Advance from Gravyty vs. ScaleFunder: A better way to power your giving day

Advance from Gravyty vs. Scalefunder

As ScaleFunder begins to phase out, advancement teams are looking for a reliable and feature-rich alternative to support their giving days. 

With time-sensitive campaigns and donor engagement on the line, finding a platform that gives your team tools they need and flexibility modern fundraising requires is critical for success.

Advance from Gravyty offers a seamless path forward. Designed for education professionals, it combines customizable giving forms, smart automation, and a dedicated onboarding team to make the transition simple and quick. 

Advance helps institutions move beyond the limitations of ScaleFunder with tools and support that elevate fundraising results and improve giving day results.

“A major part of our decision to partner with Gravyty was our focus on improving our efficiency, without sacrificing impact—to be able to do more with less. Gravyty also better integrates with our CRM to easily and reliably track donor actions and see behavior patterns, pivotal for delivering a personalized donor experience while reducing workload on our frontline team.”

Quinn Anderson

Director of Advancement Information Systems, Boise State University

See Advance in action

Key differences between Advance from Gravyty and ScaleFunder

Advancement teams are turning to Advance for a more feature-rich and flexible fundraising platform, one designed to help higher education teams meet the needs of modern fundraising. 

Advance offers a mobile-first platform with always-on giving forms, robust reporting and analytics, smart email and video outreach automation, and dedicated strategic support.

While ScaleFunder provided a  solid foundation for giving days, Advance gives your advancement teams the tools and flexibility to take their fundraising and engagement to the next level.

Side-by-side comparison: Advance from Gravyty vs. ScaleFunder

Feature

Advance from Gravyty

ScaleFunder

Purpose-built for higher ed

✅ Yes

✅ Yes

End-to-end donor lifecycle engagement

✅ Yes

✅ Yes

Automated video outreach

✅ Yes

❌ No

Easily customizable giving pages

✅ Yes

✅ Yes

Embedded payments

✅ Yes

❌ No

Robust reporting & analytics

✅ Yes

〰️ Limited

Advanced email marketing

✅ Yes

❌ No

CRM & platform integrations

✅ Yes

✅ Yes

Ambassador functionality

✅ Yes

❌ No

Donor advised fund (DAF) payment acceptance

✅ Yes

❌ No

Gamification

✅ Yes

〰️ Limited

Automated abandoned cart donation reminders

✅ Yes

❌ No

This side-by-side view highlights the critical gaps left by ScaleFunder and how Advance fills them with advanced, donor-centric solutions. Advance from Gravyty and ScaleFunder take very different approaches to supporting advancement teams. Let’s take a closer look at how Advance delivers more value across multiple key areas of fundraising success.

Smarter tools for modern college & university giving days

Advance from Gravyty gives advancement teams the control, flexibility, and scalability they need to run wildly successful giving days again and again.

Mobile experience designed for today’s donors—and advancement teams

Teams can design, launch, and manage giving day campaigns that look stunning and perform seamlessly across all devices. Advance’s drag-and-drop tools and easy-to-use admin dashboard ensure that advancement teams can create a frictionless donor experience whether they’re giving from a phone, tablet, or desktop.

“We were live in ten minutes. We branded it, added photos and giving amounts, and launched it ourselves. We could finally see what was working, pivot mid-campaign, and bring real data to leadership.“

Melissa Vogt

Executive Director of Annual Giving, Business Intelligence, UC San Diego

Customizable giving forms

With easily customizable donation forms, advancement teams can create donor experiences that feel personal and intuitive. Advance supports large-scale giving days as well as everyday giving, so institutions of every size can stay connected and top of mind year-round. Add multiple funds so donors can select and add on to their donation. Donors can choose to give on an ongoing basis with a recurring donation field that you can customize.

Always-on engagement

Advance’s always-on donation forms mean you’re never limited to a single campaign. Advancement teams can launch daily, weekly, or seasonal initiatives, keeping momentum and donor interest high throughout the year.

Built for efficiency

Every feature in Advance is designed with ease of use in mind. The platform minimizes team workloads and reduces friction for donors while offering a seamless and intuitive admin experience, so you can convert more interactions into lasting support.

How Boston College High School increased giving day revenue by 49% with a small team

With limited staff resources and a short planning timeline, the BC High advancement team needed a scalable strategy to engage donors meaningfully while ensuring a seamless giving experience. 

By implementing Advance, they were able to personalize donor outreach, streamline gift processing, and track engagement in real time. Ultimately, they saw 43% more donors on giving day, with 41% of donors being new or lapsed for over two years. See their story →

School giving day ideas

Seamless implementation and dedicated support

While a switch from one platform to another can feel overwhelming—especially when critical giving day campaigns are at stake—Gravyty’s team of dedicated account managers (many of whom are former advancement professionals themselves) along with seamless onboarding and training resources make it easy to get up and running in advance of your next giving day.

With dedicated support, teams can go live in weeks, not months, with personalized guidance at every step.

Unlike ScaleFunder’s standard—and somewhat limited—hands-on support, Gravyty offers a dedicated support team who often have deep industry experience and understand your needs.

From the initial setup to ongoing optimization and support, institutions have access to proactive success experts who understand the challenges advancement teams face.

This level of partnership helps institutions avoid downtime, keep up momentum, and build long-term success. For advancement leaders, it means planning with confidence, knowing that their giving day strategy is fully supported before, during, and after migration.

Ready to upgrade your giving day strategy?

Advancement teams are reflecting and reimagining how they approach giving days and donor engagement. Advancement leaders should see this as an opportunity to modernize their strategies and adopt tools that better meet the needs and preferences of today’s donors.

Advance from Gravyty offers the flexibility, automation, and dedicated support that advancement leaders and their teams need to drive the best results possible. With a platform built for education professionals, it helps teams move forward with confidence, ensuring every giving day is successful and meets every institutional goal. Want to get started? Contact us today to learn more.

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