Using AI to Segment Donors with RFM Analysis

Using AI to Segment Donors with RFM Analysis

by | Nov 12, 2026 | AI, Guide

I’m not a spreadsheet expert, and my coding skills are non-existent. I still ran a full RFM analysis on a donor file, with an AI assistant doing the heavy lifting.

I first tried this for one of CharityCAN’s AI Office Hours webinars, where we look at practical ways prospect researchers can use AI. The goal was simple: see whether an AI assistant could run a Recency, Frequency, Monetary (RFM) analysis without me writing a single formula.

A year later, the tools have only gotten better. Uploading a spreadsheet and asking an assistant to analyze it is now an everyday task, and most AI assistants can work with files directly. The process below isn’t tied to any one platform. It’s a useful template for anyone who wants to try this with their own data.

Choosing the Dataset

I wanted something clean, public and manageable. I settled on federal political contributions to the Green Party of Canada going back to 2022.

I pulled the data from CharityCAN (I have an account 😉). Elections Canada would have worked too, since federal political contributions are public in Canada.

Uploading and Cleaning the Data

I uploaded a basic spreadsheet with donor names, donation dates, donation amounts and recipient organizations. The AI helped me inspect and clean it:

  • Removing formatting issues, such as dollar signs in the amount field
  • Converting dates to a consistent format
  • Dropping incomplete or irrelevant rows

This step is crucial, and the AI handled it quickly. It would have taken me at least a few hours on my own. And let’s be honest, it isn’t fun work.

A donor spreadsheet before and after cleaning: dollar signs removed, dates standardized, incomplete rows dropped

Running the Numbers

With the data cleaned up, I asked the AI to calculate the three RFM numbers:

  • Recency: days since a donor’s last gift
  • Frequency: number of gifts the donor has made
  • Monetary: total dollar value of all gifts

It grouped the data by donor and calculated each number. Then we scored every donor from 1 (lowest) to 4 (highest) on each measure.

Recency, frequency and monetary cards, each with a donor score from 1 to 4

Creating Donor Segments

After each step, I had the AI prepare the file for download so I could review its changes. After scoring, it prepared the sheet and then suggested segmenting the donors on its own.

I expected this step to need a lot more direction from me. I said “yes, go ahead,” and here’s what it came up with:

  • Champions: recent, frequent and high-value donors
  • Loyal Donors: consistent givers with moderate value
  • Potential Loyalists: moderate frequency, growing potential
  • Recent Donors: new givers who need nurturing
  • At Risk: lapsed or declining engagement
  • Lost Donors: long inactive

At the time, that suggestion felt like a wow moment. Today, it’s what you should expect from a good AI assistant: it doesn’t just follow instructions, it proposes the next logical step.

Six donor segments plotted by how recently and how much donors give, from Lost Donors to Champions

A Few Things I’d Add Now

  • Check the work. Spot check a handful of donors against the raw file before you act on any scores or segments.
  • Mind your data. Follow your organization’s privacy and data policies before uploading donor information to any AI tool. A public dataset, like the one I used, is a safe place to practice.
  • Ask for the reasoning. Have the AI explain how it set score cutoffs and defined each segment, so you can adjust them to fit your program.

What I Took Away

My brilliant colleagues are the ones who make the CharityCAN magic happen. But this simple experiment showed me how accessible RFM analysis can be with the right tools.

Curious about donor segmentation, RFM analysis or experimenting with AI? This is a low-barrier place to start. Just dive in.

Worst case, you learn something. Best case, you learn something and walk away with actionable data.

Who Can Introduce You? How Relationship Paths Works

Who Can Introduce You? How Relationship Paths Works

by | Nov 12, 2026 | Relationship Mapping

You know who you want to meet. The harder question is who can introduce you.

Relationship Mapping shows you a prospect’s network. Relationship Paths answers a narrower question: how do you get from here to there?

Relationship Paths puts our relationship data to its most direct use. Name the person, company, charity or foundation you want to reach, and CharityCAN returns every connection path the records support.

Start From a Person or an Organization

Every path has two ends. On one end is someone or something on your side: a board member, a volunteer, a staff lead or your own charity. On the other is the person, company, charity or foundation you hope to reach.

