Case study

How Boise State University got 87% more donors with AI-powered outreach

Key stats

87%

Increase

87% increase in donors year over year with AI-powered outreach

50%

Increase

50% increase in donor interactions and responses

$635,679

Raised

$635,679 raised, including $337,416 from new or increased giving

Six-figure

Donation

Raised a six-figure donation initiated through AI-powered outreach

74%

Opens

74% open rate and 6% response rate for donor outreach emails, more than doubling previous averages

About Boise State University

Boise State University (BSU) provides an innovative, transformative, and equitable educational environment that prepares students for success and advances Idaho and the world. Serving more than 32,000 students annually, Boise State is proud to be powered by creativity and innovation, receiving national recognition as one of the most innovative universities in the country.

The challenge: Engage more high-potential donors & boost outreach with a small leadership giving team

Boise State has thousands of alumni and annual giving donors within their database, yielding large Leadership Gift Officer portfolios. With only four Leadership Gift Officers, the advancement team needed a way to prioritize and engage donors with the highest potential to give and possibly become major donors. Additionally, the Leadership Annual Giving team wanted to ensure they were staying ahead of evolving donor behavior and drive a highly personalized donor experience through digital channels. 

Another goal of the Boise State advancement team was to consolidate their tech stack and optimize costs, while achieving aggressive pipeline goals.

The solution: “Do more with less” by implementing one end-to-end platform that streamlines donor engagement

The team turned to Gravyty to power its fundraising intiatives, which included annual giving campaigns, portfolio saturation, pipeline building, and donor engagement through personalized video stewardship and email.  

Using Gravyty’s AI-powered fundraising platform, Boise State’s Leadership Annual Giving team was able to streamline donor outreach, portfolio management and personalized stewardship to maximize fundraiser productivity. Gravyty enabled the gift officers to find and prioritize donors much quicker and save a considerable amount of time by leveraging pre-drafted emails. 

“Implementing targeted stewardship at scale allowed us to prioritize donors effectively, resulting in a significant increase in donor interactions and responses.”

Carly Snider,

Associate Director of Development, Boise State University

In addition to qualification outreach, the team’s stewardship messages increased immensely in both volume and efficiency. Prior to Gravyty, they had to scroll through a lengthy gift transaction sheet to find the gifts in their individual portfolios. With Gravyty, pre-written stewardship prompts are delivered  directly to the fundraisers’ inboxes, taking them 20 minutes to send out versus two hours with the manual process.

Transitioning their platform to Gravyty had the added benefit of reducing the number of technologies and vendors to manage. By consolidating from multiple platforms to a single vendor, the advancement team could spend more time focused on the donor experience and less time dealing with procurement, vendor management and contracts. 

The outcome

Within the first six months of implementing Gravyty, Boise State saw immediate results. Through AI-powered donor prioritization and automated email outreach prompts, fundraisers were able to target key donors at the right times, resulting in a notable increase in donor interaction and responses. 

The team also leveraged Gravyty’s video messaging tool to steward donors at scale with timely acknowledgement and continued engagement beyond the first gift.

  • 87% increase in donors year over year
  • 50% increase in donor interactions and responses
  • $635,679 raised, including $337,416 from new or increased giving
  • Raised a six-figure donation through AI-powered outreach
  • 74% open rate and 6% response rate for donor outreach emails
“The data speaks for itself; Raise prompted a remarkable $635,679 in giving, reflecting a significant uptick in donor engagement and generosity.“

Carly Snider,

Associate Director of Development, Boise State University

Solution spotlight

Gravyty’s AI-powered fundraising solution helps fundraisers 4x their donor outreach, significantly improving outcomes. Create a sustainable, scalable pipeline through AI-powered donor discovery, integrated digital giving data, portfolio saturation and omnichannel donor outreach. Reach the right people at the right time with smart prompts, video messaging, and donor communications that write themselves.

Want to learn more? Contact sales today to take a tour of the Gravyty fundraising platform.

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