out on the slide is that there has been a decrease invest in investment in fundraising overall across the sector quite materially. You can see on the right there. But, importantly, it corresponds with organizations saying that they feel like their team is more well resourced than they were last year. So potentially more investment last year to a point of, you know, decent level of investment that can drive outcomes and then less upside investment. Okay. So that's that's really interesting. And then one of the key takeaways for me, which I will consistently talk about in this presentation, is that, you know, the major donors, legacies, requests, mid level growth programs, you know, the traditional fundraising programs where they where you focus on individuals who have propensity, so so plus 40 year olds, people who are in the early stages of the great wealth transfer, etcetera. Those folks are the people that are going to be giving you money and are gonna drive your growth, And that's where, at least, in my personal view and looking at some of the presenters from FIA this year and and other other presentations, now you've got ten years of focus on that audience at the very least before you start looking to other audiences. So really very, very interesting. Alright. So I am now going to ask the audience whether you're aligned with the results of this survey. So I am going to do another poll now, which I'll share with you guys and ask you to, provide some of your own insights on this particular topic, and then we'll move forward. So I'm gonna open up another poll, have a quick look on the on the poll section, and this poll is, similar to the question we asked in the survey. What is the biggest driver of growth for your charity? So if I could ask everybody to, take a quick look at that poll and start providing your votes, that would be great. We've got a few coming in. Fantastic. Wow. I'm seeing results here not quite yet, but it is very interesting. So remember, in this case, exceptional gifts are unknown gifts for sure, but also legacies, bequests, major donors, growing the donor program, etcetera. Counts, wait for a second. I will say that a few of you are talking about new and different activities. So if anyone wants to share something in the chat that was a really interesting oh, somebody changed their mind from new and different back to exceptional gifts. But if you do have something that that's interesting that you wanna share, stick it in the chat so we can all, review it. So let's have a look at what the results of this one was. Let me share that with you now. Alright. So unbelievably similar to the survey results. Exceptional gifts, key to driving growth. Focus on supporter experience, maybe less so than the survey, but still important. Increased donor numbers, still less so. But, yeah, it's all about focusing on the people that have the money, basically. So very, very interesting. Even more, aligned to what I was saying than the actual survey results. So, fascinating. Thank you so much for sharing that, with me. Okay. So let's have a look then moving forward at a comment a comparison to The UK and Canada on this particular one. And in this area, you will see that I found a couple of things quite fascinating. Firstly, so so, firstly, you can see that Australia is right up there with the exceptional gift side of it. Donor number increasing, etcetera. Very consistent, but there are a couple of differences. One is The UK major gift exceptional gift group is dropping, and that dropped significantly from last year. I think quite a big, quite a big reason for that is what's happening in The UK and the economy. And then the other part is The UK seems to be spending a bit more time trying new and different things. And my theory in that area, and also having spoken to our colleagues in The UK and Blackbaud Europe, is that they're not getting the cut through from from major major donors, legacies, and that type of thing. So they are being forced to try to do new and different things to grow their fundraising programs. So hopefully, there'll be some learnings there, but, certainly, it's it's driving innovation and and change in strategy and approaches, in The UK much more materially than certainly in Australia. So, I thought you would, find that really interesting. So the next thing we asked our audience was, what is driving the biggest change in your fundraising can come over the last three years? And some of you in the chat are asking about grants and other things, and that's where we're gonna get to in a moment. But we ask the question of what is driving your biggest change in fundraising income over the last three years? Alright? And, see, this is getting into very specific very specific areas of fundraising. And so we asked that question, and we provided an opportunity for folks to say, these areas are increasing, staying the same, or decreasing. And it this goes to to talk to exactly what is driving overall growth for the last three years by by the specific program and where the where, in my view, we think growth is gonna go over the next few years. So here are the results. And, again, I keep saying some of the stuff is fascinating, but this is also very, very, very, very interesting. So you could see that legacies, individual giving, and major donors are absolutely the key area from driving growth. And, as Mel says in the chat, some of it, is unexpected. But what I can say, particularly in the legacy space, is