Choosing both ends is the point. Instead of browsing a prospect’s whole network, you are asking a specific question about a specific pair.

A path can start from a board member or your organization and end at a person, company, charity or foundation

Between Two People, It Finds the Seats They Share

When both ends are people, Relationship Paths looks for the boards they have in common. That includes charity boards drawn from T3010 filings, plus corporate boards and executive roles from Canadian corporate records.

A board chair and a prospect who both sat on the same hospital foundation board share more than a line on a résumé; they spent years in the same meetings.

A board chair and a prospect connected through a shared hospital foundation board seat

Between Two Organizations, It Finds the People They Share

Relationship Paths also works from organization to organization. A director who sits on a company board and a charity board connects the two, whether those organizations are companies, charities or foundations.

This is useful for corporate and foundation prospecting. Your own charity’s board, or the board of a partner organization, may already include someone who sits at the table you are trying to reach.

Your charity and an energy company connected by a director who sits on both boards

Then It Checks That They Served at the Same Time

Two people on the same board ten years apart never met. A shared board only matters when the terms overlap.

Relationship Paths compares service dates and keeps the links where people held their seats at the same time. Overlapping dates are what make a link worth using.

Board timelines showing one pair of terms that overlapped and one pair that did not

No Direct Link? It Finds Someone in the Middle

Many prospects have no direct connection to anyone on your side. Relationship Paths then looks one step further, for someone who knows both.

A path might run from your board chair, through a hospital foundation board, to a fellow director, and from that director through an energy company board to your prospect. Paths can run through people and organizations alike; a fellow director who knows both sides is often the best introduction you have.

A path from a board chair to a prospect through a fellow director who knows both

Every Path Is a Question for Your Board

A path is only useful once someone acts on it. A practical way to put Relationship Paths to work:

  1. Pick your targets. Choose the prospects, companies or foundations you most want to reach this year.
  2. Run the paths. Start from your board members, volunteers and your own organization.
  3. Export the results. Bring the list of paths to your next board meeting.
  4. Ask for the call. Go through each path and ask who knows the person in the middle and is willing to make an introduction.

The data finds the connection; your board turns it into a meeting.

A list of exported relationship paths, person to person and organization to organization

Relationship Mapping for Frontline Fundraisers

by | Nov 28, 2025 | Uncategorized

Relationship mapping is a cornerstone of philanthropic prospect research but it’s not just for prospect researchers. Successful major gift officers and other frontline fundraisers understand how to use relationship mapping to boost giving. Relationship mapping provides a clear view of who can open doors and enhance the likelihood of successful outreach.

Relationship mapping isn’t just about building family trees or identifying golf buddies (although that stuff counts too!). It’s about identifying the best path to a prospect and using that intelligence to strengthen your fundraising strategy.

Why Relationship Mapping Matters

Trust matters in major gift fundraising. An introduction from the right person shortens timelines and increases the likelihood of meaningful engagement. It can even result in immediate success. 

Relationship mapping delivers three key advantages:

  • Better access
    Identify board members, executives, and donors who are directly or indirectly connected to your priority prospects.
  • Better engagement
    Leverage shared connections who can validate your outreach and elevate your credibility.
  • Better portfolios
    Focus on the high potential prospects in your portfolio

How Frontline Fundraisers Can Use It Immediately

1. Prepare for Outreach

Before contacting any high-value prospect, review their relationship map. Determine who in your organization’s network is best positioned to make an introduction.

2. Engage Board Members With Purpose

Instead of broad requests for “names,” give board members curated lists of prospects they already have relationships with. 

3. Strengthen Donor Strategies

Use relationship maps during portfolio reviews to uncover secondary paths (spouses, colleagues, former classmates, or business partners) who can influence a prospect.

4. Identify New Opportunities

Maps often reveal clusters: groups of individuals connected through companies, industries, or communities where your organization already has a foothold. Treat these clusters as strategic prospecting goldmines.

Relationship mapping doesn’t replace the relationship-building so many successful major gift officers excel at, it elevates it. Frontline fundraisers who understand and apply relationship mapping have a marked advantage over those who do not and the result is simple: more major gifts.

