Most fundraising shops by now probably have firsthand experience with top leadership asking
“Why aren’t we using AI?”
The immediate response should be obvious. We answer the question with a question.
“Use it for what?”
Now let’s pivot. For the Raiser’s Edge users that feel ignored or disenfranchised by either the cost of RENXT or by the company’s agonizingly slow rollout pace of requested features that were already existing in the old database view, I ran an experiment for you.
Using my Perplexity subscription, I wanted to create an RE replacement. I didn’t want to go through the full experience of having AI re-create the code and all features so as to host on my own platform. I needed a platform that was easy to use and would be accessible to most cash-strapped nonprofits. A decade ago I attempted something similar using FileMaker Pro. But given the abilities that would be needed and how many different kinds of connection services would have to be available for the final product, I decided to use Airtable.
Here was the prompt:
(in retrospect I would edit this)
Perplexity connected to my Airtable account. I provided the URL for the Sky API developer site. I answered some questions about the interface, the full abilities of RE, and a few other things. And then Perplexity went to work. Perplexity offered dozens of updates as it was constructing my project.
Now here’s the wild part. Even though I did not explicitly give this instruction, Perplexity built a data connector to be used between an RE account and the new project. In this case, Perplexity is using the sample database. Robert Hernandez is alive and well. In other words it built a pipeline so that data can move from RE to my new unnamed project. It ran into several errors along the way, but again with no prompts, it continues to find workarounds and a valuable path to success. My jaw is on the floor at this point. 🤯
Perplexity found good solutions, but not great solutions. It does encounter a few obstacles which it has no easy recourse for. A human brain might be necessary to fine tune some table connectivity. But on the balance of things, it creates 14 tables with only two issues to be resolved. On top of that, one more time with no prompting, it created a user manual.
Now this experiment comes with some high-level warnings and obstacles.
Should you go down this road:
There won’t be a support team that you can call or text. Should you lose data or functionality doesn’t work, your support team is Perplexity.
All LLM’s require a great deal of patience.
There are bound to be numerous bugs.
Even though you might specify make it look and behave as much like RE as possible, it might not be as close as you would like.
It won’t have the functionality of RE that can reach out to different kinds of services like address updater, BB analytics, etc. While it is completely possible to build alternatives to these, that’s more time investment on your part.
Think long and hard on whether such an approach is right for your organization. I think small nonprofits might benefit most, especially those that aren’t making a great deal of use of the non-CRM related features. Larger institutions that are heavily invested in a complex operating scheme might be disappointed with the limitations of the such a product.
You are immediately tempted to start making modifications. Going back to the old naming convention. Attributes instead of custom fields. Proposals instead of opportunities. You might want to throw in tables that don’t exist in web view yet like fund contacts and address attributes. Don’t do this. This is “polish the chrome” sort of stuff. It can wait until you’re satisfied the general approach is viable.
I wouldn’t go straight to production with a solution like this. Rather I would consider it a “Proof of concept”. It’s the beginning of an experiment, not the end. So don’t drop your RE subscription right away. Testing. Lots of testing. Evaluate abilities. Lots of evaluation. Investigate Airtable security, make sure it’s OK for your organization. And then make a hard decision - Yay or Nay?
But all that being said, the new product, which I will call “The Raiser’s Harmony”, is live!
(note, I have no intention of selling this creation. This is purely for experimental purposes. Check with a lawyer before doing any such thing)
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