What are your AI goals this year?

Christine Newman · February 11

As we think about goals for 2026, we'd love to hear what goals you have around AI skills and use.

If you could describe your ideal ‘AI success story’ at the end of 2026, what would it look like for you or your team? This might range from implementing a new AI-driven capability to meaningfully increase your impact to leveling up your AI skills to integrating AI into your organization's processes, or a combination of any of these.

And, what feels like the first small step toward making that happen?

Crystal Bruce · February 12

I'm intrigued by the possibilities of Agentic AI and look forward to seeing how we can partner with Agents. A good first step is to take as much e-learning as I can to learn more about the future of AI partnership!

roger berg · February 12

I'm such a newbie when it comes to AI that my goals are just to become more familiar and comfortable with the whole concept.

I've always struggled with how to make our thank you letters seem less "boiler plate" and more personal. With our loyal donors - and especially those who give multiple times throughout the year - it's hard to not be repetitive. I'm intrigued with having some AI assistance in that area.

Liz Hackett · February 13

I'd be interested to know how to use AI to make comms more location specific. We just installed the Region Code feature pack and wondering how we can use that with AI to make our comms more relevant to specific regions/states

Chris Fedor · February 13

My goal is to learn as much as I can about AI that's accessible to me and how I can use it to benefit my organization and to be more efficient. I love that the AI I'm using with Blackbaud so far is closed loop so it feels like a safe way to learn and explore AI.

Lauren Henderson · February 13

I want to continue to utilize AI to help with repetitive and tedious tasks that a computer can do much more efficiently than I can (like formatting spreadsheets for import!) and collaborating to improve my written communications and utilizing agentic AI for research projects. I want to use AI to maximize my time and energy for human interactions.

Christine Newman · February 13

https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/310748#Comment_310748

@Liz Hackett You could actually try leveraging AI to brainstorm some ideas for this! (Of course using a tool that falls within your organization's guidelines)

Christine Newman · February 13

https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/310735#Comment_310735

@roger berg the new free certification that's coming from the AI Coalition for Social Impact will be a great resource for you! It will be launched soon, you can join the waitlist here to be among the first to be notified: Waitlist: AI for Social Impact Certification Course.

As far as personalizing donor communications, have you tried using the new Chat for Blackbaud AI in Raiser's Edge NXT yet to help with that?

Kristen Noe · February 13

I want to use AI in more ways and more effectively. Though I've been using it increasingly for a year, I still feel increasingly behind on what's available and possible, as well as the best ways to use it, and I'd like to get a better handle on that.

Privacy and security are still a large concern for me though, so I want to continue to push for policies within my org as a priority.

roger berg · February 13

Thanks Christine - yes I've played with Chat for Blackbaud AI -and I've introduced its features to our gift officers so that they can explore as well. I'll check out the certification course.

Sunshine Reinken Watson · February 13

My goal is to take a more thoughtful approach about when AI should and should not be used. I want to be proactive when making these decisions and will spend some professional development hours educating myself as AI continues to evolve.

Keith Wilson · February 13

Maybe, just maybe, our 2026 AI goal would be to enable the feature? 😉

AI is still such an emerging technology, and I'm not as young as I once was, so it can be hard to keep up with the rapidly changing AI landscape. I remain curious about it, may use it for help with writing emails or letters, and continue to look at automations to help make tasks more manageable. Honestly, it's hard enough adopting the unified view in RE-NXT. You want us to deploy AI as well? That's a bit much for this old fart to handle! Now get off my lawn! 🤣

Chanteasea Estes · February 13

This year, my goal is to use AI within RE NXT to improve data accuracy, automate routine tasks, and enhance reporting capabilities. I’m especially interested in how AI can help clean and standardize records, predict donor trends, and streamline workflows so our team can focus on strategy rather than manual processes.

Christine Newman · February 13

https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/310784#Comment_310784

@Keith Wilson I need the laughing emoji! I told someone the other day I think I'm reaching the "I walked uphill to school both ways" stage. I do hope the coming AI certification will be a useful resource for you, however, and help make it feel more accessible.

Keith Wilson · February 13

@Christine Newman
Yes! I like the new platform, but I do wish we had more reactions instead of just💡, 👍️ and ❤️!
I'm looking forward to the new certification., so we'll see what happen from there.

Chanteasea Estes · February 13

@Keith Wilson I am awaiting the new certification as well.

Lindsey Walliser · February 13

I'm excited to learn more about AI and how its emerging through technology. Want to learn how to use it more effectively and deep dive into it.

Cortney Moore · February 13

I love reading others comments. Thanks for sharing!

My AI goals this year are rooted in Purpose and Curiosity while being balanced with Responsibility and Challenge. How can we use AI to encourage purpose that builds mission focused work? If we have a gap or problem is there a type of AI (predictive, generative or agentic) that can help? Who are our partners and are we asking questions, listening, sharing and collaborating in this space?

Specific goals for 2026-

Complete the AI Certification
Predictive AI: continue to use PI Pro to prompt engagement with current donors and prospective donors ; learn more about options that can help other departments in our org
Generative AI: schedule dedicated time to use Blackbaud AI Chat to support donor engagement; continue to encourage team members, who are brilliant in the space of connection & vision and challenged to get ideas into streamlined documents, proposals, procedures, presentations, collateral that the whole team can access, to use tools that can help them; implement notetaking for meetings
Agentic AI: continue to work with our newest "team member", Val (our Development Agent) as we learn and expand her role to support donor engagement and fundraising; continue to learn more in this emerging wave of AI
Competence: ongoing discussion and training to reinforce AI Policy and AI Best Practices with team members

Rachel Kauer · February 16

Goal 1: Expand the Use of AI Chat to Streamline Data Team Workflows

Increase my own proficiency with AI chat tools and build confidence among gift officers in using them for quick constituent summaries, routine questions, and basic information lookups. By shifting these simple tasks to AI chat, we can reduce the volume of low‑complexity requests sent to the data team, allowing us to focus on higher‑level analysis, reporting, and complex list generation.

90% of our gift officers are using NXT, but don't always understand what they are looking at - like understanding they need to click into "work with gifts" to see the whole gift history on a record - rather than thinking the tile snap shot is al gifts on the record - even just using to AI chat to explain what different parts of the record do would be a big relief of the constant stream of questions to the data team.

Goal 2: Explore and Implement an AI Agent for Basic Stewardship and Solicitation Support

A. Introduce the concept of an AI agent capable of handling foundational stewardship tasks to the Director of Advancement and our Director of Donor Relations, such as simple follow‑ups, acknowledgment prompts, and routine donor touchpoints, and evaluate its feasibility within our department.

B. Additionally, explore how an AI agent could complement Giving Day solicitations by assisting with personalization, reminders, and basic engagement messaging.

AI Explorers

What are your AI goals this year?

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