Top Challenges
- Scaling portfolio size from 250-500 constituents without losing the personalized touch.
- Equipping one mid-level gift officer to send personalized messaging to 500 constituents (with an already full schedule).
- Educating donors on the full-campus picture at a large university.
- Organizing and prioritizing donor outreach tasks within a large portfolio.
- Uniting teams across data.
The Virtuous Difference
- Doubled their portfolio size from 250 to 500 donors, while delivering more personalized engagement at scale.
- Generated a 60% response rate to personalized birthday emails using Virtuous Momentum AI-powered email drafts, resulting in increased donor conversations about aligning their passions with their generosity.
- Provided donors with a full-view picture of giving impact via personalized thank-you emails.
- Receives an AI-powered, daily outreach plan to organize daily tasks and prioritize outreach using Virtuous Momentum.
- Fostered cross-team collaboration using data from Virtuous Momentum, such as recurring gift data.
How MSU Denver Embraced AI While Treating Donors More Like Humans
When Pam Colbert began her role as mid-level gift officer at Metropolitan State University of Denver, she had all of the materials she needed, but she lacked access to a powerful technology partner to support her donor outreach.
Fueled by a goal of scaling her portfolio from 250 to 500 constituents, Pam began an avid search. But she had some stipulations: She needed technology that wouldn’t just provide technical support but also free up time for her to make personalized contact with donors.
What she landed on was AI.
A colleague of hers told her about Virtuous Momentum, an AI-powered fundraising assistant that sends a daily outreach plan along with personalized email drafts written in the voice of the gift officer, ready to edit and send.
Intrigued by the level of personalization Virtuous Momentum promised, Pam and her team adopted Virtuous Momentum as part of their daily fundraising practices…and haven’t looked back.
Using Virtuous Momentum for Personalized Outreach: Everything From Birthday Messages to Quarterly Updates
Pam quickly found that Virtuous Momentum equipped her with the ability to connect and communicate with donors on an individual basis while saving her time in the long run.
For example, Pam wanted to send personalized birthday messages to all of her constituents but ran into real limitations of time. Harnessing the power of Virtuous Momentum to assist, this level of personalization has become the new standard at MSU Denver.
Virtuous Momentum draws from each donor’s bio and recent engagement history to craft contextually relevant emails. Along with this, it pulls from previous emails sent by a gift officer in order to draft messages that sound exactly like the sender.
MSU Denver had already worked hard to establish Pam as a central figure in their outreach, so keeping Pam’s voice and style of writing consistent was paramount. After starting to use Virtuous Momentum, Pam noticed that it didn’t take long for Virtuous Momentum to pick up on her favorite subject line and style, serving more as a partner in her writing as opposed to replacing her humanity and individual style.
“So it’s been that collaboration…I still feel like it’s me and it’s just a part of me and it’s just making me a better steward and a cultivator of my donors.”
— Pam Colbert, Former Mid-Level Gift Officer, Metropolitan State University of Denver
Pam tapped into this technology and saw a 60% response rate to these personalized birthday emails. Donors responded with gratitude, impressed by the level of thought put into the email. And according to Pam, this led to increased communication with those donors, including aligning donor interests and passions with their generosity for the campus.
MSU Denver also sends quarterly impact emails, thank-you emails, and gift anniversary emails, all using the power of Virtuous Momentum.
With it being such a large university with many schools and programs, it can be easy for a donor to get stuck in one area and not see the bigger picture of what’s happening in the university as a whole. With their freed-up time, MSU Denver has now prioritized using their thank-you notes as an opportunity to inform donors about the happenings around campus and the larger impact made by gifts.
How MSU Denver Increased Cross-Team Expertise and Leadership Buy-In
Pam’s initiative in bringing Virtuous Momentum to MSU Denver impacted members of her own team, other teams, and leadership.
The time saved and the positive response from donors impressed senior leadership at MSU Denver. Pam’s team found that their skills were complemented by Virtuous Momentum, and it elevated the expertise they already had.
MSU Denver also boosted their cross-team collaboration in areas such as recurring gifts, where Pam and her team work with the gift processing department to look at data using Virtuous Momentum.
“[Virtuous Momentum has] created [an] arena of collaboration that [has blown our senior leadership away]. They cannot believe how Momentum has taken us and created this team of experts within a big department. Momentum [is always] that spark in [the] conversation.”
Pam Colbert, Former Mid-Level Gift Officer, Metropolitan State University of Denver
Virtuous Momentum as a Daily Driver: AI-Powered Outreach Plans Delivered Each Day
As most gift officers know, even just developing a daily plan or strategy for outreach can soak up valuable time in the day.
Pam found that she could tap into the smart outreach feature of Virtuous Momentum and wake up to a daily outreach plan, powered by AI.
“I know that when I open up that email from Momentum, I’ve got a plan…Momentum keeps me going, gives me a plan in the morning, allows me to plan for those donor phone calls that I need to make because it’s picking up the work…”
Pam Colbert, Former Mid-Level Gift Officer, Metropolitan State University of Denver
Use AI to Better Steward and Cultivate Your Donors
MSU Denver amplified their impact with AI-powered support that felt more human, not less.
With Virtuous Momentum, you can wake up to:
→ A daily donor plan curated by AI
→ Emails drafted in your own voice
→ Smart nudges to recover lapsed donors and missed opportunities
→ CRM activity logged, automatically
→ Book a Demo of Virtuous Momentum
Use AI to grow your portfolio without burning out your team, so they can focus on what matters most: meaningful donor relationships.
