AI Exposure · Charity CRM
What Donorfy actually does with your data
A UK charity CRM where the AI mostly arrives through the side door: optional integrations. What you connect decides where your supporter data goes.
- Trains on your data
- Ask the integration, not Donorfy
- Processed
- Check the sub-processor list
- Can you turn it off
- Yes, by choosing what you connect
- Verified
- 2 July 2026, against Donorfy's published documents
What AI is in it?
- Predictive donor scoring, via Dataro. An optional integration that adds machine learning scores to your constituents, predicting who is likely to give. Your donor histories are the raw material.
- AI chat, via Chat2Impact. An optional integration that puts an AI chat on your site to answer supporters' questions, take donations and event tickets, and write what it learns back into the CRM.
- More on the horizon. Donorfy is part of The Access Group and talks about AI powered fundraising as coming. Features can arrive with an update, so this entry will change.
Does your data train AI models?
Ask the integration, not Donorfy.
Donorfy itself publishes no statement about AI training, and in fairness there is little built in AI to publish one about.
The real training question moves sideways: the moment you connect Dataro or Chat2Impact, it is their policies that decide whether your donors' data trains their models. Each integration deserves the same three questions before it is switched on: does our data train your AI, where is it processed, and can we turn it off?
Where is your data processed?
Check the sub-processor list.
Donorfy's data protection page says your data is "safe and sound in our servers", and does not name a country or a cloud provider. The sub-processor list sits in a separate PDF.
So the hosting answer is not on the page, which makes it worth one written question to Donorfy support: where is our database hosted? Every integration you connect then adds its own destination, Mailchimp being the obvious example.
Free versus paid: Integrations, not tiers. The AI here is not a plan feature that appears one day. It is add ons your organisation chooses to connect. That cuts the opposite way to most tools in this directory: nothing arrives by default, but each connection is a real decision with real consequences, usually taken by whoever manages the CRM without anyone calling it a data protection decision.
Can your organisation turn it off?
Yes, by choosing what you connect.
Because the AI arrives via integrations, the control is the decision to connect. The job is governance rather than settings: know what has been connected, who connected it, and what each connection can see.
What does this mean for the people you support?
A fundraising CRM holds exactly the data supporters would least expect to travel: who gave, how much, how often, and every note a fundraiser ever made.
An AI chat talking to supporters is processing their personal data with a third party in real time, and predictive scoring means giving histories flow to an AI company. None of that is wrong. All of it should be chosen on purpose.
What to check this week
- List what is already connected. In Donorfy, review which integrations are live: Dataro, Chat2Impact, Mailchimp and the rest. Each one is a place your supporter data goes. Write the list down; it belongs in your AI policy.
- Read the integration's small print, not just Donorfy's. The three questions, does our data train your AI, where is it processed, can we turn it off, belong to the integration vendor. Ask them in writing before connecting, not after.
- Ask Donorfy where the data lives. The published pages do not name a country or provider. Ask support in writing where your database is hosted and keep the answer with your records.
Sources
Everything above is my plain English reading of what Donorfy publishes. The originals:
- Donorfy: Features reviewed 2 July 2026
- Donorfy: Data protection reviewed 2 July 2026
Vendors change these documents quietly and often. If you spot something out of date, email me and I'll re-verify the entry.
What if the AI reading your CRM was yours?
Donorfy is a CRM, and CRMs are exactly what this is for. The fictional charity I use for demonstrations runs CiviCRM rather than Donorfy, but that difference does not matter: both hold their donor records behind an API.
The API is what a private AI assistant running in your own AWS account reads, with every figure linking back to the real record. You keep Donorfy, and no outside AI company sees the question or the answer.
Here is that assistant answering "Who are our top donors this year, and have we thanked them?" from the demo charity's live CRM records. The full walkthrough is at analyse your donor data just by asking.
See your whole toolkit at once
This page covers one tool. The AI Exposure Report Generator covers your toolkit: tick the tools your charity uses and get one report showing what the AI inside each of them does with your data, as a Word document you can table at your next meeting. Free, and nothing you tick leaves your browser.
The Report Generator, start to finish: tick your tools, read your exposure, download the report.
Read the other tools
The same questions, answered for every tool in the directory.
Your office suite
Microsoft 365 Copilot
The AI inside Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams. It can reach whatever the signed in person can reach.
Verified 2 July 2026 →
Google Workspace with Gemini
Gemini inside Gmail, Docs, Drive and Meet. Google says your content is not used to train models outside your domain. What it can reach is the longer answer.
Verified 3 July 2026 →AI chatbots
ChatGPT
The one your staff are probably already using. What happens to what they type depends entirely on whose account it is.
Verified 2 July 2026 →
Google Gemini
Google's chatbot, one tap away on Android phones, in Chrome and in search. On a personal account, the training switch is on until someone finds it.
Verified 2 July 2026 →
Claude
Anthropic's chatbot. The same personal versus organisational story as the others, with the training question put to you as a setting.
Verified 2 July 2026 →Meeting notetakers
Otter.ai
The notetaker that joins your meetings, and can invite itself to the next one. What it hears may help train its AI.
Verified 2 July 2026 →
Microsoft Teams
The meeting recorder your charity already owns. Everything it captures becomes a file in OneDrive and SharePoint, where the rest of the AI can reach it.
Verified 3 July 2026 →
Zoom AI Companion
The AI inside the video calls much of the sector runs on. Zoom's no training promise is unusually specific, and there is a reason it is worded that way.
Verified 2 July 2026 →
Fathom
The free notetaker that arrives one personal install at a time. The recordings live in the US, and the training answer has two halves.
Verified 3 July 2026 →Charity CRMs
Beacon
A UK charity CRM with AI on every plan since 2024. Beacon publishes where your data sits and how to switch the AI off, which leaves one question to ask them directly.
Verified 2 July 2026 →
Donorfy
A UK charity CRM where the AI mostly arrives through the side door: optional integrations. What you connect decides where your supporter data goes.
You are here
CiviCRM
The open source CRM ships no AI of its own. What that is worth to you depends on which CiviCRM you are running: one your organisation hosts, or a hosted product somebody sells you. Everything below splits along that line.
Verified 20 July 2026 →
Salesforce
In much of the sector through ten free licences. The AI paperwork is detailed and mostly reassuring, with one default that runs the other way.
Verified 3 July 2026 →Accounts
Xero
Your accounts package now has an assistant called JAX. Xero says your data is not used to train its AI, and names the AI companies your questions travel to.
Verified 20 July 2026 →
QuickBooks
Intuit's accounts package now has an assistant throughout. Its privacy statement says your information is used to train its AI models, and it says so in as many words.
Verified 3 July 2026 →Marketing and design
Mailchimp
Your supporter mailing list lives here, and Mailchimp belongs to Intuit now, which means the same small print as QuickBooks covers it.
Verified 3 July 2026 →
Canva
The design tool half the sector lives in, free through Canva for Nonprofits. Whether your uploads help train AI depends on whose account they sit in.
Verified 3 July 2026 →