What is the Gift Ask Pipeline?

The Gift Ask Pipeline is an excellent tool to use if you manage a portfolio of major donors, a team of gift officers, or maybe you just want to track solicitations for your organization. The Gift Ask Pipeline is a Kanban-style, drag-and-drop board that provides a high-level view of specific Gift Asks broken down by status, or pipeline stage, with weighted and actual totals for each group. This pipeline is customizable and dynamic. This article provides a brief overview of the general functionality of the features. 

Table of Contents 

1. Gift Ask Pipeline Overview 
2. Probability and Weighted Totals 
3. Overriding Probability 
4. Winning and Losing 

Gift Ask Pipeline Overview 

To navigate to the Gift Ask Pipeline page in Virtuous, select the Gift tab in the Primary Navigation and then select the Gift Ask Pipeline page below. 

By default, the Gift Ask Pipeline will show all of your own Gift Asks for the current fiscal year. You will see these parameters automatically selected in the "Filter Pipeline" section of the page.

You can modify this to search for your Gift Asks, another team member's, or your full organization. You may choose to modify any of the filter criteria, if needed. If you leave the page for any reason, the filter will revert back to the default.

To learn more about creating a Gift Ask, check out this Support Article. 

The pipeline view is laid out in multiple columns.

Each column corresponds with a different Gift Ask Status value. Virtuous admins can customize the Status values for their organization, so your pipeline can be customized to reflect your major gifts process. You can learn more about managing and customizing Gift Ask Statuses here.

Probability and Weighted Totals

Each Status can also be assigned a "Probability to Close," expected as a percentage. This represents the likelihood that a Gift Ask will be successful. Virtuous uses this value to calculate the Weighted Total of each Gift Ask. For example, a Gift Ask of $100 with a 50% Probability to Close will have a Weighted Value of $50.

At the top of each column in the pipeline, you'll see blue percentage number. If you hover your cursor over this blue percentage, additional information will appear. 

In the pop-up window you'll see the amount of "Expected" giving to be received versus the "Total" amount of gifts asked for. 

Overriding Probability

You may have some personal knowledge about a donor or particular Ask that leads you to believe your Gift Ask should have a different probability than the percentage assigned by the status. For example, you may have just made an initial ask, which is a status that has a probability of 10%. But you made that initial ask of a close friend, who you know is very likely to give. In a case like this, it is possible to edit a Gift Ask and manually set a different Probability to Close.

From the pipeline screen, select the three dots on any card to see the available options. Select "Edit Gift Ask" from the available options. 

Then, on the edit form, you'll see the option to manually enter a new Probability. This percentage should always be entered as a whole number.

Each Gift Ask "card" in the pipeline also displays a thin green bar along the top edge. This bar represents the Probability to Close for each ask. Once you edit the percentage for a specific ask, you will see the green bar shift to correspond with the new probability. 

Winning and Losing

Eventually, a donor will either respond to an ask with a Gift, or they'll decide not to give. In each case, the Gift Ask should be moved to a "Closed" status or a "Declined" status. When viewing these columns on the pipeline screen, the totals at the top of each column will display slightly different information.

To learn more about Gift Ask Statuses and how you can customize them to better fit your organization's specific needs, check out this Support Article. 

For the total amount of all fulfilled Giving to update and display in the Gift Ask Pipeline both actions listed below must be completed. 

• The specific Gift record must be linked with the specific Gift Ask 
• The Gift Ask must be moved to the "Closed" status. 

With both of these actions completed, the total number of Gifts reflected above the "Closed" column will display accurately. 

To learn more about linking a Gift with a Gift Ask, check out this Support Article. 

For "Declined" status columns, the blue percentage will always show 0% as no Gifts were received. 

Now that you know all about the Gift Ask Pipeline, go ahead and get started organizing and tracking your Gift Asks!