Evolve from transactions to relationships with trust-based philanthropy
Put beneficiaries at the center of your data in a landscape of increasing trust-based philanthropy.
While data is key, and you must tie any investment decisions back to your organizational goals, at the heart of all you do is your mission—and the beneficiaries of your mission. Whether the beneficiaries are people, our planet, or another purpose, you can ensure that you stay true to your mission by putting your beneficiaries at the center of your data first and foremost.
As trust-based philanthropy is on the rise, this further opens the door to investing in your systems and data to ensure you’re measuring impact on your terms. Centering data around your beneficiaries allows all insights to flow back to the heart of your mission. As a nonprofit, you can let the data tell the story of the impact on your beneficiaries.
Beneficiary data can allow you to leverage tools for streamlining outreach, such as AI/ML. Marketing and constituent engagement, including volunteers, is a prime opportunity for leveraging GenAI. Whether you’re trying to make it easier to volunteer, increase volunteer involvement, match volunteers with opportunities, respond faster, or onboard clients and constituents, this is a key opportunity for enhancing engagement while streamlining operations—a win-win!
Taking it a step further, grant responses can be accelerated with the help of a personal AI writing assistant. In fact, not leveraging AI to scale your grant responses will soon leave you at a disadvantage as other groups adopt new technologies. Additionally, grantmakers can leverage AI tools to identify organizations aligned to target mission areas.
To put one final point on the importance of centering data on your mission and its beneficiaries: data has the capacity to change the world—this isn’t an overstatement. As the world faces a polycrisis, mission areas become increasingly interconnected and demand systemic solutions. Sharing data across organizations can expedite solutions to systemic crises like housing and food insecurity. Using AI, you can harness the power of this data, highlight the stories of lives impacted, and decide what’s most important to the community. Data also opens the door to determining how to collaborate with other organizations in the same mission area for multiplied impact.
“This is the first time this network will have technology-based visibility to needs and supplies in an aggregate way, at a higher level than the last 40 years. It’s a breakthrough.”
Blake Thompson, Chief Supply Chain Officer, Feeding America
CONNECTING FOOD BANKS,ENDING HUNGER
One example of this is our work with Feeding America National Office (FANO). Through this national organization, Slalom partnered with Feeding America to complete a multiyear technology roadmap and create the first nationally available food donation and sourcing platform called MealConnect. Looking outside of their own organizational needs, Feeding America is paving the way to more broadly address food insecurity and the intersecting challenges, such as transportation and housing.
Learn more about this case study.
