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Ask Edna

Updated

Edna is your AI fundraising assistant in Avid. Ask her about your donors and performance, get recommendations on what to do next, and have her build audiences and campaigns — all in plain language.

Use this article when...

  • You want to know what Edna can do for you
  • You have questions about donor data privacy and security
  • You want tips on getting better answers from Edna
  • You want to know which plan includes Edna features

What is Edna?

Edna is Avid's built-in AI assistant for fundraising teams. She lets you:

  • Understand your data — ask questions about your donors, giving trends, and campaign performance in plain language
  • Get recommendations — ask what to focus on, which audiences are worth targeting, and why a metric matters
  • Get things done — have Edna build an audience, draft a campaign play, or help map your data; she returns a proposal for you to review before anything goes live
  • Manage your workspace — ask about sync status, your team's access, or billing — and get a direct link to the right page

Where do I find Edna?

Edna is available in several places:

  • The Edna app — a full-page chat experience, with a conversation history panel and suggested prompts
  • In context — as a chat panel or widget within Insights, Pathways, Playbooks, and Settings pages

Your history is saved so you can pick up any conversation where you left off.

When you open Ask Edna, a sidebar panel appears on the left. It gives you quick access to your conversation history, suggested prompts, and tools for navigating and managing your chats.

Feature What it does
History tab Displays your past Ask Edna conversations in order. Select any conversation to reopen and continue it. History persists between sessions so you can return to earlier analyses whenever you need them.
Prompts tab Shows a curated set of suggested starter questions tailored to your data and the area of Avid you are working in — for example, campaign performance, retention, or channel breakdowns. Use these when you are not sure where to start or want inspiration for a new question.
Search Opens a search field within the History tab so you can locate a specific past conversation by keyword or topic rather than scrolling through the full list. Click the magnifying-glass icon at the top of the sidebar to activate it.
New Chat Starts a fresh Ask Edna session. Your previous conversations are preserved in the History tab and are not removed when you begin a new chat. Click the pencil icon at the top of the sidebar to start one.
Tip The Prompts tab surfaces different suggestions depending on which part of Avid you opened Ask Edna from. If you want ideas specific to campaigns or retention, navigate to the relevant Insights or Scorecard page first, then open Edna.

What can I ask Edna?

Here are examples of what Edna can help with:

Understand your data
  • "How is revenue tracking vs. last year? What changed most?"
  • "Which segments are driving the drop in recurring gifts?"
  • "Who were my top donors this year, and what trends do you see?"
  • "Show me lapsed major donors from the last 18 months."

Edna draws on your connected data to answer. Donor-level questions require a connected data source and the relevant plan.

Get a recommendation
  • "What should I focus on this month to grow recurring revenue?"
  • "Why is this metric flagged as my top priority?"
  • "Suggest an audience worth acting on right now — and why."

Edna uses your program data and Avid's prioritization engine to surface the next best action.

Get it done for you
  • "Build me an audience of first-time donors from the last 90 days."
  • "Draft a year-end appeal play for new major donors."
  • "Make this strategy more focused on major gifts."
  • "Help me map these CRM columns."

Edna builds a proposal — a segment, play, or mapping — for you to review, edit, or dismiss. Nothing is launched without your confirmation.

Manage your account
  • "When did my last sync run?"
  • "What's my billing status and renewal date?"
  • "Who's on my team and what can they access?"
  • "Is my DonorPerfect connection healthy?"

Edna reads your live workspace data and links you directly to the relevant page.

Create content and images
  • "Rewrite this appeal in our brand voice."
  • "Generate an image for our spring campaign."

Edna uses your brand voice and mission from Settings > Edna to keep content on-voice. Image generation is on by default and can be turned off by an admin.

How does Edna work?

Ask in plain language. Edna understands your question, pulls from your connected data securely, and either answers directly or builds something for you to review.

Edna only has access to what your user account can see — she cannot answer questions about data your role doesn't permit. Out-of-plan requests return an upgrade path rather than an error.

The more you share about your organization in Settings > Edna — your mission, brand voice, and content guidelines — the more relevant and on-brand Edna's outputs become.

Is my data secure?

Your donors' personal information is never sent to AI.

Edna can answer questions about your donors, but personal identifiers are replaced with secure stand-ins before any data reaches the AI model. Only you see the real names and values — restored in your results. The AI model processes only the anonymized form.

For metric and chart explanations, only high-level aggregate summaries are used — no individual donor records, no organization names.

Compliance and isolation:

  • Avid is SOC 2 Type II compliant.
  • Your data is never shared with other organizations and is never used to train any AI model.
  • All data transmission uses encryption and SSL. No unencrypted connections are permitted.
  • Each client's data environment is isolated as part of the SOC 2 framework.

For full detail, see Data Security and Compliance: Common Questions and Avid's Trust Center.

AI Transparency

Content created with Edna — including images — is generated using artificial intelligence based on the prompts and inputs you provide. Generated content may contain inaccuracies, inconsistencies, or unintended results and should be reviewed before public or organizational use.

Avid does not represent AI-generated content as human-created work. Metadata and system identifiers may be included with generated assets to support transparency and evolving AI disclosure standards.

How do I get the best results from Edna?

  1. Be specific. Include the timeframe, segment, or goal you care about — for example, "last 90 days," "monthly donors," or "year-end appeal."
  2. Set up your brand voice first. Add your mission, brand terms, and content guidelines in Settings > Edna. This materially improves content quality and relevance.
  3. Iterate in chat. Refine results conversationally — "make it more focused on major gifts" or "narrow to the Midwest region."
  4. Review proposals before accepting. For any action Edna builds (audiences, plays, mappings), you get a reviewable proposal. Nothing goes live without your confirmation.
  5. Connect your data. Donor-level answers and audience building depend on connected data sources. Check Settings > Connections if Edna says she can't find your data.
  6. Answer her clarifying questions. When Edna asks for more detail, she's pausing rather than guessing — a quick answer gets you a much better result.

What Edna won't do

  • Send donor personal information to the AI model — that's protected by design
  • Act outside your plan or permissions — she'll offer an upgrade path instead
  • Launch a campaign, send anything, or make changes without your explicit confirmation

How do I give feedback on Edna's answers?

Every Edna response has a 👍 / 👎 rating. Use it — whether the answer was great or missed the mark. Your feedback goes directly to the Avid team and is one of the most valuable ways to shape how Edna improves.

The more you rate, the better Edna gets for your organization.

What plan do I need?

Edna's capabilities expand with your plan. All plans include general Q&A and help search. Higher plans unlock data-driven answers, audience building, and campaign drafting.

What you can ask Edna Benchmarks Pathways Playbooks Intelligence Operating System
General Q&A, how-to, help search ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Explain metrics, reports, and charts — — — ✓ ✓
Build audiences and segments — ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Suggested Audiences (AI-powered) — ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Draft and refine campaign plays — — ✓ ✓ ✓
Data mapping and filter assistance — ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Live account answers (billing, sync, team) Limited ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Image generation ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Capabilities also depend on your individual user permissions. Contact your admin if you can't access a feature your plan includes.

Want to unlock more? Contact your Avid account manager or visit Settings > Billing to explore plan options.

What's next?

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