Turns Cold Calls into Warm Conversations with the Blackbaud Development Agent

A Capacity Problem That Required a Different Approach

Before adopting the Development Agent, Colby’s advancement team was navigating the kind of pressure many fundraising teams know well: growing expectations, broad constituent bases, and the need to make every outreach effort count. As Colby looked for thoughtful ways to apply AI across campus, advancement offered a practical place to start. For Geoff Hallett, executive director of annual giving, the need was clear. “[Colby has] a lot of constituents that I need to reach out to. I have increasingly aggressive goals that I need to achieve. And my team members are human. They only have so many hours in the day, only so many things that they can do at once,” he said.

The challenge was not whether to use AI, but how to apply it in a way that extended reach while preserving the human relationships at the heart of advancement. Colby isn’t looking to automate relationships; it wants its staff spending less time identifying who to call and more time having meaningful conversations with the people they serve. Without additional capacity, the team knew it would be difficult to engage every constituent in a timely and meaningful way. Hallett saw this as an opportunity to expand what the team could achieve without changing the purpose of the work. “The Development Agent is going to help us, essentially, get to everyone, and I think that is really important for us as we are trying to build relationships with our donors,” Hallett said. The goal was to make advancement truly scalable so that more donors could be seen, heard, and understood than would otherwise be possible.

Extending the Team With AI

Colby introduced the Blackbaud Development Agent as a new entry point in its fundraising pipeline, positioning it at the moment when a constituent expresses interest in becoming more involved with the College. The team named the agent Ari, short for Aristotle, one of the college’s live mules that served as its mascot in the 1940s.

From the start, Hallett was deliberate about how he framed the role of AI. “I believe that AI can and should support humans and not replace them,” he said. “Only humans have the relationships and the critical thinking ability to do the work that we do, and AI is a tool that can help us do that better, faster, more intentionally, more effectively.”

For Colby, that philosophy shapes how AI is deployed. Rather than replacing frontline fundraising, the Development Agent is designed to handle the earliest stages of engagement so staff can focus on the work that only people can do: building trust, understanding motivations, and creating lasting relationships.

Ari engages donors at a critical point in the journey: after they have already taken an action that shows they are ready for a next conversation. Donors who engage through Ari can be connected to the right next step, whether that is continued broad-based engagement, a conversation with a gift officer, or deeper involvement with the College, creating a more intentional progression from initial interest to long-term philanthropic partnership. “By participating and giving in our broad-based philanthropy, they are raising their hands. And what Ari is doing is calling on them. The agent is saying, how do you want to stay connected to Colby College?” Hallett said. The agent is designed to provide consistent, personalized, timely engagement at a scale the team would struggle to achieve manually.

Rather than relying solely on historical engagement data, the team can now hear directly from constituents about how they want to connect. Interest becomes explicit and intent becomes actionable. “We very much see this tool as an extension of our fundraising team ecosystem alongside the broad-based annual giving, alumni engagement, and major gift work that we are doing,” Hallett shared.

A Different Starting Point for Every Conversation

The impact of the Development Agent is not defined by volume alone, but by how conversations begin. As Hallett envisions it, “every prospect becomes a warm lead.” Instead of starting with an unvetted list and narrowing it down, fundraisers at Colby begin with individuals who have already engaged and responded. They enter conversations with a clearer understanding of what the donor cares about and how they want to connect.

That shift changes not only who fundraisers talk to, but how they spend their time. Instead of investing hours identifying prospects who may not be interested, staff can devote more energy to conversations with people who have already expressed how they want to engage. The result is not fewer human interactions. Instead, more constituents can be engaged earlier, and in a way that feels responsive rather than transactional.

For Hallett, that context turns outreach from cold contact into a warmer, more informed conversation. “Every constituent that we’re reaching out to, we have a solid understanding of what they want the philanthropic relationship to be with the institution, and that just makes everybody’s lives easier,” Hallett said. At Colby, the Development Agent isn’t replacing fundraisers. It’s replacing uncertainty, so every conversation can begin with greater context and every fundraiser has more room for the human side of fundraising.

Building Toward an AI-Forward Future

The Development Agent reflects Colby’s broader institutional commitment to exploring how AI can be used thoughtfully across campus. “As an institution, Colby wants to be on that leading edge. Colby President, David A. Greene has spoken about how he wants to be at the forefront of how we are securing the role of the liberal arts college in a world that is more driven by technology every day,” Hallett said.

Within that vision, advancement is emerging as an early example of what responsible AI adoption can look like: practical, intentional, and grounded in human connection. “How can advancement be a leader on campus to build, develop, and integrate these AI tools into our work? If we can be on the leading edge, that is all good things for Colby,” Hallett concluded.

For Colby, the opportunity is bigger than adopting a new technology. As the institution explores how liberal arts colleges can lead in an increasingly technology-driven world, advancement is helping demonstrate what thoughtful AI adoption can look like. The goal is not to let technology define the future of the liberal arts, but to help shape that future intentionally, using tools that strengthen human connection rather than replace it.