Welcome to Agentic Ask Drafting thatputs the case in the donor's own terms.
The ask meeting is the most leveraged hour in advancement. Risely's agents assemble the brief the night before, and the officer walks in with the case, both structures, and the objection already answered.
The ask brief · a $50K scholarship
assembling
The case in the donor's terms
A named scholarship for first-generation students in the department the donor studied in, anchored to the lab where the thesis was written.
The mechanics and the price
$50K over five years, or $42K outright with the match. Payroll deduction and a donor-advised fund path are both prepared.
The likely objection
“Why not the annual fund?” The answer is drafted, and it uses the donor's own giving history rather than the institution's talking points.
The one thing not to do
Do not rush. This donor re-engaged without being chased, and being chased now would undo that.
The brief holds for the officer, and the leave-behind is drafted alongside it. The officer makes the ask.
The case gets written in the donor's own language.
Risely reads the giving history, the volunteer record and the last four contact reports, then writes the case out of what the donor has already shown a decade of caring about.
The case assembles itself
from the record
Every gift has gone to one department since the first one.
the gift ledger
First-generation students now fill the seats this donor once sat in.
the student record
The donor mentors capstone teams in that same department.
the volunteer record
The last visit ended on the lab, and the question never got answered.
the contact reports
A case written in the institution's language asks the donor to care about the institution. This one asks about the thing the donor already cares about.
Both structures arrive priced.
$50K over five years, or $42K outright with the employer match. Payroll deduction and a donor-advised fund path are prepared, so the structure question gets answered at the table.
Both paths are priced before the meeting
$50K over five years
- A pledge paid annually
- Names the scholarship in year one
- Payroll deduction prepared
$42K outright with the match
- One gift matched by the employer
- Names the scholarship immediately
- Donor-advised fund path prepared
The structure question gets answered at the table, so momentum survives the meeting instead of stretching into a quarter.
The likely objection has an answer on the page.
Every ask meets one question that stalls it, and for a named scholarship it is usually the annual fund. Risely drafts the answer from the donor's own history rather than from institutional talking points.
The question that stalls the room
“Why not the annual fund?”
Drafted from the donor's own giving history: the annual fund keeps the lights on for one year, and a named scholarship keeps a seat filled every year after that. Both are already funded by this donor.
An answer prepared in advance keeps the conversation moving. “Let me check” ends it for a quarter.
The leave-behind is drafted with the brief.
Half of major gifts get decided after the meeting, by someone who was never in the room. That person reads the leave-behind, so Risely writes it from the same case rather than leaving it to a scramble.
The leave-behind
A scholarship in the department
The same case on one page
Both structures with their numbers
Two anonymised student stories from the fund
One name and number to reply to
Half of major gifts get decided after the meeting, by someone who was never in the room. The leave-behind is the only version of the case that person ever sees.
One thing moves. The ask re-drafts.
A donor asks for a year, a match expires, a fund closes early, a spouse joins the meeting. Any of them changes the ask, and every one runs the same way.
The donor asks for a year
on the phone, days before the meeting
Risely re-reads the record
the fund, the window, the band
The ask re-sizes
the same case, a different structure
The officer approves the change
one brief, one review
The leave-behind re-drafts
so both pieces still say the same thing
What changes, and how it runs.
The prepared hour closes in the room
Both structures were priced before anyone sat down, so momentum survives the meeting.
The case belongs to the donor
Written from a decade of giving history rather than from the institution's language.
The follow-up is already written
The person who was not in the room reads the same case, on one page.
The technical read
Connects read-only to your CRM, gift ledger and contact reports to start
An officer approves every brief, and makes every ask in person
Every draft and edit lands on an append-only log
Runs alongside what you have. Nothing rips out.