Donations AI
AI-assisted giving trend review, campaign ideas, and thank-you drafts for staff to verify before use.
Quick Summary: Donations AI analyzes your church's giving data to surface actionable insights: which donors may be at risk of stopping, which campaigns are performing well, when giving dips are seasonal vs. concerning, and how to personalize thank-you communications. It helps finance and stewardship teams make informed decisions without needing to manually comb through spreadsheets.
Overview
Donations AI can help staff explore giving history, trend groupings, and possible follow-up ideas. Its outputs are estimates based on the data available in Relius; they do not predict an individual donor's intent or guarantee retention, campaign results, or future revenue. Confirm current data and integration requirements before enabling it.
When available, the tool may present trend visualizations, segments, estimates, and draft follow-up ideas. Staff must verify every output and decide whether outreach is pastorally appropriate. Confirm effective permissions and current security documentation rather than relying on this guide as an encryption or access-control assurance.
Key Features
Donor Engagement Scoring
Each donor receives an engagement score based on giving frequency, consistency, amount trends, and response to campaigns. Scores help you quickly identify your most engaged supporters, occasional givers who could become regular donors, and previously active donors who have stopped giving.
Possible Lapse Signals
The AI may surface changes in recorded giving frequency or amount. These signals do not reveal intent, financial circumstances, or relationship to the church. Staff must review context and avoid outreach based solely on giving behavior.
Campaign Optimization
For a giving campaign, AI may draft timing, tone, audience, or goal ideas from recorded history. Leaders must review context, consent, pastoral sensitivity, and financial assumptions; the suggestions are neither optimal nor guaranteed to be realistic.
Thank-You Message Drafts
Generate personalized thank-you emails and notes for donors. The AI tailors each message based on the donor's giving history, the specific fund or campaign they contributed to, and their relationship with the church. Messages are drafted for staff review before sending.
Giving Trend Forecasts
View an estimated range based on recorded historical patterns. The model may miss seasonal, campaign, membership, economic, or one-time changes, so compare estimates with actuals and maintain reserves.
Getting Started
Step 1: Enable Donations AI
Navigate to AI Tools → Donations AI and review the current enablement flow. Output usefulness depends on data quality, completeness, history, and context; more history does not guarantee accuracy.
Review effective access with representative test roles in Admin → Users & Roles. Do not assume the role name alone restricts every financial or AI view.
Step 2: Review the Insights Dashboard
Review the trend views, possible-lapse signals, and campaign comparisons currently available. Check the source date range, fund, campus, and segment before interpreting any result.
Step 3: Configure Thank-You Automation
If thank-you drafting workflows are available, choose appropriate events and review the AI-generated templates before enabling them.
Edit templates to match your church's voice, verify merge fields and consent, and require staff approval before every AI-drafted outreach message.
Step 4: Act on Recommendations
The AI provides specific recommendations in the "Action Items" tab: donors to thank personally, lapsed givers to re-engage, campaigns that would benefit from a follow-up ask, and budget adjustments based on forecast data. Review these weekly and assign follow-up to the appropriate team member.
Best Practices
- 1.Focus on relationship, not a score: Treat a possible-lapse signal as a prompt for human review. Never assume why someone's giving changed or use financial behavior alone to drive pastoral outreach.
- 2.Personalize thank-you messages: Even with AI-generated drafts, add a personal sentence or two before sending. Donors who feel genuinely appreciated are significantly more likely to continue giving.
- 3.Use forecasts for budgeting, not promises: AI predictions are estimates based on historical patterns. Use them to inform budget planning and cash flow management, but always maintain financial reserves for variance.
- 4.Respect donor privacy: Giving data is sensitive. Limit who has access to Donations AI and avoid discussing individual giving amounts in public settings, even among staff.
- 5.Review campaign suggestions before launching: The AI bases campaign advice on data patterns, but your pastoral team knows your congregation's current circumstances. Always validate AI suggestions against your team's relational knowledge.
Common Questions
Q: Can donors see their engagement scores or churn risk status?
A: These insights are intended for restricted staff use, but effective visibility depends on current permissions and product behavior. Verify access with a test account and review the church's transparency and privacy obligations.
Q: How much giving history does the AI need to be useful?
A: There is no guaranteed minimum history or accuracy level. Use only sufficiently complete, representative data; validate outputs against actual results and disregard estimates that lack useful context.
Q: Does Donations AI integrate with external payment processors?
A: Confirm which Relius records and imported sources the current feature supports. Reconcile imported totals, permissions, and field mappings before analysis; do not assume every processor or record type behaves the same way.
Q: Can the AI send thank-you messages without staff approval?
A: Confirm whether sending is available and keep staff approval enabled for AI-drafted outreach. Transactional receipts should follow the verified payment workflow; pastoral or milestone messages require human review for accuracy, tone, consent, and context.