Speaker: Christa Stelzmuller, CTO, charity: water
What if your affiliate could free up hours before year-end by unifying donors, volunteers, sweat equity hours, ReStore activity, and events, so more families move toward homeownership?
What is Habitat NEXT?
At the first-ever Habitat NEXT, Christa Stelzmuller, CTO at charity: water, headlined a keynote fireside chat for Habitat for Humanity affiliates nationwide. She unpacked how affiliates can use responsible AI, tighten data hygiene, and align teams around an all-in-one nonprofit CRM to accelerate fundraising, volunteer coordination, and home preservation outcomes.
Habitat NEXT is Giveffect’s free virtual summit designed specifically for Habitat affiliates. Over three days, peers share practical playbooks while we spotlight technology and workflows such as volunteer scheduling, sweat equity tracking, event and auction tools, and integrated email that reduce manual work and lift year-end fundraising results.
Start small with AI and keep a human in the loop
Christa framed AI as both an accelerator and a new responsibility. The mandate: experiment deliberately, teach people how to use it, and build guardrails.
“One of my top priorities is working both the how do we use AI to make a positive difference and how do we also defend against all of the increasing threats that are coming from AI.”
Where this lands in Giveffect: Many affiliates use the built-in AI Writer to jump-start appeals and emails right inside the CRM, then refine with their voice. This is exactly the “human in the loop” discipline Christa recommends. It’s a fast win that saves time without outsourcing judgment.
Build a clean, connected data foundation
AI and automation don’t fix messy data. Christa’s advice was blunt: get your house in order first.
“AI is garbage in garbage out, and if you don’t have the right data foundation in place, that’s what should be next for you…”
In practice with Giveffect: an all-in-one, single contact record ties together donor CRM, event ticketing and check-in, volunteer shifts, email, and QuickBooks sync. Required fields, de-dupe, and unified reports mean your campaigns, receipts, and stewardship all draw from the same accurate profile.
Break silos: change management > feature lists
Tools don’t change outcomes; teams do. Christa urged leaders to identify super users, involve them early, and run lightweight user testing before rollouts.
“You cannot change that system just from a technology perspective… you have to have your business partners in place and they have to know how that technology is going to be used.”
Inside Giveffect: shared views, saved segments, and role-based permissions let fundraising, volunteers, Restore, and finance work from the same data while seeing what they need. Pair that with a 30-minute “how we’ll use this” walk-through and weekly adoption check-ins, and usage sticks.
Meet donors where they are: from search to “agentic” giving
Discovery is shifting into conversational interfaces. People will expect to learn and give in the same place, without having to bounce through multiple steps.
The older model: find info, click to website, then donate “is being upended right now.”
Apply it with Giveffect: use streamlined donation pages and embeddable forms linked directly from campaigns, emails, and chat so supporters move from learn → give in one smooth flow, with source tracking intact.
Make the mission tangible with modern storytelling
Christa described charity: water’s Experience Lab, including a VR film that walks supporters through Grace’s journey from water scarcity to clean water—prototyped and tested before launch.
The takeaway isn’t “buy headsets.” It’s to invest in formats that build empathy and then measure the lift—time on page, email replies, gifts per visitor.
Practical tip in Giveffect: host your story pages and capture interest with quick actions (pledge, volunteer shift sign-up, sponsor callback). Every click enriches the same supporter record for smarter follow-up.
Don’t fear the migration. Plan it
Data migrations are tedious—and transformational. Clean first, migrate with help, and emerge with a system your board and team can trust.
How we help at Giveffect: our onboarding team maps fields, assists with importing your historical donors, volunteers, transactions, and tags so you start unified—not from scratch. You don’t need to go through migration alone. All nonprofits that adopt Giveffect are connected to a migration specialist to guide you throught the process.
Want the full keynote?
The full recording is not currently available to the public. If you’d like special access to the keynote and a curated bundle of session replays, book a strategy call with our team. You’ll get the links after the call.
Book your strategy call with Giveffect HERE.
Habitat for Humanity is a registered service mark of Habitat for Humanity International. This resource is not affiliated with or endorsed by Habitat for Humanity International.