This is the third post in an ongoing blog series about optimizing the performance of your fall fundraising campaigns by increasing the personalization of your donor experiences. To read ahead and get the complete checklist of optimization tactics, download the full guide: 5 Fundraising Personalization Tactics to Wow Your Donors and Smash Your Fall Fundraising Goals.

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Making the right ask of the right donor at the right time is a classic fundraising principle, but it is much easier said than done. Asking for too little from donors who are ready to give more will decrease your campaign's revenue, but asking for too much can decrease response rates when donors opt out of giving at all.

Getting ask amounts right can make or break your Year-End fundraising campaign, so your planning stage is a great time to reevaluate your ask strategy and make sure that you're set up to maximize fundraising this year.

Traditional ask string calculation

The delicate science of ask strings (also known as ask ladders or gift matrixes) generally relies on setting a base ask amount for each donor, and then multiplying it by standard variables (often 1.5x and 2x) to determine additional suggested ask amounts.

The most important factor is the base ask amount, which is often set based on a donors highest previous contribution or most recent contribution amount.

For example, when following the formula described above, a donor who has previously given a highest gift of $100 would be presented an ask ladder of $100, $150, and $200.

Asking smarter, not harder

Simple ask amount calculations like the one outlined above produce significantly better fundraising results than asking every donor for the exact same amount, but they are still limited by the amount of donor data taken into account. A donor's highest or most recent gift may not reflect their full giving ability, seasonal giving patterns, etc. Predictive AI models evaluate a donor's entire previous giving history to determine the ideal ask amount for each donor in order to maximize total fundraising.

The efficacy of using smart ask amounts has been demonstrated by countless Dataro clients who have mailed the same or smaller lists while raising more money and increasing average gift size.

Using Ask Amounts in Dataro

Dataro's Ask Amount recommendations are based on a large-scale analysis of fundraising ask ladders and outcomes. We analyzed several dozen different ask strategies and the giving behavior of millions of donors to develop a highly effective method to estimate the best Ask Amount for each donor. The model takes into account a donor's recent single giving behavior and finds a balance between their average and maximum donation amount. The model will generally ask for a reasonable increase in donation value, but is more conservative in cases where the donor has decreased their giving amounts, given less frequently, or has not donated a single gift recently.

You can add Ask Amounts to your mail file by building and exporting a list directly from the Dataro platform, or by including the Dataro Ask Amount field through your CRM integration.

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Download the full guide to personalizing your Year-End campaign here!