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Documentation Ask Altrinum

Ask Altrinum

Ask Altrinum How-To

Browse tenant guides generated directly from the Markdown files in docs/tenant.

Introduction

Use this guide when you already know what you want to ask and want the shortest practical path to a useful answer.

Ask Altrinum works best when the question is clear, specific, and grounded in data that already exists in your workspace.

Ask Altrinum can also help with guided drafting flows when you want a strong first draft instead of an analytics answer. Donation form and event drafting start from natural-language requests and create draft records only after minimum context is present. Create email mode produces assistive fundraising copy only; it does not save a campaign or send email.

When to use this page

Use this page when you need to:

  • ask better reporting questions
  • ask about one specific campaign
  • draft a fundraising email with guided inputs
  • draft a donation form for staff review
  • create assistive email draft copy without saving or sending
  • draft an event for staff review
  • decide whether your question is analytics or diagnosis
  • improve a vague prompt
  • understand why Ask Altrinum is asking for clarification

What you will learn

This guide shows you how to:

  • structure questions in a way Ask Altrinum can answer well
  • ask for analytics, trends, and grouped summaries
  • ask for diagnosis or improvement help on one named campaign
  • draft a fundraising email using audience, tone, and optional campaign context
  • draft a donation form with safer workspace defaults
  • understand create-email, create-event, and draft safety behavior
  • export multi-row Ask Altrinum results when the answer is tabular
  • create a static Audience Group from people-based Ask Altrinum results
  • ask for prospect and supporter follow-up lists
  • interpret “be more specific” or ambiguity prompts correctly

Before you start

Before typing a question, pause and decide:

  • what subject you are asking about
  • what metric or answer you actually need
  • what time range matters
  • whether the question is about one named thing or a broader trend

That short mental check usually improves the answer immediately.

Ask for supporter follow-up lists

Use prospect-style prompts when you want a practical list of supporters to review for outreach.

Good examples

  • Show me top prospects.
  • Show me donor prospects.
  • Who are my best prospects?
  • Which donors should I follow up with?
  • Show supporters most likely to give again.
  • Show lapsed donors to follow up with.
  • Show monthly giving prospects.
  • Show planned giving prospects.
  • Show major gift prospects.

How the ranking works

If your workspace has formal prospect scoring data, Ask Altrinum uses that stored score and explains the basis.

If your workspace does not have a dedicated prospect score yet, Ask Altrinum uses an available-signal ranking. It can consider lifetime giving, largest gift, most recent gift, gift frequency, recurring giving, event participation, and profile completeness when those signals are available.

This is not wealth screening or capacity scoring. Altrinum does not invent wealth, capacity, or predictive scores without stored data.

How to improve the list

Import or maintain donation history, recurring giving records, event registrations or attendance, complete supporter profiles, and any formal prospect research your organization already has permission to use.

Ask better reporting questions

A strong Ask Altrinum question usually follows this pattern:

  • subject
  • metric
  • time range
  • optional grouping or filter

Good examples

  • Show donation count by month for the last 12 months.
  • What was our total donation amount last month?
  • Show registrations by program this quarter.
  • What was the no-show rate for paid events?

Why this works

These questions give Ask Altrinum the structure it needs to understand:

  • what domain to search
  • what kind of result to return
  • what period matters
  • how the answer should be grouped or narrowed

Good practice

If the first answer is not useful enough, revise by adding:

  • a clearer date range
  • a more exact metric
  • a grouping such as by month, by event, or by program
  • a specific filter such as paid events or one designation

Ask about a specific campaign

When you want diagnosis or improvement help for one email campaign, name the campaign clearly.

Good examples

  • Diagnose the Spring Appeal campaign.
  • Improve the Giving Tuesday campaign.

Why naming matters

Diagnosis-style questions work best when Ask Altrinum can confidently match the request to one resolved campaign.

If the campaign name is too vague, incomplete, or similar to several other campaigns, the system may ask for clarification.

What to expect

If the campaign is not named clearly enough:

  • Ask Altrinum may prompt for a clearer match
  • an ambiguity chooser may appear if more than one close match exists
  • you may need to choose the correct campaign before diagnosis can continue

Good practice

Use the campaign name staff would recognize from the actual campaign record, not a loose nickname or general description.

Draft a fundraising email

Use this mode when you want Ask Altrinum to help you write a first-pass fundraising email instead of answering a reporting question.

