Sustainable giving with Raise: The best kept secret in fundraising

The power of AI in fundraising

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a digital computer or robot to perform tasks commonly associated with human beings. AI is already at work in many of our day-to-day tools and processes—virtual chat, targeted ads online, and even facial recognition on our smartphones. While it can be intimidating, AI helps us achieve things faster and more efficiently both in our personal lives and at work.

Fundraising is no exception. In fundraising, AI can help you with the administrative tasks of identifying, prioritizing and prompting outreach to prospects and donors so that you can focus on raising more money.

AI tools can help fundraisers eliminate time spent researching donors—their personal milestones, recommended ask amounts—by finding and suggesting this information in the time it takes to click a button. This gives fundraisers more opportunities to personally connect with your donor network at a scale and rate that simply wouldn’t be possible without AI. AI tools allow organizations to manage relationships at four times the previous rate (AAAC State of AI in Advancement 2020, AAAC). While it may seem counterintuitive, machine learning helps us make more frequent and meaningful human connections and lends to a more sustainable fundraising program over time. 

Key challenges (and solutions)of sustainable giving programs

Fundraisers are faced with a tough landscape: an economic recession, post-pandemic mass resignations and political and social upheaval. How can organizations continue to not only maintain but grow their donor pool and donations while managing the changes these challenges present within their own teams? 

The Great Resignation: Staffing + leadership changes

Post-pandemic, organizations are facing a new challenge—the Great Resignation. Employees are leaving their companies in search of opportunities more attuned to their new lifestyles, whether it be working fully from home or on the road, a hybrid model or something more custom. In turn, organizations are grappling with how to not only retain current employees but also attract new talent in this new landscape. 

Attracting the right people for your fundraising team is critical to your program’s success. One way to peak the interest of top talent is through the promise of modern, reliable and cutting edge technology to be able to do their job. 

Technology also plays a crucial role in the work itself. As organizations are faced with slashed budgets and shrinking departments, they rely on technology to serve as an extension of their fundraising team. 

That’s where Raise from Gravyty comes in. Raise’s patented AI technology automates the most time-consuming processes that get in the way of the important work fundraisers do to cultivate donor relationships. It acts as a fundraiser’s personal assistant, performing the day-to-day administrative tasks that so often get in the way of true donor connections. 

Portfolio management

Managing a donor portfolio is a full-time job. Between stewarding engaged donors, identifying new prospects, targeting the right major donors, and donor segmentation for various initiatives, fundraisers don’t often have the time to execute a new campaign, handle staff turnover, and grow their existing portfolio. 

AI helps mitigate these pain points in portfolio management. With Raise from Gravyty, you can use dashboards to identify bottlenecks, shift donors into portfolios for a new campaign and adjust existing portfolios to manage turnover and team restructures. Raise is designed to help fundraisers steward their donors in a personalized, timely and sustainable way.

Introducing new messaging to constituents

Messaging in fundraising campaigns is crucial to its success with donors. Will alumni and constituents resonate with your organization’s mission? How can fundraising teams keep up with official messaging to include in their outreach communications?

Campaigns like annual galas, reunions and Giving Tuesday and other Giving Days all require targeted messaging to strike the right note at the right time. 

With Raise from Gravyty, organizations can load templated messages for special campaign outreach and have custom messages for each of their portfolios or target audiences. This allows for fundraisers to ensure they’re targeting constituents and donors with the messages that resonate the most at the right time.

Rethinking donor visits

Travel is expensive and budgets are limited, but nothing can replace the human connection made during an in-person visit. Optimize your travel by targeting areas rich in donors who are ready to engage. 

Raise’s proactive travel planning tool recommends your next travel destinations based on the clusters of donors identified by Raise’s AI algorithms as being most likely to donate next. 

Have a regional event or an important out of town donor visit already scheduled? No problem. You can also request a travel plan based on your preferred destination, and Raise will let you know who else you should reach out while you’re in the area.

Sustainable giving through personalized outreach

It’s clear fundraisers need a new way of working to meet the monetary goals of their organizations while dealing with staff turnover and growing portfolios. AI-powered fundraising software like Raise helps teams sustain—and amplify—their fundraising efforts through personalized outreach at scale with the touch of a button. 

Raise delivers the first proactive and personalized email draft for frontline fundraisers, and automatically records all fundraiser communication with donors and prospects directly in your CRM. These meaningful actions and activities drive future communication prompts, ensuring that all outreach is accurate and impactful.

Learn how to increase fundraiser capacity with a more organized, automated and streamlined system with Raise. Get a demo.