Fundraising Automation for Colleges, Universities & Private Schools: What’s Possible in 2025

Over the years, we’ve helped hundreds of institutions use automation to eliminate time-consuming tasks and deliver better donor experiences. Today, we’re breaking down the most powerful fundraising automations we’ve implemented for schools using Raiser’s Edge NXT—and how they can revolutionize your advancement office.

Why Fundraising Automation Matters for Education

PSG started out running multimillion-dollar annual appeals. Over time, we essentially became the largest user of Raiser’s Edge on the planet. We’ve helped organizations like Nationwide Children’s Hospital, the Field Museum, and Catholic schools across the U.S. streamline their systems.

That experience led to the creation of AutomateGenius. We build tools that do the behind-the-scenes work for you—so your team can focus on relationship building and strategy.

Let’s look at a few real-world examples.

1. Automatically Update Graduation Years for Parents and Grandparents

Updating salutations and address lines based on a child’s graduation year is a nightmare in Database View. Automation can instantly detect new education records and update associated relationships. So, addresses like “John and Mary Smith P’28” are always accurate, without exports or Excel.

2. Reorder Constituent Codes for Web View

Web View requires the primary constituent code to be in the first position for filtering and reporting. Automation can:

Monitor for new or updated constituents
Automatically resequence codes based on your preferred hierarchy
Save hours of manual cleanup

3. Auto-Tag Giving Circle Members

Rather than running queries every time you need a list of Gold Society members, automation can:

Track each donor’s total giving in real time
Instantly apply or update the appropriate giving circle code
Keep your annual reports and donor events accurate and current

Bonus: You can include rules for recurring donors or soft credits, so no one falls through the cracks.

4. Clean and Classify Cell Phone Numbers Automatically

We built an automation that checks a donor’s area code against their current address to determine if a home phone is actually a cell phone, which is vital for phonathons and follow-up texting. It runs every night and updates records accordingly.

5. Daily Digest Emails for Gift Officers and Leadership

Instead of constant report requests, automation can deliver daily summaries of:

Pledges fulfilled
New donors
Unassigned major gifts
Donors who crossed into a new giving circle

These digests can be sent via email or Slack and include clickable links that open prefilled actions in Raiser’s Edge.

6. Personalized Heartfelt Email Drafts

Want to thank first-time donors or milestone givers without writing every email from scratch?

Our system generates prewritten, editable email drafts based on donor activity. Major gift officers receive a daily list tailored to them with messages ready to personalize and send—no queries, no manual typing, just meaningful outreach at scale.

7. “Magic Folder” for Imports from Outside Systems

Whether you’re importing data from PowerSchool, OneCause, or a gala registration platform, our “magic folder” system:

Detects new files
Matches data to existing records in Raiser’s Edge
Flags duplicates
Prepares import-ready files with the correct mapping

It eliminates duplicate records and hours of data entry.

8. Automated Gift Acknowledgments

Colleges and universities often struggle to keep up with gift acknowledgment letters. Our automation can:

Determine who signs which letter (President, Dean, Chancellor)
Choose the correct letterhead and message
Email or print the acknowledgment depending on donor preference
Attach the letter to the donor record and mark the gift as acknowledged

Even better – it happens in real time.

Ready to Start Automating?

There are two ways to begin:

DIY Approach – Explore Power Automate and Sky API with help from the Blackbaud Community and Microsoft Power Platform forums.
Partner With Us – PSG can build your first automation (or all of them) based on your specific goals and data.

Fundraising automation isn’t about replacing people. It’s about eliminating the tedious stuff so that your team can focus on building donor relationships, crafting better campaigns, and growing your mission!