Customer story · Higher education
From spreadsheets to stewardship. How Holy Family University streamlined donor outreach.
Instead of relying on spreadsheets, exports and manual follow-up, Holy Family University built automated stewardship workflows that support gift officers directly inside Raiser's Edge NXT.
When advancement teams are short on time, donor stewardship is difficult to maintain. Not because staff do not care, but because manual processes make personalization difficult to sustain.
At Holy Family University in Philadelphia, acknowledgment letters, giving tiers, milestone tracking and personalized donor outreach all depended on manual effort. Staff were constantly pulling exports, updating spreadsheets and piecing together follow-ups. The work mattered, but keeping stewardship consistent was hard when there was never enough time in the day.
That is where AutomateGenius came in. By building automated stewardship workflows directly inside Raiser's Edge NXT, Holy Family University created a more organized, proactive and sustainable approach to donor outreach.
The result
- More personalized donor outreach
- More consistent stewardship
- More time focused on donor relationships instead of spreadsheets
- More operational support for a busy advancement team
At a glance
Holy Family University at a glance.
- 12+ staff hours saved monthly
- On acknowledgment letters alone
- Giving tiers updated consistently
- For the first time, through automation
- Personalized outreach in minutes
- Instead of manual drafting and exports
- Milestone and birthday outreach automated
- Without increasing staff workload
The challenge
Stewardship was too manual to scale.
The challenge was not commitment. It was capacity. Donor acknowledgment and stewardship processes were heavily manual, and staff relied on exports, spreadsheets and individual follow-up to manage donor communications and giving tiers.
The team was also managing institutional knowledge. For newer staff, understanding donor history, giving milestones and stewardship expectations meant digging through spreadsheets and exports, or relying on a colleague's memory. Some stewardship simply was not happening consistently, because the time investment was too large.
- Acknowledgment letters were prepared manually multiple times per week
- Giving tiers were tracked through Excel exports and manual review
- Personalized donor outreach depended heavily on staff bandwidth
- New staff members had limited visibility into historical donor engagement
“Stewardship wasn't personalized the way that the heartfelt emails are now. We often knew things like birthdays or giving milestones, but it was not feasible for our gift officers to do this on their own.”
The shift
Personalized stewardship at scale.
AutomateGenius built automation workflows connected to Raiser's Edge NXT that support both stewardship and advancement operations. The goal was never to replace personal outreach. It was to make personal outreach easier.
PSG worked closely with the Holy Family team to understand their manual processes, find the inefficiencies and shape each automation around how the advancement office actually operates. Nothing was a one-size-fits-all setup.
Automated email workflows now support:
- Milestone giving notifications
- Birthday outreach
- Personalized thank-you emails
- Prospect manager stewardship touchpoints
- Giving tier management and updates
- Faster acknowledgment letter processing
The biggest difference is that staff no longer start from scratch. Gift officers receive donor information and outreach opportunities inside their own workflow, review the draft and send.
“We're in a campaign, we're super busy, we have all this new staff. It's going to take us a long time to figure this out, and then heaven forbid something goes wrong, we won't know what to do.”
“With the premade templates and Gmail connector, it's super easy to do a quick review, check it over, and send. Our gift officers love this and they have seen good results, too.”
“I think we had everything set up in, like, two months. We were off and running.”
The impact
Better visibility, better stewardship.
Automation became more than a time-saving tool for Holy Family University. It became operational support. The team no longer relies on memory, spreadsheets or inconsistent processes, and automation works quietly in the background while staff focus on donor relationships.
Before
After
Reactive workflows
Proactive outreach
Spreadsheet tracking
Automated workflows
Manual reminders
Automated stewardship
Stewardship gaps
Consistent stewardship
Limited donor visibility
Embedded donor visibility
Looking ahead
Automation is now part of Holy Family University's daily advancement workflow. Personalized stewardship no longer feels impossible, donor outreach no longer depends entirely on available staff time, and newer team members have stronger visibility into donor engagement. What started as a workflow improvement became a sustainable advancement operation.
Straight answers
Questions about the Holy Family University story
- How long did Holy Family University take to launch AutomateGenius?
- Holy Family University had its automations set up in about two months. AutomateGenius handled the build and configuration inside the university's existing Raiser's Edge NXT environment, so advancement staff did not have to troubleshoot workflows during an active campaign.
- What did AutomateGenius automate for Holy Family University?
- Automated workflows cover milestone giving notifications, birthday outreach, personalized thank-you emails, prospect manager stewardship touchpoints, giving tier management and acknowledgment letter processing, all connected to Raiser's Edge NXT data.
- Do gift officers still review donor emails before they send?
- Yes. AutomateGenius drafts each message from Raiser's Edge NXT data and premade templates, then gift officers review and send from their own inbox. Automation removes the drafting and export work, not the human judgment.
- Does automation replace personal donor outreach?
- No. The goal at Holy Family University was to make personal outreach easier to sustain. Staff no longer start from scratch, so stewardship happens consistently instead of only when someone has spare time.
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