At a Glance

This success story highlights how Oregon State University Foundation’s Women’s Giving Circle has grown its membership, demonstrating that AI can create significant impact even with a small dataset when driven by cross-functional collaboration and a shared commitment to innovation.

Challenges

OSUF’s Women’s Giving Circle saw stagnant membership growth, typically welcoming only about 10 new members annually. The Annual Giving team recognized this plateau as a missed opportunity to engage and cultivate long-term donor relationships.

However, they faced a few core challenges:

• Limited data volume: They had a relatively small donor dataset to work with, a barrier for applying advanced analytics.
  
  
• Siloed operations: Internal teams worked in isolation, limiting the exchange of ideas and information across departments.
  
  
• Manual segmentation: Outreach efforts relied on rigid, hard-coded criteria, making it difficult to evolve targeting strategies.
  
  
• Resource constraints: Like many fundraising teams, they didn’t have an abundance of internal AI expertise or technical bandwidth.

Solutions

Rather than replacing existing operations, Fundmetric augmented OSUF’s internal capabilities with practical AI tools tailored for small data environments. Together, they implemented a hybrid approach:

• Fundmetric’s predictive modeling was used alongside in-house models, allowing for comparative and complementary insights.
  

• A list of high-potential members was developed using both AI-driven predictions and traditional hard criteria.

• Outreach campaigns were tailored and targeted based on this enriched dataset, supported by ongoing engagement and input from the stewardship team.

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“There was so much untapped potential for our Women's Giving Circle program. Using the same lists year over year wasn't working. As we thought of ways to widen our audience, looking at those already engaging with the program, Fundmetric was essential to predicting who was ready to be invited to join."

- Sara Dier, Director II, Annual Giving Constituent Engagement and Stewardship, Oregon State University Foundation

Benefits

The results were remarkable:

• The organization saw an 11x increase in new society members, going from an average of 10 per year to nearly 50 in the initial campaign, with continued growth thereafter.
  

• AI proved effective even with limited data, demonstrating that advanced modeling doesn't require massive datasets to drive results.
  

• These micro-engagements, powered by interest-based segmentation and predictive outreach, are now helping to cultivate the next generation of donors.
  

• A culture of gratitude and stewardship was reinforced throughout the process, with internal teams acknowledged and celebrated for their vital role.

• Most importantly, the project validated a new collaborative model, showing that AI can integrate naturally into existing workflows, empowering people rather than replacing them.

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This success wasn’t just about technology; it was about breaking down silos. The partnership demonstrated how cross-functional teams (Annual Giving, internal data scientists, and Fundmetric’s experts) could work together seamlessly to design and deliver more intelligent donor engagement strategies.