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Part of a healthy fundraising strategy is upgrading your existing donors to higher levels of support. You’ve spent the time and resources to build relationships with these supporters and ask them for referrals. This is the audience to ask for increased financial support, and we recommend asking for an upgrade from these supporters each year.

What is a Next Suggested Gift?

The Next Suggested Gift feature in Engage enables you to intelligently calculate a suggested donation amount series for each of your supporters and automatically keep those values updated.

Using either totals from Salsa Engage transactions or custom fields representing totals from other sources, Engage provides calculations for the Next Suggested Gift Amount for any given supporter. Then, use this calculated amount across emails and forms to intelligently suggest that supporter move into the next level of giving based on their previous activity.

By leveraging this Next Suggested Gift Amount, a supporter who gave $10 last time could be presented with an entirely different ask than a supporter who previously gave $250, all on the same form with the same configuration.

Next Suggested Gift Workflow

Donation Amounts Setting

Only organizations currently using Engage Fundraising forms and only users with Application Settings permissions will see this global setting.

Go to your account's Settings page, click on the hammer and wrench icon to the top-right corner of the window.
Click the Switch To... drop down button.
Click Donation Amounts.

This setting window contains areas for configuring the Next Suggested Gift Amount and Donation Amount Ask Strings.

Next Suggested Gift Amount

Using this global calculator, you can calculate a dynamic next suggested gift amount for any given supporter, then use it across emails and forms to intelligently move that supporter into the next giving tier based on their previous activity. The Next Suggested Gift calculator runs automatically overnight. You can also manually run the calculator at any time.

It’s important to choose and test different tactics when determining the appropriate Next Suggested Gift amounts for your supporter base. Generally, the idea is to move each supporter up in giving level from their highest previous contribution (HPC). However, your giving levels will vary, dependent upon your supporters’ demographics and propensity to give. A common method of calculating the Next Suggested Gift amount is to simply add a dollar amount, depending on the supporter’s HPC amount. The Engage default calculation reflects this idea.

Under this calculation description, there is an Edit button to the right. Click on that button to edit your Next Suggested Gift Amount Conditions.

Conditions for calculating the Next Suggested Gift Amount are placed from top to bottom from narrowest criteria to widest, so that once a supporter matches a condition, the logic will not evaluate them for subsequent criteria. Set a default amount for supporter records where the custom field is empty. Calculated dynamic gift amounts may be inserted as merge fields in text elements, images, buttons, and email subject lines. The default calculations in the image below represent the simplest, but also most time-tested and proven, formula for increasing the average donation amount across your supporter base.

If you are planning to use your Next Suggested Gift values as merge fields in email blasts, then it’s important to do your rounding in the calculator itself. That way, the merge fields, dynamic ask amounts, and button values will all match up and will not need to be incremented or rounded in the subsequent steps of setting up the workflow.

Edit a condition by changing the values on that row. Conditions are in the format...

Condition							Rounding	Min	Max
If	Most Recent One-Time Engage Donation Largest One-Time Engage Donation Average One-Time Engage Donation Most Recent Recurring Engage Donation Largest Recurring Engage Donation Average Recurring Engage Donation Supporter Custom Field Is Member of a Group	is less than	$____	then suggested amount is	Most Recent One-Time Engage Donation Largest One-Time Engage Donation Average One-Time Engage Donation Most Recent Recurring Engage Donation Largest Recurring Engage Donation Average Recurring Engage Donation Supporter Custom Field Dollar Amount (will not round)	$____	no rounding up to the nearest 1 up to the nearest 5 up to the nearest 10 up to the nearest 25 up to the nearest 50 up to the nearest 100	$____	$____

After you have configured your Next Suggested Gift calculator, we recommend you export your supporter list (or a portion of it) to spot check the results for any unexpected outcomes.

What Is a Donation Amount Ask String?

On fundraising forms, donors see a series of preset donation amounts to suggest donation values. Ask Strings make the donation values on those buttons unique for every donor. This allows campaign managers to potentially increase giving in ways that are relevant to the donor viewing that page.

You can choose to provide fixed donation suggestions or donation suggestions based on their previous giving. For example, a donor who previously donated through Engage would see a series of donations that start at 100% of their last or largest gift value and also include button values of 200%, 300%, 400% and 500% of their largest gift value. The actual button amounts would be different depending on whether the supporter's last or largest gift was $10 or $250. You can also choose giving suggestions prepared using our proprietary SMART methodology. Gifts that originated with fundraising forms incorporating smart technology have a trackable field on the Transaction details screen.

Ask String Workflow

Create the Ask String.
Go to your fundraising form.
Assign your Ask String to the Donation Amounts element in your form.
Save and publish.

