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What are Engagement Plans?

Molly Kinder
Updated

The AI Engagement Planner helps you create a personalized outreach strategy for each donor. It analyzes the donor’s profile and relationship history to suggest a plan designed to guide the donor toward their next best gift opportunity. Instead of building donor strategies from scratch, the planner generates a structured engagement plan that you can review, adjust, and implement directly in Momentum.

Table of Contents

  1. Overview
  2. Create an AI Engagement Plan
  3. Creating Engagement Plans for Your Portfolio
  4. Best Practices
  5. Important Notes 

Overview

The Engagement Planner uses the donor’s AI Bio and CRM engagement history to recommend a sequence of relationship-building actions. Click here to learn more about AI Bios.

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Momentum generates a draft of recommended touchpoints based on:

  • AI Donor Bios
  • Giving history
  • Engagement activity
  • Communication patterns
  • Internal notes

These touchpoints, or actions, may include:

  • Emails
  • Phone calls
  • Meetings
  • Events
  • Stewardship touchpoints
  • Cultivation activities
  • Proposal or ask preparation

From this information, Momentum estimates timing for a donor's next gift, recommended channel of outreach, and any cultivation steps. The plan is always editable. Fundraisers review and refine the strategy before activating it.

The planner focuses on helping you move from today’s relationship status toward the donor’s next meaningful gift.

Create an AI Engagement Plan

  1. Open the Workspace tab. Then select Engagement Plans.
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  1. Search for a donor.
  2. Review the generated AI Donor Bio. Select Edit to modify the Bio with any personal or institutional context.
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  1. Once the Bio is reviewed and correct, click Continue to Plan.
  2. Momentum will generate a draft engagement plan. The system will propose a series of actions designed to move the relationship forward. This is just the starting point.
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6. Review the suggested plan and use the textbox to make any suggestions for modifications. 

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After generating the plan, Momentum explains the reasoning on the left side of the screen behind the recommended actions on the right side of the screen. To modify it, you can:

  • review suggested touchpoints
  • adjust outreach timing
  • change communication channels
  • add or remove steps
  • provide feedback to the AI assistant

For example, you might adjust a plan by replacing an email with a phone call, adding a meeting before a proposal, or inserting a stewardship touchpoint. This ensures the plan reflects your real knowledge of the donor relationship.

7. Finalize and activate the Plan. Once you’re satisfied with the engagement plan, click Finalize Plan on the right side of the screen. Momentum will automatically create the recommended touchpoints. 


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These actions will now appear in your Inbox and Planner, on donor records, and in cadence workflows (if applicable.) This allows you to immediately start executing the strategy.

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Creating Engagement Plans for Your Portfolio

Engagement Plans are created for one donor at a time. This design encourages fundraisers to review and refine the strategy before implementing it. To create Engagement Plans for your entire portfolio, start with your most well-known donors. As you generate each of the AI Bios, carefully review the information and make edits based on your knowledge of them. Then, move onto creating each Engagement Plan. Review and refine each plan based on your relationship. This approach ensures the strategy reflects both data insights and fundraiser expertise.

Best Practices

  1. Start with donors you know well: When first using the Engagement Planner, begin with donors you understand deeply. This helps you learn how the AI interprets your CRM data.
  2. Customize the plan: AI provides a strong starting point, but fundraisers should adjust plans to reflect real-world context and relationships.
  3. Focus on top-tier donors first: Many teams start engagement planning with top portfolio donors, major gift prospects, or campaign priority donors. This ensures the most important relationships receive the most intentional strategy.

Important Notes

  • Engagement Plans are generated but not automatically activated without your review.
  • AI recommendations should always be carefully reviewed before sending communications or scheduling outreach.

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