Smart Ask Amounts help schools ask each donor for the right amount, automatically. Powered by GC Intelligence — our proprietary machine learning model trained exclusively on educational fundraising data — GiveCampus uses donor demographics, previous giving patterns, and wealth indicators to generate a tailored set of ask amounts for every constituent.
How It Works
- You upload constituent and giving data through the School-Level Data Importer.
- GC Intelligence automatically generates Smart Ask Amounts for every eligible constituent, refreshed on a weekly basis.
- You apply Smart Ask Amounts to your audience inside a segment's Personalization tab in GC Outreach — choosing the ask strategy and how many amounts you want shown.
- You preview, deliver via GC Outreach, or export the personalized links to use elsewhere.
Who is eligible for Smart Ask Amounts?
Smart Ask Amounts are generated for all constituents at a school — not just those with multiple years of giving history. A constituent does not need to have made gifts in each of the last five years to receive a Smart Ask Amount.
To ensure data quality, GC Intelligence requires that a school's uploaded giving history meets a minimum threshold before Smart Ask Amounts are generated for that school's constituents. Specifically, the school's gift history data must reflect at least 1,000 donors or 10% of their total constituents (whichever is lower). This threshold exists to filter out schools that have only uploaded a small number of test gifts.
As long as this minimum threshold is met and the school has uploaded five or more years of gift history through the School-Level Data Importer, Smart Ask Amounts will be generated for all of that school's constituents.
How Smart Ask Amount Overrides Work
GC Intelligence refreshes Smart Ask Amounts weekly as new data is processed. Manual edits within a segment's Personalization tab lock the amounts you change, preventing them from being overwritten during the refresh.
Editing ask amounts directly
- When you manually edit an amount, it becomes locked. The weekly refresh skips any amount that has been manually adjusted.
- Locked amounts are flagged with a tooltip in the personalization table, making them easy to identify.
Use manual edits to fix ask amounts for specific campaigns or appeals without the risk of unexpected updates.
You no longer need to create a separate Smart Ask Amount segment or trigger generation manually. As long as your data is up to date, the amounts are ready and waiting whenever you need them.
Step 1: Upload Data via the Data Importer
Before Smart Ask Amounts can work for you, you'll need to upload constituent and giving data via the Data Importer. The more (and cleaner) the data, the more accurate your ask amounts. If you're just getting started with the Data Importer, the templates in the Unlocking the Basics article are the fastest path in.
The following data points are required for the model to generate ask amounts.
Constituent File
One row per constituent. For best results, we recommend uploading all solicitable constituents.
- First Name
- Last Name
- City
- State
- Zipcode
- Country
Gift File
One row per transaction. For the most effective Smart Ask Amounts, upload a complete giving history for all constituents. At minimum, your gift file must include:
- Gift Transaction ID
- Amount
- Payment Date
- Gift Type
- At least one gift from any constituent in each of the past five years
- At least one gift from any constituent in the last six months
This baseline is required for our model to generate recommendations.
FAQs on Step 1:
Q: How often are Smart Ask Amounts refreshed once my data is in?
A: Weekly. As you upload new data, the model picks it up on the next refresh cycle, so amounts evolve as your donor relationships do.
---Q: What are the minimum gift-file requirements the model needs?
A: In addition to the required fields listed in the Step 1 checklist (Gift Transaction ID, Amount, Payment Date, Gift Type), your file must include at least one gift from any constituent in each of the past five years and one gift from any constituent in the last six months. This ensures the model has both long-term and recent data to work with.
Q: How does GiveCampus use gift-file fields like Gift Transaction ID, Gift Type, and Gift Source?
A: Gift Transaction ID uniquely identifies each transaction. Along with Amount, Payment Date, and Gift Type, it provides the core data to build each constituent's giving history. Gift Source, a recommended field, adds context about the gift’s origin. Although not required, consistent values improve the model's recommendations.
Q: Should I include Custom Information 1 and Custom Information 2?
A: These fields are optional. If you use them for stable classification codes—such as an internal gift category or fund type—they can add useful context. Only include them if their values are consistent across records.
Q: Do Gift Source or Gift Type need to use specific values?
A: No. The Data Importer accepts the values you use. What matters is consistency. Choose a small set of clear, repeatable values and ensure all incoming records follow that scheme.
Q: I see Gift Source listed as 'Recommended' — is it required?
A: Gift Source is recommended but not required. If provided, maintain consistency so it adds meaningful data.
Practical tips for preparing your gift file
- Standardize your Type and Source values: Normalize variant spellings (for example, merge “CC”, “Card”, and “Card Payment” into one label) before uploading.
- Use Custom Information fields thoughtfully: Only populate these fields with stable codes rather than free-form notes.
- Prioritize quality: The model benefits from clean, consistent data. Clean or omit messy fields prior to upload.
Tip: If this is your first full upload for Smart Ask Amounts, try a small sample upload to verify your field mapping and data normalization.
Step 2: Apply Smart Ask Amounts to Your Audience
Smart Ask Amounts live inside the new Personalization Workflow. You'll apply them to a specific audience right from your segment in GC Outreach.
- Build a custom segment in GC Outreach for the audience you want to personalize for.