that while some of it is unexpected for some charities, there is a lot of organizations from smaller to the largest ones that are investing in their legacy and bequest programs and are finding that they're getting less surprises, but but much better outcomes. So, hopefully, you have a program in the space and that you're investing. But legacies, individual giving, and major donors are a key growth area. Now speaking of individual giving, and that includes organizations that have regular giving programs. We can see from our customers that regular giving programs in Australia are incredibly consistent, quite stable. You're getting a low thirteen month churn, and so that is very positive. What I am seeing now for the first time is organizations being able to get a positive return on investment, but in growing their regular giving program outside of traditional face to face regular giving. So that includes telemarketing conversion from one time and even telemarketing conversion from peer to peer. Now I know that one of the holy grails of fundraising in a regular giving program is converting peer to peer donors or people who are giving to other individuals and not necessarily to your charity, but to the individual, not the cause, converting them to a regular giver. And I'll just share really briefly a story, I I heard from a customer yesterday, who was sharing their conversion rate from peer to peer to regular giving, and they shared that they're getting a 6% conversion rate on phone calls to peer to peer donors who are then converting to regular giving. And I was unbelievably surprised by that. It was orders of magnitude higher than I've seen before. And and this individual, she was telling me that they do a combination of regular SMS calls, SMS messages, I guess, to to their peer to peer audience. And then based on the response to that SMS, whether they opened it, clicked on it, etcetera. They then tune the outbound telemarketing call, and they're getting a 6% response rate. So, I felt that was interesting. I thought I would share it, but it's, I think that that whole concept of moving folks to regular gifts from one off gifts is a huge growth opportunity, and then, of course, that fits into the individual giving category here. What is also interesting is that, events are absolutely flat. So events, community fundraising, corporate giving, there's just not a lot of excitement about growth in those areas, after, in those areas for the net for at least the last three years and in my my estimation, in the next few years. So, I hope that you find that interesting and curious as to whether that aligns to your own individual goals. Now we also asked what is driving, the drop. So what's driving a decline in your fundraising income and channel? So this is what the organization said who was seeing a decline, and, again, fascinating. The economy, clearly a big aspect to this, or at least organizations saying the economy is driving their decline more than any other reason. But within that, donor numbers decreasing is a big part of it and supporters gave less. So, you know, I guess that's reasonably logical, that if you are seeing an impact on the economy, your donors' numbers are decreasing and your supporters are giving less. But I will also say that we're seeing an increase in average gift volumes across our customer base. So I've my personal view is that acquisition the balancing act that organizations have between acquisition and individual donor growth, so average annual giving from an individual donor is gonna be quite a big big and interesting challenge in where you put your money as to whether it's acquisition or actually getting bigger share of wallet and growth from your existing donut pool is gonna be one of the biggest challenges I think char charities face over the next, twelve months or so. But, certainly, this is where, on average, organizations are seeing a drop across their base. Alright. So from a conclusion perspective then, if we were to summarize all of what I've just shared out before we get into AI, Exceptional gifts, critically important. So that does include the quest match gifts and other things. And I know that there's a lot of comments in the chat about you can't predict for that and it's very difficult, etcetera. Agree with all of that. But that does not, mean that you shouldn't be focusing on it. And in fact, it's it I my personally, I'm fascinated by when I talk to an organization and they say, we were hugely surprised by this exceptional gift, be it a a major gift or bequest. And then I ask about what they've been doing over the last few years. And, yes, they have had more focus on those areas, maybe not a formal program or more investment. There's just more in the organization about those areas. Individual is strong. Individual giving is still going strong, so tax appeals, regular giving, general appeals, and there is some innovation as I talked to you about, the one time to regular donors. Community fundraising and events are lagging, and charities generally seeing a declining income because of lower donor numbers and lower average gift values. So that's a brief summary of that section, and that kind of takes us through at a high level, the overall picture that we're seeing, from the sector. So very interested to see if that aligns with your views. Okay. So let's jump in and talk a bit about artificial intelligence. It is the hottest topic out there. I know that everyone, has it on their mind. So