How to open the draft flow

  1. Open Ask Altrinum.
  2. Choose Draft a fundraising email.
  3. Fill in the structured fields.
  4. Select Draft Email.

Inputs supported in this mode

  • optional campaign context
  • audience type
  • tone
  • optional goal
  • optional key points

What the result includes

The drafting result returns clearly separated sections:

  • Subject line options
  • Preview text options
  • Email draft
  • CTA suggestions

How campaign grounding works

If you select a campaign, Ask Altrinum uses lightweight context already available from that workspace record, such as:

  • campaign name
  • current subject line when stored
  • template name when available
  • status
  • a short stored body excerpt when available

If no campaign is selected, the draft still works using the audience, tone, goal, and key points you provide.

Important note

This is assistive drafting only.

The result is not saved as a campaign, not sent, and not stored as a reusable template automatically.

Create email from a prompt

Use Create email mode when you want to describe the email in one natural-language prompt instead of filling out the structured draft fields.

Good examples

  • Create an email appeal for lapsed donors asking them to give again.
  • Draft a warm annual fund email for general supporters.
  • Create a grateful follow-up email for first-time donors.

What Ask Altrinum uses

Create email mode uses safe defaults:

  • audience is inferred from the prompt when possible, otherwise General supporters
  • tone is inferred from the prompt when possible, otherwise Warm
  • the prompt becomes the goal and key point context
  • workspace branding, sender, footer, and campaign context are used where the existing drafting service has them available

Draft-only safety

The result is an email draft with subject line options, preview text options, body copy, and CTA suggestions.

It is not saved as a campaign, not scheduled, and not sent. Staff must review the copy and place it into the email workflow manually.

Draft a donation form

Use Create donation form mode when you want Ask Altrinum to start a giving form draft. Clear natural-language donation-form creation requests also work from Ask anything.

Good examples

  • Create a donation form for the Spring Appeal.
  • Draft a giving form for Emergency Shelter using the General Fund.
  • Create a monthly giving page for the Annual Fund.
  • Emergency food appeal. when Create donation form mode is selected.

What Ask Altrinum uses

For donation form drafting, Ask Altrinum uses existing workspace context:

  • tenant branding such as workspace name, logo, and colors
  • active designations/funds
  • recent giving form suggested amount patterns
  • giving form defaults for gift type, receipting, and consent
  • workspace AI Ask Optimization defaults

The mode panel also shows a small defaults summary before you draft. It explains that branding, receipt defaults, consent defaults, workspace AI Ask Optimization, and recent suggested amount patterns will be reused or recommended when available.

Optional choices are intentionally light:

  • add a goal meter
  • add matching gift copy
  • override AI Ask Optimization inheritance for this draft

Only existing giving-form fields or settings are affected.

Minimum context

Ask Altrinum will not create a form from an intent-only prompt such as:

  • create a donation form
  • build a donation form
  • draft a giving page
  • make a fundraising form

It asks for the purpose/title instead.

Before saving a draft, Ask Altrinum needs:

  • a meaningful campaign purpose or title
  • a selected, safely inferred, or safely defaulted designation/fund
  • an amount strategy from the prompt, recent forms, or a safe recommendation

Generic command phrases are stripped from titles. Create a donation form for our emergency food campaign becomes Emergency Food Campaign.

Designation matching

Ask Altrinum never creates a designation automatically.

If your prompt names an active designation or fund, Ask Altrinum matches it by name or slug within the current workspace. If there is exactly one active safe default, it can recommend and use that designation. If multiple active designations are available and none is clearly named, Ask Altrinum asks you to choose from a short ranked list.

Draft-safe behavior

AI-created donation forms are saved as draft and inactive.

They are not published automatically, and public donation routes require both status=published and the internal active flag. Staff must open the draft, review content and settings, then publish it manually.

Content Ask Altrinum can draft

Ask Altrinum now uses AI-generated copy for the public-facing donation form text after deterministic setup rules have already decided the draft can be created. This helps turn rough prompts such as create a end of the year donation form with reminder of tax benifits into polished fundraising copy like a year-end giving appeal instead of simply title-casing the prompt.

It can generate starter intro copy, one-time or monthly giving copy, thank-you copy, suggested giving levels, and optional goal or matching copy when requested or clearly implied.

