“[With Virtuous], we’re able to increase our overall impact without greatly increasing the staff time involved and oftentimes decreasing the staff time involved.”
— Katy Dorais, Director of Annual Giving and Grants, Alive
Top Challenges
A legacy CRM that slowed the team down with multiple views, rising costs, and missing functionality.
Staff dependence on one person for reports and queries due to an unintuitive, hard-to-navigate system.
No capacity to steward memorial donors with timely, compassionate follow-up despite the sensitivity of these gifts.
Online giving workflows that required excessive manual review and generated frequent donor support calls.
Hours lost each week to manual data entry, duplicate management, and moving reports through spreadsheets.
The Virtuous Difference
Reclaimed 8–12 hours each week by automating stewardship, task assignments, reporting, and online gift processing.
Delivered personalized, timely memorial-donor follow-up with automated email journeys and postcards.
Enabled the whole team to run reports, navigate dashboards, and manage data confidently without bottlenecks.
Reduced duplicate records and improved data clarity through centralized views and easy record comparison.
Improved online giving with batching, modern payment options, and fewer donor support calls.
Strengthened team capacity through Virtuous Academy training and ongoing partnership with a dedicated CSM.
Moving From Frustration to Hope With a Fundraiser-Centered CRM
As an organization devoted to walking with families through some of life’s hardest moments, Alive relies on clear data and seamless communication to deliver compassionate care.
But their previous CRM made even basic tasks difficult, slowing their team and limiting their ability to respond to grieving families with the timeliness their mission requires. Basic tasks required navigating between a database view and a web view. Reports, dashboards, donor interactions, and gift entry were all in different places. Rising CRM costs added pressure without improving functionality.
When the former CRM removed the one integration that made donor acknowledgments manageable, the team knew it was time to find something new. Katy Dorais, their Director of Annual Giving and Grants, shared how Virtuous stood out immediately because it was intuitive, customizable, and built by fundraisers.
“We felt hopeful for the first time in really a long time… Virtuous support[ed] our goals, instead of slowing us down.”
— Katy Dorais, Director of Annual Giving and Grants, Alive
Once they migrated to Virtuous, Alive began saving 8-12 hours every week and reduced their dependence on a single person for reporting and queries.
“Virtuous has opened up opportunities to try new things that previously felt too difficult or time-intensive. Tasks and initiatives that once seemed overwhelming now feel possible and often surprisingly simple to accomplish. It has really empowered our team to be more innovative and proactive in our fundraising.”
— Katy Dorais, Director of Annual Giving and Grants, Alive
Using Automation to Give Donors the Thoughtful Support They Deserve
Nearly every gift to Alive carries emotional weight. Many donors give in memory of someone they’ve lost. Yet before Virtuous, the team didn’t have the time or capacity to steward memorial donors with timely or personalized communication.
Automations in Virtuous CRM+ changed that.
“The time savings alone have given us so much more bandwidth to focus on donor meetings, submitting grant requests, planning direct mail campaigns, and continuing to leverage automations.”
— Katy Dorais, Director of Annual Giving and Grants, Alive
The team built a memorial-donor automation workflow that now sends a compassionate email seven days after a gift, written from the Director of Mission-Based Services and offering support for loved ones who are grieving. A second email introduces families to other Alive services, and a Virtuous-triggered postcard follows.
“We’re…so excited [about] the engagement we’ve had. We’ve had quite a few click-throughs. We’ve barely had any unsubscribes. [Before Virtuous], we wouldn’t have had the bandwidth to create emails… and remember to send them.”
— Katy Dorais, Director of Annual Giving and Grants, Alive
Automations also assign tasks after gifts based on gift amount, ensuring major donors and event donors receive timely follow-up. If a task isn’t completed, Virtuous CRM+ automatically sends reminders.
Before Virtuous, this work required messy spreadsheets and guesswork. Now it happens seamlessly.
“Our memorial donors are getting more than they ever have before, and we’re spending less time than ever before on it.”
— Katy Dorais, Director of Annual Giving and Grants, Alive
Making Online Giving Easier for Donors and Staff
Alive now uses cleaner, more intuitive donation forms using Virtuous Raise, the online giving platform. Gifts are automatically sorted by type and batched by day. Donor support specialists can quickly confirm details, update records, and enter new information, saving significant time each week on gift entry alone.
Their previous giving forms were difficult to navigate, often leading to friction during the giving process. With Virtuous Raise, they’ve fielded fewer support calls, and donors can give through their preferred method: PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, and credit cards.
Unified Data, Custom Dashboards, and Reporting That Actually Works
Since their previous CRM was not user-friendly, nearly all reports fell on Katy. Even basic queries took too much time and were intimidating for most users.
They opened the path to collaboration when they switched to Virtuous.
Even while still working from the Virtuous sandbox, the team discovered how intuitive the system was. While Katy was out on PTO, a staff member who couldn’t run a report in the old CRM built it successfully inside Virtuous.
Data is now clearer, cleaner, and easier to manage. Duplicate records are easy to identify and resolve, and staff can compare full records without switching screens.
Custom dashboards allow every team member to see the information most relevant to them. No more calling Katy. No more manually running reports.
Customer Support: Sharing Feedback That Leads to Real Change
Alive feels truly backed in their mission and knows their feedback is listened to and valued by the Virtuous team. They took full advantage of Virtuous Academy to accelerate their onboarding process. New staff members start with a solid foundation before they even meet with Katy, saving the team time and boosting confidence.
Their dedicated Customer Success Manager meets with them regularly and helps guide new automations, answer questions, and ensure the team continues growing.
Katy was also surprised and delighted to find that Virtuous truly listened to her feedback.
“[Virtuous] listens to user suggestions and… in just over a year’s time, I’ve seen them implement things that [we’ve suggested]... I truly feel like they care about our ability to support our organization’s mission… and increase philanthropy across the nation.”
— Katy Dorais, Director of Annual Giving and Grants, Alive
A Fundraising Platform That Feels Like a Part of Your Team
Adding Virtuous didn’t just feel like throwing in a new piece of tech or adding a tool; it felt like adding a new team member to her staff.
It feels like Virtuous is a part of our team too, and it’s not just a tool we use.”
— Katy Dorais, Director of Annual Giving and Grants, Alive
Virtuous CRM+ helps their staff do what they do best: build relationships that grow generosity.
If your team is ready to spend less time wrangling spreadsheets and more time deepening impact, it’s time to partner with a platform built to grow with you.
