Nobody owned anything
When Jessica Watts joined Fundraise Up as VP of Sales, the company had no defined territory structure. Sellers could pick any account that wasn't already claimed, and new leads were assigned round robin.
No AE carried a book of business. No BDR carried a book of business. It was completely round robin based on historical inbound processes.
Jessica WattsVP of Sales, Fundraise Up
The side effects showed up everywhere. “AEs would hold their opportunities because if they closed them, they would be released back into the round robin.” When anyone asked “who are our targets?” the team “could not say with confidence.” And other departments got no guarantees: “We couldn't promise (to other departments) that accounts were being worked because they didn't belong to anybody who took responsibility for creating those conversations.”
After multiple quarters of trying, the effort stalled. “We proceeded to lose our RevOps leader. We fumbled around trying to figure out if there was a path to getting this done internally.” Meanwhile the rest of the plan was waiting: “I was not willing to commit to a hiring plan until we had clear account coverage.” And the clock was running: “We have revenue kickoff in January. Obviously we need reps to have their 2025 patches in their hands in January at the very latest.”
A territory design in weeks, not quarters
Introduced by their partner, Skaled Consulting, Fundraise Up turned to BoogieBoard with less than two months before its deadline and no time to evaluate multiple vendors.
We were worried that the demo was too good to be true. The idea that you could click a button and receive a territory design seemed unrealistic.
Jessica WattsVP of Sales, Fundraise Up
It wasn't. “I don't remember there being an implementation. I connected our admin with BoogieBoard and suddenly we were discussing how to get the upload started.” Jessica saw “immediate simplicity in our approach that created acceleration,” and BoogieBoard “acted as the appropriate translator between the two teams to get us into a position where we could run a project plan.”
1Balanced on what a nonprofit could drive
Fundraise Up loaded its account data and team structure into BoogieBoard and balanced territories on revenue potential, micro-sector focus and nonprofit-specific criteria. Its segments are unusual: “We base our segments on potential deal value—how much online revenue we think a nonprofit could drive through us.” And verticals behave differently: “Our win rate is very different when selling to museums versus when we sell to animal welfare.”
2AEs and BDRs, aligned across five segments
Education, SMB, Mid-Market, Enterprise and Strategic each needed their own approach, and AEs and BDRs needed distinct but aligned territories. The team mirrored BDR and AE territories for clean handoffs, built dedicated structures for micro-verticals like Education, sized each territory to the rep's quota level, and pre-built territories for planned hires — including new markets in the UK and EMEA. “We have tiered AE quotas within a segment. We made sure there's equitability in how the book is balanced.”
3Built in the open
Territories were new to most of the team: “The concept of territories was new for a lot of our AEs. Many started as BDRs and had never worked on a territory-based patch.” Reps would have fair questions, too: “How do you know that you didn't just give me 500 accounts in verticals with a suboptimal win rate?”
So the build happened in the open. “We let our AE team in on it with us. We asked, 'what criteria would you be most concerned about us getting right?'” Jessica could “ask questions, see how that played out in the build, and then change my mind” — “Let's play around with balancing this way and see what that looks like. Okay, let's balance it differently.”
The idea that we could sit with the team and show them exactly how we built their territories—down to the criteria—was a game changer.
Jessica WattsVP of Sales, Fundraise Up