It must not invent statistics, beneficiary counts, tax or legal claims, matching gift sponsors, match rates, or deadlines. If tax benefits are mentioned, review the wording carefully; Ask Altrinum should use cautious language such as keeping receipts for records unless your organization has separately confirmed stronger language. If AI copy generation is unavailable, Ask Altrinum falls back to safe starter copy and still saves only a draft when required fields are present.

Continuing after a question

If Ask Altrinum asks a donation-form setup question, answer in the same Ask Altrinum box. The page keeps the current donation-form drafting session and uses your next answer to continue the draft instead of treating it as a new analytics question.

Draft an event

Use Create event mode when you want Ask Altrinum to start an event draft. Clear natural-language event creation requests can also work from Ask anything.

Good examples

  • Create an event for our spring donor reception.
  • Build a registration page for our volunteer orientation.
  • Create a free webinar for our monthly giving launch.

What Ask Altrinum uses

The event mode panel shows defaults and context such as:

  • tenant branding
  • tenant timezone
  • recent event patterns
  • common event types and locations when available
  • recent guest, waitlist, ticket, capacity, and registration-question patterns when available
  • communications support for confirmation, reminder, and survey follow-up copy

Supported options in this mode can affect the saved draft:

  • Allow guests
  • Add waitlist
  • Use recent registration pattern
  • Generate registration questions
  • Generate confirmation copy
  • Generate reminder copy
  • Generate survey copy

Generated registration questions are saved as reviewable event questions when that option is selected. Generated reminder and survey copy is stored for review, but Ask Altrinum does not publish the event, send emails, or turn on automatic survey/reminder sending by itself.

Minimum context

Ask Altrinum will not create an event from generic prompts such as:

  • create an event
  • build an event
  • make a registration page
  • draft an event page
  • create a webinar

It asks for the purpose/title and required details first.

Before saving a draft, Ask Altrinum needs:

  • event purpose or title
  • date
  • start time
  • location or virtual format
  • registration type, such as free, paid, or invitation-only

Draft-safe behavior

AI-created events are saved with status=draft, visibility=hidden, and search indexing off. They are not published automatically, and public event show or registration pages should not expose them until staff review and publish manually.

After a draft is created, review the event, add tickets, review or add custom questions, configure waitlist settings, review communications/reminders, and create an announcement email only after staff review.

Event content Ask Altrinum can draft

Ask Altrinum uses AI-generated copy for event descriptions, registration copy, and confirmation copy after deterministic setup rules have enough required event details. It should make the invitation more specific and useful than generic text such as Join [organization] for [event].

It must not invent speakers, sponsors, venue addresses, prices, food, parking, accessibility promises, deadlines, or other logistics. Avoid asking Ask Altrinum to generate legal waiver text, sensitive demographic questions, health questions, financial-capacity questions, or unsupported logistics. If AI copy generation is unavailable, Ask Altrinum falls back to safe starter event copy and still saves the event only as a hidden draft when required fields are present.

Improve an existing fundraising email

Use this mode when you already have a draft and want a stronger version, not a brand-new draft.

How to open the improve flow

  1. Open Ask Altrinum.
  2. Choose Improve my email.
  3. Choose a source:
    • Choose an email in Altrinum
    • Paste email content
  4. Fill the source-specific fields and optional context inputs.
  5. Select Improve Email.

Inputs supported in this mode

  • source type (required)
  • selected in-app email/campaign (required when using Choose an email in Altrinum)
  • pasted email content (required when using Paste email content)
  • optional campaign context in raw-content mode
  • optional audience type
  • optional goal
  • optional improvement instruction

What the result includes

The improvement result returns clearly separated sections:

  • Quick diagnosis
  • Improved subject line options
  • Preview text options
  • Improved email draft

How campaign grounding works

If you choose an existing email in Altrinum, Ask Altrinum resolves available context from that workspace record automatically, such as:

  • campaign name
  • current subject line when stored
  • template name when available
  • status
  • scheduled and sent timestamps when available
  • a short stored body excerpt when available

If you choose pasted content, the improve flow works from the raw draft plus optional campaign context, audience, goal, and instruction inputs.

Important note

This is assistive editing only.

The result is not saved as a campaign, not sent, and not stored as a reusable template automatically.

Ask questions that stay inside supported domains

Ask Altrinum currently works best for questions tied to workspace data such as:

  • donations
  • events
  • programs
  • emails
  • some workspace-grounded prospect questions

Why this matters

The feature is designed as a workspace analytics assistant, not a general-purpose internet search or unrestricted research tool.

