Dataro 3.0: from predictions to who to focus on and what to do next

Most fundraising teams don't have a data problem anymore. You have scores, predictions, dashboards and reports. What's often missing is a clear answer to two questions: who do you need to focus on, and what should you do next with those people?

Dataro 3.0 is built to close that gap. In a recent Dataro Office Hours session, head of marketing Nick Miller, head of customer success Cecilia Poplin and product manager Anna Kaufman walked through what's new and why it matters.

The idea behind 3.0: precision is the strategy

The strong predictions fundraisers rely on are still there. Dataro still ranks and scores your donors across programmes. What's changed is the layer on top: the platform now shows the action to take, when to take it and who it applies to.

"Precision is the strategy," Poplin said. The goal is fewer, better touches and a clear next step for every donor across every programme you run.

Everything in 3.0 ladders up to that idea through four parts of the platform. Think of them as four moves you can make on a Monday morning before your coffee gets cold.

1. Insights: see who to focus on

Insights is the first thing you see when you log in. It works at two levels.

Audience insights show the shape of your programme: where revenue, risk and opportunity sit across your donors. Donor insights drill down to the individual so you know exactly who needs attention now.

All insights refresh daily. Audience insights surface groups such as donors likely to give in your next ask, donors ready to become recurring givers, mid-level upgrade candidates and recurring donors at risk of cancelling. Individual alerts flag moments like lifetime giving milestones, largest-ever gifts, second gifts and donors who have crossed 12 months without giving.

Each insight comes with a recommended next step and a ranked list you can act on. You can filter, add exclusions, refine the list in plain language, then push it to your CRM, Google Ads or Meta Ads, or export it to run through email or mail.

2. Donor research: get to know your donors fast

Donor research pulls together everything you need to know about the donors who matter most, with every finding cited.

Dataro flags three groups: current major donors, major donor prospects and new donors who could become significant givers. Press enrich profile and Prospect AI runs a real-time enrichment across web presence, public records, affinities, connections, volunteer activity and more.

The enriched profile includes an executive summary, key readings, conversation starters, friendly contacts and connections, affinities and capacity estimates. Every source carries a confidence level you can review, accept or override, and you can add your own sources before regenerating the report.

Prospect AI and the main platform now work as one experience. You can send a saved audience to Prospect AI and research donors in bulk.

On privacy, the team was clear. The research tab is currently suppressed for customers where compliance and privacy policies are in play, and Dataro is refactoring the experience so model-based ranked lists stay accessible while meeting regional requirements such as GDPR.

3. Playbooks: launch your next play

Playbooks turn rankings into action. Each one starts with a real fundraising goal, not a model name, so you move from goal to campaign in a few clicks.

Use playbooks to run new appeals, prevent churn, grow mid-level giving and cultivate major donors. Dataro recommends the audience, an audience size and a multiphase, multichannel journey. An appeal, for example, runs as a three-phase programme over 90 days across email, SMS, phone and online ads, framed around thanking, presenting the case and making the ask.

You can preview the list, refine it in your own words, then publish it to your CRM or ad accounts. The team also confirmed that permissions such as email and SMS consent can be shown as columns or applied as suppressions, so you keep full control of who's included.

4. Audiences: activate the right groups

Audiences is how you group and activate donors without losing the individual. There are two ways to think about it.

Build an audience using filters or plain language. Ask for the top 1,000 donors most likely to become mid-level givers, then remove anyone who is already a major donor. Dataro matches the models and filters behind the scenes and updates the count as you go. Save it, then push it to your CRM, Meta Ads, Google Ads or a CSV.

Track an audience answers a different question: is the programme working? Define a starting cohort and the outcome you want, and Dataro counts how many donors move from one to the other over time. Track donors who lapsed in the past 12 months, then watch how many reactivate, complete with a trend line.

What's next

The team previewed a roadmap shaped by customer feedback. Planned work includes custom alerts, an in-app success centre, insights delivered by email and other channels, sharper model performance and prediction reasons, organisation-level research in Prospect AI and richer, more customisable donor journeys.

Dataro 3.0 is available now through an opt-in banner in the classic app, with a classic mode you can revert to while the team works toward feature parity.

Practical takeaways

• Start Monday with insights to see where revenue, risk and opportunity sit, then act on the donors who need attention now.

• Use donor research to walk into cultivation meetings prepared, with cited, verifiable profiles.

• Run playbooks to go from a fundraising goal to a ready-to-run, multichannel journey in a few clicks.

• Build and track audiences in plain language, then push them to your CRM, ads, email or mail.

Conclusion

The promise of Dataro 3.0 is simple: fewer, better touches and a clear next step for every donor across every programme. Predictions tell you what's likely. Now the platform tells you who to focus on and what to do next, so your team can spend its time on the relationships, creativity and strategy only fundraisers can deliver.