Gift Officers are front-line fundraisers managing donor relationships and solicitations. Slate’s unified CRM environment provides gift officers with powerful tools to organize portfolios, track interactions, and drive donor engagement – all in one place. This primer outlines a day-in-the-life workflow for a gift officer using Slate, including:

• Dashboards

• Portfolios and Assignments

• Cadences

• Donor Engagement & Contact Logging

• Proposal and Opportunity Tracking

• Key Benefits & Best Practices for Gift Officers

• …And of course a bunch of Slate AI all along the way!

Dashboards, Reports, and Performance Management

When a gift officer logs into Slate, they land on a personalized homepage dashboard that surfaces their key metrics and tasks in real time. For example, a major gift officer’s dashboard can display current progress toward annual fundraising goals, recent gifts from their portfolio, upcoming donor anniversaries, and other personalized KPIs. This immediate snapshot helps gift officers prioritize their day strategically.

Dashboards continue to elevate critical data to the Gift Officer when viewing constituent records. An overall person dashboard, a giving dashboard, and a research dashboard work together to bring relevant information to the forefront when the fundraiser views the record — allowing them to synthesize and make better data informed decisions. These types of dashboards can be further configured and designed to meet the needs and desires of the Gift Officer.

Each gift officer also has their own performance management record, which functions like an internal profile for tracking their activity and goals. Leadership or the officer themselves can view this record to see assigned prospects, contact counts, dollars raised, and performance over time. Because Slate automatically logs all interactions and outcomes, these metrics update in real time on the user’s record and dashboards. The goals are adaptable and can be modified to track the KPIs that are most important to individual institutions.

Portfolio Management, Assignments, and Cadences

Rather than juggling spreadsheets or separate tools, gift officers manage their donor portfolio directly in Slate. The Assignments section provides a focused portfolio view of all prospects assigned to that officer. Prior to drilling into their list of assignments, Slate AI can evaluate their portfolio and recommend which prospect or donor they should reach out to next.

Key features of this assignments and portfolio interface include:

• AI-Powered Suggestions: Slate AI is embedded to help gift officers prioritize their outreach efforts. The system can automatically highlight “diamonds in the rough” – prospects in the portfolio who haven’t been contacted recently but show      high potential based on wealth scores or lifetime giving. Or administrators can provide their own bespoke prompting to recommend prospects based on their own user-defined criteria.
  
  

• AI-Powered Searching: Gift officers can ask Slate AI questions in natural language about records in their assignment list, and Slate AI will automatically adjust the results based on the conversation.
  
  For example, asking Slate AI a question such as, “Who in my portfolio has made at least 6 lifetime gifts?” will prompt Slate to instantly filter the list to just those records. The officer could further ask to see their address information, find records in a certain state or city, or ask who might make the best prospect given certain criteria. Slate AI will analyze the donor data and suggest records accordingly — helping to guide fundraisers to focus on the right donors at the right time.
  

• Sortable Portfolio Lists: Gift officers can filter and sort their portfolio list with Excel-like tools. For instance, an officer could filter to see only prospects or donors with a certain rating or recent giving status. They can also search within their portfolio by name or any other criteria, making it easy to find a specific donor record quickly.
  

• Assignment Dashboards: Sitting above the portfolio list, dashboards can display contextual information to the gift officer. This information could be KPI’s related to the individual gift officer, aggregate portfolio statistics, or upcoming events on campus.

Without leaving the assignment list, gift officers can click to view summary information about their constituents. This at-a-glance view can be configured and adapted to the needs of each institution — and may also include an AI-powered dashboard that summarizes recent activity, contact report notes, and more.

Without leaving the portfolio screen, officers can perform one-click actions like emailing or calling a prospect. This type of outreach occurs directly in Slate, is logged automatically, and helps minimize navigation while maximizing efficiency. We’ll touch more on communications below.

To view even more details, a more complete profile can be accessed by clicking ‘Display.’ This action will take the officer to a full-page profile to display any information that is needed in greater detail.

Task Management & Cadences

Slate helps gift officers stay on top of follow-ups through integrated Tasks and Cadences. In the persistent task pane on the right side of the screen, officers see any to-do items assigned to them, such as “Send follow-up email to Donor X” with due dates. Tasks can be automatically generated or manually created by the officer or a manager. They can be marked complete or updated with notes, and they follow the user across the system for easy access.

A Cadence in Slate is a predefined sequence of stewardship steps that accomplish a goal and can be assigned within the context of an Assignment list.

For example, if a gift officer wants to cultivate a new prospect, they could add that person to a “Meeting Outreach” cadence. Once added, the system schedules a series of tasks: research the prospect (due in a few days), send an initial introduction email, follow up with a phone call, etc., each with relative due dates from when the prospect entered the cadence.

