AVPN's ImpactCollab: Fueling Philanthropy with AI

AVPN is the largest network of social investors in Asia, comprising over 600 funders and resource providers across 33 markets. With over a decade of expertise and deep understanding of regulatory and process requirements, their mission is to increase the flow and effectiveness of financial, human, and intellectual capital in Asia by enabling members to channel resources towards impact.

AVPN leveraged Salesforce to build a secure, AI-powered platform, ImpactCollab, that connects private bank clients with verified philanthropic opportunities, and streamlines due diligence. It aims to mobilise up to US$100 million in philanthropic capital by 2030, enhancing Singapore's role as a philanthropic hub.

AVPN recognises that Asia is expected to account for more than 230,000 of the world’s ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs) by 2027. In Singapore alone, there are 2,000 family offices, more than 300,000 millionaires and US$1.2 trillion of wealth under management. However, the potential for philanthropic deployment of this capital remains largely untapped as private bankers and wealth managers are not fully equipped to better serve their clients’ philanthropic interests.

ImpactCollab addresses these challenges by helping grantmakers, and wealth and philanthropy advisors—especially those new to giving—identify trustworthy, impact-driven organisations. The platform enables reliable, data-informed decision-making and makes philanthropy more approachable and transparent, rather than something reserved for a select few. By fostering early trust in both the platform and the giving process, AVPN aims to lay the groundwork for more effective, long-term philanthropic engagement. Additionally, by offering access to a curated pool of verified organisations backed by due diligence tools, ImpactCollab helps reduce reputational and compliance risks for grantmakers. 

AVPN had seen considerable success with their existing Salesforce instance, which supported the organisation’s growth from the ground up. With its community managed on Experience Cloud, AVPN’s network had grown to over 600 active members.  The ImpactCollab initiative required a separate, highly secure environment, to safeguard sensitive data from 12 private banks, and a unified platform to manage its growing membership.

Furthermore, with potentially thousands of vetted philanthropic opportunities, manually sifting through them and conducting due diligence was time-consuming and inefficient for relationship managers and advisors.

AVPN built ImpactCollab on Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud, creating a secure marketplace that lists pre-vetted nonprofit opportunities for private bank clients on a trusted, unified platform. This dedicated instance provides the necessary data privacy and security for their banking partners. Officially launched at Singapore Management University (SMU), ImpactCollab offers AVPN members access to a curated pool of approximately 400 impact organisations currently, with a goal for over 1200 in 2027.

To ensure credibility and transparency, ImpactCollab utilises the Governance Maturity Framework, co-developed with SMU's Lien Centre for Social Innovation. This framework assesses impact organisations against a range of parameters including strength of leadership, codes of conduct, transparency and accountability. As part of its governance scoring, the impact organisations and their boards are also screened against LSEG World-Check, adding a further layer of assurance.

This robust vetting process allows donors to easily filter and search for vetted charities aligned with their philanthropic goals, while also helping smaller and newer charities gain visibility and broaden their donor base. This initiative aligns with Singapore's tax policies that encourage donations, and MAS's vision to strengthen Singapore's role as a trusted financial centre.

To address the challenge of navigating a vast number of opportunities, AVPN integrated Agentforce as a powerful search tool and an AI-powered ‘philanthropy advisor’. The AI agent helps relationship managers quickly find relevant opportunities and gain insights by simplifying complex terminology and answering specific queries. Agentforce assists both external investors seeking information, and internal employees with due diligence. This AI-powered advice is often more detailed and efficient than what human advisors could produce in the same timeframe, and AVPN relationship advisors also benefit from the upskilling to utilise the new AI tools. Together with its partner, Skie, AVPN was able to launch the first framework of Agentforce within just three weeks.

Salesforce Data Cloud and MuleSoft are utilised to automate due diligence processes, and to integrate the vast amounts of information from different sources, both inside AVPN’s platform and from external sources, like the Governance Maturity Framework and LSEG World-Check. What once involved manually sifting through hundreds of documents for policy verification, can now be done more efficiently by employees, significantly reducing the time and effort required to vet opportunities. This automation builds trust, and speeds up the entire philanthropic process.

Beyond ImpactCollab, Salesforce has been integral to AVPN's ‌remarkable growth. As AVPN expanded from 5 to 175 people and now operates in over 30 countries with more than 600 members, Salesforce has served as their central knowledge repository and connection point. This transparency and ability to manage their vast network has been crucial, enabling their expansion in a secure, trusted environment. Added to this, AVPN is enabling collaboration across it’s teams and partners with Slack, leveraging the user-friendly, purpose-built productivity tool to power project management throughout the workday.

For ImpactCollab, Salesforce provides the comprehensive, secure, and flexible platform necessary to build the innovative solution it needs. The ability to integrate AI capabilities, automate complex processes, and provide a single source of truth allows AVPN to not only solve immediate challenges, but also scale for future growth and impact. 

The implementation of Agentforce has been a transformative addition for the ImpactCollab team. AI agents enable the team to deliver trusted information, from up-to-the-minute data, to its members around the clock, 24/7. This constant accessibility to reliable information liberates ImpactCollab employees from the repetitive tasks of data dissemination and support, allowing them to redirect their valuable time and expertise toward more complex, strategic projects that inherently demand human intervention and critical thinking. The synergy between Salesforce's core platform and Agentforce ensures that ImpactCollab operates with unparalleled efficiency, accuracy, and strategic focus, ultimately maximising its capacity for positive change.