- Open the segment and click the Personalization tab.
- Click Create Personalization, name it, and choose the Campaign or Giving Form you're directing traffic to.
- In the Ask Amounts step, select Smart Ask Amounts, then configure:
- Strategy — Aggressive (great for reunion-year alumni, loyal donors, and parents), Conservative (great for periodic donors, never-donors, and young alumni), or Neutral (a balance of upgrade and retention).
- Click Update Personalization Tokens. The system applies your settings to every eligible constituent in the segment.
- Click any token in the table to preview the donor's personalized giving experience, including their Smart Ask array.
Number of ask amounts — choose from three options: a single ask, three asks, or six asks.
Pro Tip: Think of Smart Ask Amounts as data-driven defaults that get you 95 percent of the way there. The remaining 5 percent is where you bring your domain knowledge — feel free to nudge individual amounts up or down for the constituents you know best. Locked edits won't be overwritten by future updates.
For the full walkthrough of the Personalization Workflow — including Greeting Name, Greeting Message, Designation, and delivery options — see the Personalization Workflow guide.
FAQs on Step 2:
Q: Can the same constituent get different Smart Ask Amounts in different appeals?
A: Yes. The same constituent can appear in multiple segments with different strategies — for example, a more aggressive ask in a reunion appeal and a neutral ask in your year-end campaign.
Q: What if I want to tweak one person's ask amounts manually?
A: Select that constituent in the personalization table and edit their amounts directly. Manually edited tokens are flagged with a tooltip and can be "locked" so bulk refreshes don't overwrite them.
Step 3: Deliver Smart Ask Amounts in Your Appeals
Once your personalization looks great in preview, you have two ways to put it in front of donors.
Option A: Send through GC Outreach (recommended)
- From your personalization, click Draft Outreach. The outreach is created with your segment applied and the personalization link pre-populated.
- Choose how to start (Scratch, a Template, or AI). New to GC Outreach? The FYE Appeal Template is a solid baseline.
- Adjust your subject line, drop in merge tokens, and style your email with your branding.
- Use Send Test Email to a constituent from your segment to confirm their personalized Smart Ask array shows up correctly.
- Click Preview and Send to send now or schedule for later.
A heads up on templates: If you apply a template after drafting from personalization, the personalized link won't auto-populate. Add it back in via the GC Link Builder icon (🔗) — choose your form or campaign, then select Personalization links and pick the personalization you configured.
Option B: Export the links for use in another email tool or CRM
If you're sending from an external tool — another email platform, direct mail, or your CRM — export from the segment instead.
- Open your segment's Personalization tab.
- Click Export to download a CSV of all (or selected) tokens with personalized URLs.
- Use the file to import the personalized links into your tool of choice. Each row includes the constituent's unique personalization URL with their Smart Ask array baked in.
Because the export reflects the latest tokens at the time of download, refreshing your data and re-exporting is a fast way to keep external sends in sync.
FAQs on Step 3:
Q: Can I add more recipients to my drafted outreach?
A: Yes. Use Add Recipients in the top right of the Recipients tab. Anyone without a personalized link will still be directed to the general form to make a donation.
Q: I edited the personalization after the email went out. Will donors see the new version?
A: Yes. Updates apply at the link level, so even emails already in inboxes will reflect your latest changes when donors click through.
General FAQ
Q: Do Smart Ask Amounts work with recurring-only forms or forms that default to recurring gifts?
A: No. Smart Ask Amounts are not supported on recurring-only forms or forms set to recurring by default.
Q: What if a constituent doesn't have a Smart Ask Amount?
A: They'll still receive your appeal — they'll just land on the general form without a personalized ask array. Make sure your data file has the required fields for them next time around.
Q: How does the model decide on amounts?
A: GC Intelligence is trained exclusively on educational fundraising data from 1,000+ institutions. It weighs donor demographics, giving history, and wealth indicators to predict how much each constituent is most likely to give next — and translates that prediction into a tailored ask array.
Questions? Reach out to our team at support@givecampus.com.
note about creating new Smart Ask Amount segments
The standalone admin page no longer allows creating new Smart Ask Amount segments. The New Smart Ask Amount Segment button now appears disabled with a tooltip that reads: "Smart Ask Amounts and their connected personalization links have moved into GC Outreach! Head to GC Outreach to add ask amounts to personalized links."
Existing segments created via the previous flow remain accessible. You can view, export, and inline-edit individual ask amounts on those segments as before; only new segment creation on the legacy admin page has been removed.
Moving forward, set up all new Smart Ask personalizations in GC Outreach using the following workflow:
- In GC Outreach, build or open the segment you want to personalize.
- Click the Personalization tab.
- Click Create Personalization, name it, and choose the Campaign or Giving Form to direct donors to.
- In the Ask Amounts step, select Smart Ask Amounts and configure your preferred strategy and the number of ask amounts.
- Click Update Personalization Tokens to apply your settings to every eligible constituent in the segment.
If you’re accustomed to using the Smart Ask Amounts admin page, note that existing segments still support individual editing and export. However, any new Smart Ask configuration should be started from a segment in GC Outreach so that personalization tokens are managed via the new workflow.
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