Understanding Donation Records in Canada

by | Oct 17, 2025 | Uncategorized

Donation records are an essential tool for Canadian fundraisers. They provide insight into giving behaviour, help assess philanthropic capacity, and support the cultivation of meaningful donor relationships. But the availability of donation data depends on whether the gift is made by an individual, a corporation, or a foundation.

Individual Donation Records

Canada does not have a publicly accessible database of individual (or corporate) charitable donations. Privacy laws protect the confidentiality of personal charitable contributions.

However, third-party prospect research platforms, such as CharityCAN, have aggregated millions of disclosed individual gifts using web crawlers that capture data from media announcements, gala listings, and annual reports. While not a substitute for government filings, this information helps fundraisers spot patterns and affinities.

Corporate Donation Records

Like individual giving, corporate giving is not subject any legal disclosure requirements. However, companies often share their community investments through CSR reports, press releases, and annual reports. Companies give for a variety of reasons and, usually, one of them is to be recognized for their giving. 

Like with individual giving, third-party databases have captured hundreds of thousands of disclosed corporate gifts, offering fundraisers valuable insight into corporate giving behaviour.

Foundation Donation Records

Foundations are the most transparent category of donors in Canada. All registered foundations must file the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return with the CRA. This includes:

  • Financial data such as assets and liabilities
  • Gifts of $5,000+ to other charities
  • Directors, trustees, and officers

This legally required reporting makes foundation giving records a cornerstone of prospect research in Canada. 

Key Takeaways

  • Individual donations are private unless self-disclosed.
  • Corporate gifts are selectively disclosed, usually in CSR reporting.
  • Foundation gifts are fully public via the CRA.
  • Third-party databases aggregate disclosed gifts from individuals and corporations

Solving the DAF Puzzle with CharityCAN

by | Oct 17, 2025 | Uncategorized

Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs) are one of the fastest growing giving vehicles in Canada, but they can be difficult to identify and research. For fundraisers and prospect researchers, this is a challenge. This article outlines what DAFs are, why they matter, and how CharityCAN can help you identify, research, and connect with them.

What is a Donor-Advised Fund?

A Donor-Advised Fund is a giving account set up within a public foundation, a community foundation, or the charitable arm of a financial institution. Donors contribute assets to the fund, receive an immediate tax receipt, and then recommend grants to registered charities over time.

The sponsor retains legal control, but donor preferences typically guide granting decisions. In Canada, common sponsors include CanadaHelps, Charitable Impact, community foundations across the country, and financial institutions like RBC, TD, and BMO.

Each of these “parent” organizations may manage hundreds or even thousands of individual funds, each with its own focus and level of donor involvement.

Why DAFs are Hard to See

Unlike registered charities, DAFs are not required to publish detailed information about their grants. While some sponsors provide summaries or highlight grantees in their reports, most donor-level details are not public. This level of transparency makes it difficult to see who exactly is behind the gift and where that gift is going. 

That said, with the right approach and tools DAF activity can be identified and researched. 

Using CharityCAN to Identify, Research, and Connect with DAF Prospects

Here’s how CharityCAN can help:

  1. Search for DAF Sponsors with Capacity Start by looking for sponsoring organizations that host DAFs. Use CharityCAN’s charity search tools to filter for number of DAFs held, total dollar value of DAFs held, donations to DAFs and disbursements from DAFs
  2. Review Giving History for Affinity Now, use CharityCAN to review their donation records. Look for patterns of giving to causes or organizations. For example, a community foundation consistently supporting hospitals may well hold DAFs interested in supporting healthcare. 
  3. Map Relationships for Connectivity Now for the fun stuff. Use Relationship Paths, or the Connections tab on the organization’s Charity Analyst Report, to see if your organization has any connections to the DAF holder you are researching. If you do, engage that board member in your project. Ask for an introduction and make your appeal.

Summary

For researchers and fundraisers, DAFs can feel opaque. You can make things clear by focusing on three key things:

  • capacity (assets and fund volume), 
  • affinity (giving history)
  • connectivity (relationships)

CharityCAN helps you move through each stage of this process, from identifying active sponsors to finding connections to help with engagement. This data-driven approach can change DAFs from an area of unease to a reliable source of support.