AskGenius is a service that allows organizations to combine their data with a powerful analytics engine and calculate the right ask amount for every donor. In Responsive Fundraising terms, AskGenius uses the donor signals you been Listening to and combines those with a proprietary blend of data analytics and behavioral psychology to Learn what amount you should Suggest for each donor's next financial gift.
Getting Started
To use the integration, you'll first need to sign up for an AskGenius account. You can learn more about getting started with AskGenius here.
Once you have set up your AskGenius account, log in. On the homepage, click on "Create Ask Strings." Then, you'll be presented with a few options to begin. Select "Connect to Virtuous" to do just that.
This will pop open a new window where you can sign in to your Virtuous account, just as you normally would.
Once you've signed in, you'll see a list of Environments. These are the Virtuous Organizations you have access to. If you have a Sandbox and a live database, you'll see both listed. Select the correct organization in order to generate asks for Contacts in that organization.
It's all About the Tags
Once you have selected your environment, you'll be prompted to select a Virtuous Tag. The AskGenius integration uses Tags to set your criteria for which Contacts to include in the analysis. So, if you are planning a new direct mail appeal, you'll want to add a specific Tag to all of the Contacts to be included in your appeal first. Then, you can use that Tag to pull all of those Contacts into AskGenius.
The easiest way to apply a Tag to your record is to create a Contact query and then use the bulk update feature available in the query tool. You can learn more about bulk updates here. Depending on the audience for your appeal, it may be necessary to use more than one query.
Once you have added the desired Tag to all of the Contacts you'd like to analyze, yoou'll need to search for and select the appropriate Tag in AskGenius.
Learning About Past Giving
In order to conduct the data analysis necessary to generate ask strings, AskGenius will ask you to select the appropriate Campaign, Communication, or Project that defines giving for several specific categories. Choose the item that best aligns with each area. If you don;t have relevant data for a specific type of appeal (for example, a capital campaign) then you can just leave those entries blank.
AskGenius Takes it From There
Once you've identified Virtuous data, AskGenius will ask you some addition questions to customize your ask strategy. You can learn more about the various options here. Once you've completed the process, you'll be able to download a spreadsheet of the results to use in preparing your appeal.
Preparing Your Appeal
Once you have your file, you'll likely want to segment your audience to generate your mailing file. In order to run segmentation in Virtuous (so you can see how well your new asks perform!), you'll first want to create Contact custom fields and import the newly generated ask amounts into Virtuous. This will allow you to select the ask amounts along with the necessary Contact data and Segment Codes needed for your mail merge file.
Additional Resources
The AskGenius team is happy to help with any questions you may have. For questions about getting started with AskGenius, contact Andrew Menke: andrew@askgenius.com.
For AskGebius customer Support, contact Mitch Fisher: mitch@askgenius.com.