It works best when the question can be answered from records and metrics Altrinum already tracks well.

Good practice

If you are not sure whether a question fits, ask yourself:

  • Is this about data already stored in Altrinum?
  • Is this about a metric, trend, named entity, or campaign that exists in the workspace?

If the answer is yes, it is probably a good fit.

Export tabular Ask Altrinum results

Use export when Ask Altrinum returns a meaningful multi-row result instead of a single KPI or detail answer.

Export is available for:

  • donation record lists
  • grouped donation results
  • grouped event results
  • grouped program results
  • grouped email results
  • prospect list results

Export is not shown for:

  • single-value KPI answers
  • one-record explanatory answers such as an individual prospect insight
  • campaign diagnosis and improvement outputs

How to export

  1. Run the question.
  2. Confirm the result is a list or grouped table.
  3. Select Export CSV.

The export uses the same tenant-scoped result set shown on screen. It does not rerun the question against other workspaces.

Create an Audience Group from Ask Altrinum results

Use this when Ask Altrinum returns a reusable supporter list and you want to act on it again later.

This action is shown when:

  • the current result is people-based
  • the result can be turned into a supporter list safely
  • your workspace has Audience Groups available
  • you have permission to create audience groups and audience group members

Current supported Ask Altrinum audience-style results

  • prospect lists such as top prospects, lapsed major donors, and planned giving prospects
  • donation record-list results that resolve to individual donors

This action is not shown when:

  • the result is a KPI only
  • the result is a grouped summary without reusable people rows
  • the output is diagnosis or improvement guidance

What gets created

Ask Altrinum creates a static Audience Group from the current results.

That means:

  • the group is a saved snapshot of the people returned right now
  • it does not become a dynamic rule set automatically
  • later changes in the data do not automatically change the group membership

How to create it

  1. Run the Ask Altrinum question.
  2. If Create Audience Group appears, select it.
  3. Enter a group name.
  4. Save the group.

If some returned rows do not include a usable email address, those rows are skipped when the static group is created.

Decide between a general analytics question and a diagnosis question

Ask Altrinum can do more than one kind of job, so it helps to know which mode of thinking you are using.

Use a general analytics question when:

  • you want totals, counts, rates, or grouped trends
  • you want a quick summary
  • you are comparing performance across a time range
  • the answer should come back like reporting

Use a diagnosis or improvement question when:

  • you are focused on one named email campaign
  • you want interpretation, not just a metric
  • you want recommendations or possible reasons for performance

Why this matters

A question like:

  • What was our click rate last month?

is asking for analytics.

A question like:

  • Diagnose the Spring Appeal campaign.

is asking for interpretation tied to one known campaign.

Knowing which kind of question you are asking helps you phrase it more clearly.

Interpret vague-question errors correctly

If Ask Altrinum says to be more specific, that usually means the question is missing one of the key details it needs.

Try adding one or more of:

  • a date range
  • a metric
  • a domain
  • a named campaign, form, event, or program when relevant

Example improvement

Weak:

  • How are we doing?

Better:

  • Show donation amount by month for the last 12 months.

Weak:

  • Tell me about our events.

Better:

  • Show registrations by event type this quarter.

Why this matters

The goal is not just to make the question longer. The goal is to make the business question more answerable.

Ask Altrinum is usually prompting for clarity, not rejecting the topic entirely.

Use named entities when possible

Ask Altrinum often performs better when the question refers to one clear thing, such as:

  • a named campaign
  • a specific event
  • a known program
  • a specific giving form
  • one donor or constituent, where supported

Why this helps

Named records give the system something concrete to resolve against.

That usually produces a more reliable answer than asking about a broad category without clear boundaries.

Good practice

If you already know the exact event, program, or campaign you care about, include it in the question instead of asking more generally and hoping the system will infer the right one.

If the page is missing

If Ask Altrinum is not visible in the dashboard navigation:

  1. Open Workspace Settings
  2. Go to the AI section
  3. Check whether Enable Ask Altrinum is turned on

Why this happens

Ask Altrinum depends on workspace AI enablement. If the feature is turned off, the page will not appear for that workspace.

Tips and notes

Tip

Ask one focused question at a time. A single clear prompt usually works better than combining several reporting goals into one sentence.

Tip

If a result seems off, first check whether the date range or named entity in your question matches what you actually meant.

Warning

General phrases like “How are we doing?” usually need refinement before Ask Altrinum can return a useful result.