As the officer completes or skips each step, the cadence moves forward to the next action. This ensures a consistent, timely approach to donor cultivation without things falling through the cracks. When the gift officer logs in each morning, they can review the cadence-driven task list to see what steps are due today – essentially an auto-generated daily call sheet.

Cadences are fully customizable by each institution and advancement team. Different cadences might exist for say, onboarding a new prospect, soliciting an annual fund upgrade, or thanking and renewing a donor. By standardizing these multi-step workflows, Slate frees gift officers from manually tracking every next step, yet still allows flexibility to personalize outreach within each step.

Donor Engagement & Contact Logging

At the core of a gift officer’s job is building relationships, which Slate facilitates through integrated communication tools. Every record in Slate has a Timeline tab – a running history of all interactions and touchpoints with that individual. This timeline includes emails sent, events attended, gifts made, forms submitted, mailings clicked or opened, and any manually-entered contact reports.

Whenever an officer engages with a donor via Slate, the action is automatically logged on the timeline without requiring double data entry. For example:

• Email Outreach: If an email is sent to Alexander Hamilton (our sample donor) through Slate, it is sent from the officer’s personal email address via Slate and immediately recorded on Alexander’s timeline, including the content and when it was opened and message content clicked. The officer can send ad-hoc unformatted emails or use pre-built templates and snippets (see below). They can also schedule emails for later. All email metrics (opens, clicks, device used, location of open) feed back into the system for both individual insight and aggregate reporting.
  

  

• Call and Text Integration: Slate’s VOIP integration allows gift officers to call a donor directly from the platform. With one click, they can dial out; Slate logs that a call took place, for how long, and with whom. If they reaches the donor, the officer can note call outcomes in a quick form or add a call note afterward. If they get voicemail or no answer, the gift officer can pivot to sending a text message directly from Slate, immediately. This too is logged automatically. All communications done through Slate are captured, eliminating the need for separate call reports later.
  

• Contact Reports & Notes: Beyond automated logging, gift officers can add richer context by submitting contact reports or notes on interactions. From a constituent’s record, gift officers can click “Add Contact Note,” fill in details of a meeting or meaningful conversation (date, who was present, discussion summary), and categorize it (e.g., “Personal Visit” or “Stewardship”). This note appears on the timeline for institutional memory. Notably, Slate can also prompt for additional info via forms – for instance, after completing a call, an officer might fill a quick post-call form to indicate call outcome, which could update fields on the record.

Because every touchpoint is consolidated in one timeline, anyone with access (another gift officer, a manager, or advancement services) can quickly see the full history with a donor. This 360° view means if a donor calls in or if leadership wants an update, the latest interactions are all visible.

Snippets & Personalization

Gift officers often send repetitive emails (thank-yous, follow-ups, etc.) that benefit from partial automation with personalization.

Slate’s Snippets feature allows creation of reusable content blocks with merge fields. For example, an officer might have a snippet for a personalized giving summary: “Thank you for your support this year. To date, you have contributed [Total Gifts This Fiscal Year] to [Fund Name]...” which dynamically fills with the donor’s data.

These snippets can be inserted into an email with one click, rather than typing out figures or looking them up. Snippets can pull any data from the record (gift history, biographical info, etc.), ensuring accuracy and saving time.

Slate AI further augments this via the “First Draft” tool. From the email composer, gift officers can enter a simple prompt like “Thank the donor for their recent gift and welcome them back to campus”. Slate AI will generate a suggested email text incorporating details like the recent gift amount and a warm message (“Thank you for your recent $25 to the Annual Fund... we hope you come back to campus for the Homecoming event on...” etc.).

This First Draft gives the officer a starting point, which they can further refine. We call it “first draft” intentionally – the officer reviews and edits the AI-generated content before sending, ensuring it meets personal tone and accuracy. This feature can dramatically speed up drafting personalized messages, especially for a large portfolio, while still requiring human oversight for quality.

Snippets and AI can be used for SMS texts as well, not just emails.

And if Gift Officers wants to go the extra mile, they can record a personal video message directly in Slate to send to a donor. Using their webcam, video messages can be recorded and sent using our Slate Video feature. Slate will embed the thumbnail in the mailing with a play button overlay. When the donor receives clicks the image, they are taken to view the video on a personalized landing page within the database. This kind of rich, personal touch is integrated seamlessly, and again, all tracked.

Proposal and Opportunity Tracking

For major gift officers, tracking solicitations (proposals) is critical. In Slate, gift officers are empowered to create and manage proposals – referred to as Opportunities – right on a donor’s record. An Opportunity record captures the details of a gift ask or plan and ties it to the donor and relevant staff. Here’s a typical workflow for entering and managing a proposal:

• Creating a New Opportunity: On the donor’s Giving tab, the officer clicks “New Opportunity.” They fill in fields such as Name (e.g., “Library Renovation Gift” or a descriptive title), Target Date (perhaps when they aim to close the gift or the date of the ask), and Status. Status values (like “Identified”, “In Progress”, “Asked”, “Accepted”, “Closed”) are completely customizable to match the institution’s pipeline stages. The officer also assigns the Opportunity to a Staff Owner (often themselves or whoever is lead on the proposal).
  

