Fundraising Is a Team Sport

Why AI Tools Must Go Beyond the Fundraising Team

In the nonprofit world, fundraising is often seen as the lifeblood of mission-driven work. Those of us who’ve been in the trenches know it’s rarely as simple as “just raising the money.” Behind every successful campaign lies a complex dance of coordination across departments, a mountain of siloed data, and the challenge of telling stories that truly resonate.

Over my 14+ years working in the sector—from international NGOs to food security and girl-centered initiatives—I’ve seen firsthand how hard it is to fundraise but because the systems behind the scenes don’t support the kind of collaboration needed to tell a compelling, honest, and data-informed story.

We are living in a time where every cause is urgent, and every dollar is being stretched. Donors are overwhelmed by appeals from every direction. Fundraising teams are asked to do more with less. And many organizations are grappling with how to stand out—how to share their impact in a way that is both meaningful and rooted in real insight.

But here’s the thing: storytelling that moves people doesn’t just come from the fundraising team. It comes from the field. From finance. From programs. It comes from weaving together numbers, experiences, and voices into a unified narrative.

Why Most Tools Miss the Mark

Most fundraising software is designed with a narrow view—focused solely on the development team’s needs. That’s where things break down. Because impactful fundraising doesn’t live in isolation. It lives at the intersection of insight and empathy, outcomes and stories.

Too often, data lives in silos. Finance has one version of the truth. Programs have another. Fundraising is left to stitch insights together under pressure. I've facilitated countless cross-functional meetings just to extract the right story or data point—hours spent navigating friction instead of advancing strategy.

And it’s not just the data—it’s the form of the data. Spreadsheets, PDFs, quotes, outcomes, photos, case studies. The challenge is not just collecting data. It’s making sense of it efficiently and effectively.

Why We Built Impactable

Fundraising is a team sport—and too often, the tools we use forget that. We need platforms that empower cross-functional teams to think together, share freely, and co-create the stories that matter. Because when we can see the full picture, we don’t just raise more money—we raise more connections, more trust, and more impact.

That’s why I co-founded Impactable—an AI-powered sense-making platform for nonprofits—with a clear purpose: to help mission-driven teams turn scattered data into aligned, actionable insights.

This work started in long conversations with my colleague Javier, who spent over a decade leading finance and operations at City Harvest. Together, we shared a deep understanding of the pain points that slow nonprofits down—not just from raising funds, but from working as a unified team. We knew the challenge wasn’t a lack of commitment, it was a lack of connective tissue—tools that let people work together toward shared insight.

To bring our vision to life, we partnered with our third co-founder— Karthik— an expert technologist and builder who helped take our ideas from whiteboard to a product.

Impactable let’s you:

• Transform messy data into clear insights
• Build a shared source of truth
• Discover stories already hiding in their work
• Collaborate across departments without friction
• Reflect, learn, and improve—not just report

This platform isn't just for fundraisers. It’s for program staff who want to see their work reflected and celebrated. For finance teams who want clarity without duplication. For leadership teams who need alignment across strategy, outcomes, and story.

Because when everyone sees themselves in the story, we can tell a more powerful one.