Microsoft Scenario Library Nonprofit Streamline donor funding tracking and financial forecasting processes

Available with: Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and Copilot Studio

Nonprofit scenario: Streamline donor funding tracking and financial forecasting processes

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Scenario

Empower nonprofit finance teams to proactively plan, improve financial transparency, and efficiently manage funding gaps.

The Donor Opportunity agent automates donor insights, budget reconciliation, and forecasting—giving teams instant, conversational access to real-time and historical data for more accurate, strategic decisions.

1. Answer basic funding queries​

A new finance employee compiles a list of spreadsheets to uncover donor allocation pipeline, funding timeline, and spend status. Analyst agent can help answer questions comparing charitable giving against the spend rate.

Analyst icon

Analyst

Benefit: Quick, intuitive access to current spend and remaining budget, enabling proactive visibility into funding timelines and project allocations

2. Create a budget based on funding

Copilot in Excel can help analyze current funding sources and spending patterns, then generate a budget that aligns resources with program needs and timelines.

Benefit: Save time and improve financial planning by letting Copilot quickly create a tailored budget, helping teams allocate funds efficiently and proactively address potential shortfalls.

3. Segment and score prospects

Next, Copilot in Excel can help assign a score to a list of prospects based on their donation frequency and average donation amount.

Benefit: Gain real-time donor funding tracking and alerting, helping nonprofits to more effectively manage the donor pipeline.

4. Predictive financial insights

By regularly analyzing funding, spending, and donor data, a Financial Insights agent proactively forecasts potential budget shortfalls​.

Microsoft Copilot Studio icon

AI Agent

Benefit: Proactively monitor budget risks and receive timely alerts about potential shortfalls by leveraging automated coordination to improve financial transparency and support smoother planning.

5. Analyze income, spending, and gaps

Next, Copilot in Power BI can help visualize and analyze financial data. With connectors to the organization’s data and the analysis started by the agent, Copilot generates interactive dashboards that break down income and spending.

Power BI icon

Copilot in Power BI

Benefit: Support strategic decision-making with interactive dashboards that enhance the team’s ability to plan, forecast, and prioritize donor funds and project management.

6. Autonomous monthly reporting

At the end of the month, the agent auto-generates slide decks for leadership, summarizing key metrics and recommending campaigns or partners based on funding analysis.

Microsoft Copilot Studio icon

AI Agent

Benefit: Reduce time spend manually compiling and reviewing donor spend data, improving reporting accuracy, and enabling leadership to make data-driven decisions quickly.

KPIs

Opportunity to impact key functional area KPIs

How Microsoft Copilot can help improve expense ratios

The administrative expense ratio measures the percentage of an organization’s expenses that are being allocated to administrative costs. This helps measure the direct impact of a charity’s program relative to the cost required to run it to help donors identify high-impact charities.

How Microsoft Copilot can help increase volunteer retention

Measure the organization’s success with reducing attrition and increasing repeat volunteerism.

How Microsoft Copilot can help improve program impact

Define a program’s theory of change, monitoring and evaluation goals, and deliver impact faster.

How Microsoft Copilot can help improve fundraising ROI

Fundraising ROI is the ratio of net funds raised divided by fundraising costs.

1Access Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat at m365copilot.com, or the Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat mobile app and set toggle to “Web”.

2Access Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat at m365copilot.com, the Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat mobile app, or the Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat app in Teams, and set toggle to “Work”.

3AI Agents allow Copilot to access your organization-specific apps. In the past this would have required an API call to get data from a system of record.

The content in this example scenario is for demonstration purposes only. You should evaluate how Copilot aligns with your organization’s business processes, regulatory requirements, and responsible AI principles.