Digital Gift Officer Playbook: Your Roadmap to Starting and Running a Successful DGO Program
Christina Chalmers
We’re so excited to share our brand new playbook designed to help you get a successful Digital Gift Officer Program up and running. You’ve heard us talk about Digital Gift Officers on the RAISE podcast, in a recent webinar, and on the blog. We’ve been all over it.
If you haven’t already thought about bringing a DGO program to your institution, we’re here to tell you that it’s time. Here’s why:
9% of your connected alumni are only interacting digitally. They’re engaged, but not yet giving, volunteering, or attending events.
43% of the average institution’s high-capacity, digitally engaged donors remain unassigned even after giving at leadership levels.
65% of mid-level donors churn (gave last year, but won’t give again this year).
Donor counts have dropped by 33% in the last 15 years. We’re nurturing our major donors better than ever, but what about the other 95% of constituents?
We’ve also been talking about the giving funnel and flipping the pyramid for a while now, so here’s where it all connects. Digital Gift Officers are the key to targeting the missing middle of your giving pyramid and building a strong pipeline to keep your institution’s fundraising goals sustainable over the long term.
Maybe we’re crazy, but we think mid-level donors should be getting unique, personalized experiences that will help them convert into major gift donors down the line. Even retaining existing mid-level donors could earn your institution $1.75 million this year.
This DGO playbook will walk you through what exactly Digital Gift Officers do, how to get started with hiring your own DGOs, and some tried and true steps to make sure you’re successful.
Download the playbook:
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4. Continue to Steward Donors
Your relationship with the donors who give to your endowment doesn’t end when you secure their gifts. Because your endowment exists to make a difference in the long term, your supporters will want you to keep in touch about its progress. Ongoing stewardship means keeping donors updated about your endowment’s performance and impact.
A report that strengthens your relationship with donors should cover:
The fund’s balance at the start and end of the year
Spending amounts and allocations
How the fund’s returns compare to your investment targets
A short narrative detailing the specific impacts the endowment achieved
Create a report for each endowment rather than sending an identical document to everyone. A donor who endowed a scholarship wants to hear about the students it supported, while a donor who endowed a building fund wants updates on construction projects.
5. Upgrade Your Endowment Management Tools
Your endowment management tools should make applying your spending policy across every fund easy. Investing in dedicated software is especially useful as your endowment grows. Handling unitization in spreadsheets might work for a few funds, but as you begin to manage dozens or hundreds of gifts, dedicated software can save your team time spent manually calculating gains and losses for each one.
Why Nonprofits Need Dedicated Endowment Management Software
Dedicated endowment software brings accuracy and consistency to every part of the management process, from tracking individual funds to improving security. See how these solutions compare to a spreadsheet-based approach:
How These Methods Compare:
In managing your endowment with traditional spreadsheets, you may see:
High administrative burden:Manual entry across disconnected systems
Limited security and audit footprints: Reduced version control and audit trail visibility
Difficulty with donor transparency: Spreadsheets provide only static data that is difficult to turn into custom results.
By using dedicated software, you are likely to find the following improvements:
Lower administrative burden:Automated fund tracking and calculated allocations
Enhanced security and audit footprint: Audit-ready reconciliation with clear tracking
Greater donor transparency: Connects with reporting platforms
Dedicated endowment management software keeps your organization compliant while freeing up the time your team once spent manually managing spreadsheets.
Secure Your Endowment with Balance by EverTrue
Effective endowment management begins with excellent accounting. Balance by EverTrue handles unitization, applies spending rules, and produces audit-ready reports, so your team can spend more time on the donor relationships that built the fund in the first place.
Turn your data into a clear picture of long-term impact. Combine accurate fund accounting with donor reporting that showcases impact.
Connect with the tools you already use. Pair Balance with Impact by EverTrue and ODDER by EverTrue to create and deliver compelling digital endowment reports that you can send to donors with ease.
Know where every fund stands in real time. Check market values, gift history, and available spending for any fund. Then, share view-only versions with your team, so everyone stays informed.
With Balance, your team can stop spending all your time on manual management and instead add balance to your endowment workflow.
Additional Resources
To learn more about managing your endowment and other ways that technology can help your organization, check out these additional resources:
The Best Alumni Management Software Solutions in 2026. Alumni management software allows your university to maintain an active community that supports your school in a number of ways. Review top software solutions.