Configuring the Donation Amount Ask String

A Donation Amount Ask String starts off at a certain beginning value. The values increase...

Using a specific set of values that are the same for everyone (Static Amounts).
Using a set of values different for everyone, based on...
- Criteria the campaign manager builds into calculations based on historic giving found in Engage (Dynamic Amounts).
- Criteria that our SMART technology builds for the supporter automatically (Smart Amounts).

You can build different ask string configurations and save them, to copy and use on any fundraising activity. To add an ask string...

Click the Settings icon in the top right corner of the screen.
Click the teal-colored Switch to... button on the right.
Select Donation Amounts from the drop-down menu.
Scroll down to the Donation Amount Ask Strings section.
Click the Add Ask String button to create a new Ask String configuration.
Add a unique Reference Name to distinguish this Ask String.
Add an optional Description of this Ask String.
Choose the Ask String Type. The "ask string" is the series of amounts that visitors to this form will be presented with as donation amount buttons.
Configure the Ask String based on the type of donation amounts you want to display to the supporter:
- Static Amounts—When a visitor is not recognized because they do not have a cookie stored in their browser from visiting your form or their base value is empty, they will be presented with the Default Ask Amounts listed here as donation buttons on your form. Add new donation values, edit existing values, or delete ones you don't want to use.
  - Rearrange values by clicking the dots at the left of the row and dragging the row up or down as necessary.
  - Add new values by clicking the Add Amount button.
  - Remove values by clicking the trashcan icon on the right end of the appropriate row.
  - Check the box at the bottom to Allow supporters to enter their own "Other" amount.
  - Click the Save Content button to save this ask string.
- Dynamic Amounts—Engage will use the base value configured here to calculate the donation amounts that are displayed on the donation amount buttons.
  
  A supporter who is recognized via a browser cookie or email blast ID will see these dynamically calculated amounts on the form. A supporter who has an empty base value will see the default values configured below. Anonymous visitors will also see the default amounts.
  1. Choose a Base Value—Select the database field that serves as the base value for calculating your dynamic ask string. Engage will use the base value to calculate the amount that is shown on each donation button, according to the configuration for each button (either plus or minus a dollar amount or percentage of the base amount). The base value options are...
    - Most Recent One-Time Engage Donation
    - Largest One-Time Engage Donation
    - Average One-Time Engage Donation
    - Most Recent Recurring Engage Donation
    - Largest Recurring Engage Donation
    - Average Recurring Engage Donation
    - Supporter Custom Field
    - Next Suggested Gift Amount
    - Email Parameter Value
      
      To prevent unexpectedly low or high ask amounts, set a minimum value, a maximum value, and rounding for the base value.
  2. Configure Dynamic Ask Amounts—Enter a test amount in the preview box to check that the amounts are what you would expect. Make sure to test very low, average, and very high values. You can edit the static ask amounts
    
    NOTE: changing a configuration here will not change any existing forms that do not have an ask string configuration until you apply the configuration to the form and republish.
- New! Smart Amounts—Engage's predictive Smart technology allows you to set the button values and preselected amounts for each supporter, based on their giving history, location, and other data points.
  1. Preselected Amount Default—Engage can preselect one of the donation amount buttons in the donation ask string automatically, based on SMART technology. If you would prefer not to have a button preselected, leaving the choice up to the supporter, you may choose to turn off donation amount preselections.
  2. Donation Amount Increase Default—Smart technology will identify the correct ask amounts to display for each visitor, based on known data points. In some cases, this will mean asking a previous donor for a much larger amount than they have given in the past. Selecting an Optimistic approach will display donation amounts according to a supporter's propensity to give. A Conservative approach will increment the ask amounts by a smaller interval.
  3. Default Ask Amounts—When Engage does not have enough confidence to identify a supporter and use Smart methodology, they will be presented with the static donation ask amounts configured for this activity. You can edit the static ask amounts.

Adding an Ask String Configuration to an Activity

To update a form with a saved Ask String set...

Open the Activity that contains a donation capability.
Edit the Donation Amounts element:
- Move your mouse over the donation buttons element
- Click the orange pencil icon.
Click on the Amounts tab.
Decide whether to use static or dynamic ask string buttons on one-time or recurring donation amounts.

Your options will change, depending on whether you select static or dynamic amounts.
- Everyone sees the same static amounts if that's what you choose.
- Dynamic amounts are different for everyone based on their previous giving. If they've never given or don't have a cookie stored in their web browser, the donor sees the static amounts by default.
- By now, you should have crafted and saved your ask string configurations. You can click the Copy From button to the right to pull in those saved values.
- You can also set values on this screen and click Save As to save these settings.
Click Save Content to end this configuration process.
Republish the form.