I'm gonna go through some of the data quite quickly, but I thought it would be worth sharing. There's a lot more in the report, to to share with you. And, folks, there is a lot of questions coming in the chat. We'll try to get to them and answer them at the end of the survey. Also, if anyone wants to answer anyone else's questions, feel free to do that, as well. Okay. So let's have a look at AI and talk a little bit about it. Now as a refresher, the most popular areas of AI used in the not for profit sector are natural language processing, so, helping, your technology understand you, both written and orally and interpret your data and interpret your your asks and produce information. Predictive AI, where we're using analytics forecasting machine learning models to predict historical patterns and then future patterns and help you become more efficient and more effective fundraisers. So one example of that is, one of our great Australian technology partners' successes, company called Datara, who has a great predictive AI modeling set of tools. There are many, many others out there as well. And then, of course, generative AI technology. So content creation, images, videos, code, and other things. And generative AI includes things like, Blackbaud, acknowledgement, email, engine where we're generating, acknowledgement emails to donors, using generative AI, and it's producing some great results. Again, lots of other tools out there as well. Now AI is not just limited to technology vendors like Blackbaud, with our solutions and other CRM providers. In fact, there are articles out there talking about, AI and what charities are using AI for, and only a small percentage of organizations are actually using CRM AI infrastructure. There's just so much else out there from an AI perspective that can help charities. So, hopefully, you're looking at that from a broader perspective. But we did ask the question, how pervasive is AI in your organization? And you would be unsurprised to hear that this year, AI has skyrocketed. So you can see that 82% of organizations say that AI is pervasive in their organization, today, with only 18% of charities not using AI. And I I I personally know a couple of very large charities who've got a like, we we we're scared. We don't know what this is gonna do. We're just blanket no on AI. I know I know other organizations who have leaned in heavily. But on aggregate, AI is a huge growth area. And then, of course, it's good to see that Australian charity just stood by Canada, but we are we are at the leading edge of, the AI, pervasiveness, in in our sector. So what are we using AI for? I'm sure you're fascinated by that question as was I. And here it is. And this is also really interesting. It most of you are using AI for developing copy. So pure content, advertising, donor communication, etcetera. And for testing appeal and communications, those are some of the the bigger growth areas for from from last year. And then, of course, creating social media content. So in other words, the the right two two items there, developing content and, social media content, that is generative AI. So you're using, AI to help improve your outbound communications programs. On the right, the testing and appeal side of it, that's more the machine learning, Ditaro CRM tools where we are we and our partners are helping you test communications, become more targeted, etcetera. And so that is growing, but it's still not, a pervasive use case. In my personal view, when we do this next year, we'll see eighty, ninety to 90%, use of generative AI for content development, and we'll see a dramatic increase in the testing of communication and targeting side of it. So, the modeling piece of it because I know that there is a lot of interest and focus in that area coming into the space. Okay. So moving forward, we do have a few more slides, before we get to the CRM piece of it. We then asked, our customers, and the audience the question of to what extent do you agree with the following statements. So, again, I find this really interesting. The most agreement was AI will help us be more efficient. Right? So driving efficiency in your organization. The second biggest one was AI will find, you know, a way into every aspect of the organization. Absolutely, absolutely clear. What is interesting is, we're seeing more organizations saying they have the resources to explore how AI is working for them, and that's really positive. So there's been a doubling of the number of organizations saying that they agree, that they have the resources, and expertise in their organization to take advantage of AI. So really important, but that number has to improve. Like, we need to get to a point where 90% of you feel you've got the resources and the expertise in your organization to take advantage of AI because it does have such a big impact on efficiency and effectiveness. So if you don't feel your organization is providing that level of support for you, you need to be vocal and ensure that your your leadership is getting, getting that message clearly. And there's been a slight improvement in, AI being a priority, but, again, not not anywhere near enough in my personal view. That has to improve and improve quickly for the sector. But from a policy perspective, this is reasonably good news. There is organizations who feel like they are getting more, more policies around AI. So, on the left, sorry for the labeling, but on the left is last year, 72% of you