• Opportunity Details: Additional fields include Type (major gift, planned gift, corporate grant, etc.) which can be tailored to categorize the opportunity. The officer can specify if it’s part of a particular Campaign, and whether the gift will be Restricted/Unrestricted, or designate broad purpose (Capital, Endowment, Annual, etc.). All these dropdown lists are institution-defined, reflecting that Slate lets you model your data to your process. The officer might not know every detail at creation (e.g., the exact fund or designation if the donor hasn’t decided); they can fill what’s known and update later as more information becomes available.
  

• Ask Amount and Probability: The officer records the Ask Amount (the amount they plan to ask or are asking) and an Ask Date (when the ask is/will be made). They can also note an estimated probability or confidence. These data help build a weighted pipeline. If a field like “Expected Close Date” is desired but not standard, the team can easily add a custom date field on opportunities – again showing Slate’s flexibility to capture important info.

Once saved, the opportunity appears on the donor’s profile as an open proposal. The gift officer (and anyone with access) can see it at a glance. As the solicitation progresses, the officer returns to update the record:

• After making the formal ask, they enter the actual Ask Date and can adjust the amount if needed (e.g., perhaps the ask ended up being $45,000 instead of $50,000).
  

• They can add Proposal Notes to record developments or donor feedback (“Discussed naming options for new theater wing...”). Slate allows multiple notes to accumulate on the opportunity, creating a running log of that proposal’s history.
  

• If the donor pledges or commits to the gift, staff will record the pledge in Slate. During gift entry, the gift can be linked to the corresponding Opportunity by selecting it from a dropdown of open opportunities on that donor’s record. This automatically associates that pledge with the proposal, updating the Opportunity record to show an Expected Value (and later, Received Value).
  

• The Opportunity record now shows the Expected Amount (what was asked or pledged) and can compare to the initial ask and probability. As actual donations come in (immediate or future installments), those too will tie to the opportunity. The officer and leadership can see, for each proposal, the asked amount, committed amount, and eventually realized gifts – providing transparency on pipeline yield.

This closed-loop proposal tracking ensures gift officers and managers always know the status of major asks. No separate spreadsheets are needed to track proposals versus gifts; Slate connects them. Gift officers should make it a habit to use these Opportunity records for any significant ask so that nothing is lost and outcomes are recorded.

✏️ As a note, “Opportunities” can cover more than just individual major gifts – some institutions use them for corporate/foundation grants or other solicitations as well, though the primary use case is major donor proposals.

Key Benefits & Best Practices for Gift Officers

Slate’s integrated approach offers several efficiencies for gift officers:

• All Data in One Place: No more flipping between CRM, spreadsheets, email client, and calendars – Slate houses the donor profile, activity log, and communication tools together. This unified view saves time and ensures consistency of information.
  

• Real-Time Information: Gift officers can trust that dashboards and reports reflect up-to-the-minute data (gifts, interactions, etc.) without manual updates. This enables more agile strategy adjustments (e.g., quickly seeing the impact of a recent event or mailing on one’s portfolio).
  

• Empowerment to Customize: If a gift officer or team needs to track a new data point (say a special rating or a unique prospect attribute), they can work with Advancement Operations to add a custom field or form in Slate easily. The system is built to be adapted without vendor intervention for such tweaks, keeping fundraisers nimble.
  

• Automation of Routine Tasks: Using cadences, tasks, and AI, officers spend less time on admin work (like remembering to send that follow-up or compiling contact histories) and more time on building relationships. Automation is a safety net that ensures important actions aren’t forgotten, while AI provides shortcuts to insight (e.g., surfacing hidden prospects or drafting messages).
  

• Collaboration and Transparency: Because all notes and interactions are logged, gift officers can seamlessly collaborate. If, for example, a prospect is reassigned, the new officer has the full context. Or if leadership wants an update, they can view the record without having to ask the officer to compile a report. This transparency builds trust and accountability.

Cross-team link: Many Slate features that gift officers use (email, tasks, forms, etc.) are shared across the advancement division. For instance, the ability to send one-to-one emails with snippets and video is also valuable for donor relations or annual fund staff. Likewise, the rules that automate assignment of prospects or calculation of engagement scores (discussed in the Operations Playbook) directly benefit gift officers by ensuring portfolios are up-to-date and scored.

In summary, for gift officers, Slate serves as a personal command center for fundraising. By leveraging dashboards, portfolio tools, integrated communications, and opportunity tracking, frontline fundraisers can focus on meaningful donor engagement – confident that the system is capturing data behind the scenes and prompting them with next steps. The result is a more organized, strategic, and proactive fundraising operation.