felt did not have an AI policy. Now only 50% of you don't have an AI policy. And 16% of you do, whereas last time, 8% of you didn't. So the net result is some of you have policies, great work, but half of you don't, not great work, and you need no matter how big or small your charity is, you need a policy on how you will be using AI internally and externally to execute on your roles because that creates that consistency within your organization and allows you to explore it in a way that isn't, you know, behind the scenes and and is just open and lets you share. So please encourage your organization to get an a policy around AI and inform everybody about that policy. So very brief summary. It's on the radar. You're investing. Generative is important. What I didn't share here that's in the report is that, job security is not a big concern for Australian, charities around AI, which is good. It shouldn't be. It's an opportunity, not a risk. Data security is a little bit of a concern, but Australians in general are the most concerned about data security compared to the the rest of the sector. But overall, nothing major to report on there. And then finally, I wanted to leave you with one aspect, certainly from a CRM vendor perspective. It's it's really important to know what your CRM vendor's plans are around AI, specifically in relation to the use cases for you and how those use cases can impact your outcomes and your efficiency or effectiveness. And certainly from Blackbaud, you'll see a lot on that over the next twelve months. I'm sure other vendors are sharing as well. But whenever you do have these conversations with your vendors, please make sure it's about how it impacts you and your organization. Okay. So we're on the last legs of the of this webinar. And as usual, at this point, I share some information about organizations and their CRMs. Now as a CRM vendor, this is quite confronting. It's like a little bit of a therapy session sometimes, but it's really important to be transparent because we do ask that this we do ask these questions in the survey, and, we like to share this information. I will start off with a caveat, and that caveat is that the survey was not subject to Blackbaud customers. As I said, 40% of respondents were Blackbaud customers. So this includes Blackbaud customers, but it is not exclusively, Blackbaud customers response to this. It's across, all of it. So these results represent the general attitude to CRM across the sector independent of provider. K. Really important to know. Now I don't think personally that our results are that much different to to to anyone else's, although I can't know for sure. But what I do know is that our customers, organizations using CRMs, and vendors have a lot of work to do to help the sector get the most from their investments. So let's start off by sharing the first slide. And my first slide in this area is always about data health because those who know me know that I'm a massive fan of improving data health. So we ask this question right up front, you know, how is your data health going? And, I didn't do a comparison to last year, but on on average, this is a good result. Organizations generally, from a CRM data health perspective, that you've got about 60 plus percent feeling they have good data or very good data. And that is a much, much more positive outcome than we've seen in other solar surveys or under industry surveys. So, that's really great great to see. And I would encourage all of you to just focus, focus, focus on data health and building data quality that can drive equity and better outcomes for your programs in the future. So data health looking better. It'd be interesting if you had to ask yourself this question, where would you put yourselves, in this area if you're being really open and transparent with yourselves. Is your data usable? Does it provide you the ability to segment and be personalized? Is it, not duplicated, etcetera? Okay. So we then ask the question, how do you feel about your CRM? And this is where things get quite interesting. So you will see that, this is a kind of oh my god moment. Right? Because on the very right, you can see that a lot more people are falling in love with their CRM, which is great, kind of, I think. Maybe love is not the right word, but you're really liking where your CRM can provide, almost triple, last year's results. It's nice. It's getting better. There's less ambivalence happening there and then reasonably consistent around hating and paying a bit less. So overall, there is a there is a improvement in the sector in in terms of how organizations are feeling about their CRM system. And we hope that, certainly that includes Blackbaud, but also generically across across the space. Now that's really important because on average, charities spend over 1.2% of their overall fundraising income on their CRM system. Right? And with with smaller charities actually spending a larger percentage and bigger charities spending a smaller percentage because, you know, they they they have they have more income. But if you're spending that much money, you really wanna be in the it's nice or we're loving it, category because that means it's providing you with some really interesting and positive outcomes. But if we dig a little bit deeper into this, we also then ask the question, are you agreeing or disagreeing with the following statements? Right? So we get the most out of our CRM blah blah blah blah blah. So if you have a look on the bottom there, we asked, are you getting the most out of CRM? Is it fit for purpose? Is it helping you improve your outcomes? Is your data secure? And so what I find super interesting here is that CRMs are critical. That's what this data is saying. It's it's fit for purpose. It's key to helping us achieve our targets. It's key to building donor relationships. It's key to improving our overall performance. So when you go on the very left there, you're seeing that 54% of organizations are not getting the most from their CRM. And that's not good. So as vendors and as users of CRMs, we've got a lot of work to do to help you maximize the value of your CRM. Right? Now this is no surprise. This is consistent year on year in this, country to country. But, nonetheless, it's it's an important thing to share, and it's important information for Blackbaud to to know so that we can help you maximize the value of their solutions. So we then ask the question, what would you like to see that can help you improve your results with your CRM? So get that 54%, let's say, down to 25 or whatever making up a number. And there are three things that are consistently critical. Number one is training, training, training. And I can't say that enough, but more training. Right? Charities in general are not spending enough training and developing their staff in how to use the technology that they have. Be that Blackbaud solutions, Microsoft Salesforce, whoever you are, I know for sure that training is the biggest path to improved outcomes and impact of your CRMs. Improved data management could come with the training piece of it. And then the third piece of it is integration and technology integration. That could be from, integrating with, payments platforms, donation forms, telemarketing agencies, ecosystem. So those are the three three big ones. And another story from same customer I spoke to yesterday, is around training, so and integration. Because the combination of building skills in your organization where your people have the knowledge to understand how to consistently improve data and improve integration, with what technologies are out there is really important. So for example, in the Blackbaud ecosystem, we are fully connected to the Microsoft Power Platform suite. So Power Automate, Power Apps, etcetera. And I can guarantee you that 99% of our customers are investing in having their staff trained up to use those platforms. Right? So really important that you understand what training is available and what can be provided to help you improve outcomes, in the area of CRM use. Alright. So what can we conclude from all of that? And we're nearly at the end, so thank you all for staying with me for the for the session. So firstly, as vendors, we are doing better yet have a long way to go. 14% of you love your CRM. 60% think that it's key to hitting targets, yet 54% of you are not maximizing it. Training is critical. Integration is becoming more and more important. And I'll just, end the section by saying a couple of things about Blackbaud, and I'm very cautious not to make this a sales pitch and talk about Blackbaud. But there are three things we're doing that hopefully your your vendor, if it's not Blackbaud, is also doing. The first one is that we are working really closely with our customers to try and build a data health index to help them inform themselves about how really how good their data is, and so we'll be sharing a lot more on that in the future. Secondly, we are we are providing, and some of our partners as well are providing ongoing managed services to help you train your team. So this is not a one day workshop where you we come in and have a conversation and then it's over. This is a five hours a month, ten hours a month, twenty hours a month, however much time feels right for you, that you have a partner in your vendor who can help you train and develop your team, and we're seeing a huge growth in this area. And then finally, we are working closely with our partners and vendors to enhance our integrations. So that's in the donation form space, in the peer to peer space, in the telemarketing space, etcetera. So a lot of work being done to try and help improve the outcomes in this area. Alright. So we are at the end, and so I will say thank you so much for being part of it today. Two final things. One, you can download the report from here. Please do so. It's a great read. Secondly, I will orient you to two things that relate to future presentations from Blackbaud. Firstly, we have a great webinar on regular giving or as they call it in The US, sustainer giving coming up in a month or so. It's based on US data. We do it every year. It's a terrific webinar that takes you through 30 of the top US charities doing regular giving and what they're finding. So if you are a regular giving charity or wanna be one, look out for that invitation. It's gonna be huge. And then secondly, for our customers, anyone who would like to be a customer, you're also invited, you can join us at BBCon, which is bigger and better than last year. We're doing it at the International Convention Center. It's on the November 10, and you can pre register at the link below. So thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate you spending this Thursday morning with me, and I'm gonna end the call by opening up a poll so that, you can find out more information about our solutions. Thank you so much, everyone. Have a wonderful afternoon.