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The mission behind Maria Droste Counseling Center, a Denver-based nonprofit, is that mental health care shouldn't be a privilege. They offer therapeutic services on a sliding scale so that finances are never the reason someone goes without support. Maria Droste Counseling Center also trains about 15 mental health interns a year, building the next generation of therapists while expanding access today.
It's meaningful, necessary work. And like all meaningful, necessary work, it requires infrastructure that holds up under pressure.
The Challenge
Fundraising for a mental health counseling center serving low-income communities is no easy lift. The mission is compelling, but the work is constant, and when your fundraising platform adds friction instead of removing it, that weight compounds quickly.
Maria Droste's previous platform felt outdated, with a donor experience that was clunky, and the checkout process created problems that Luke Waldron, their Development Director, couldn't keep working around. Luke knew it was time to make a change. What he needed was a platform that would work for Maria Droste Counseling Center—not one that expected Maria Droste to conform to their terms.
The Solution
As Luke evaluated his options, he found that Funraise was a platform built for the way nonprofits actually operate—supporting events, donors, monthly giving, reporting, all in one place—and a team that didn't disappear after the sale. That second part was the missing piece that Maria Droste Counseling Center really needed.
When Maria Droste launched their first silent auction using Funraise, Luke reached out to his Customer Growth Manager, Oscar, with questions. Within hours, Oscar was personally walking Luke through the system. Oscar didn’t put Luke into a ticketing queue or send him a knowledge base article; Oscar showed up.
On the donor side, the difference was equally noticeable. Funraise's donor-facing experience—streamlined checkout, intuitive forms, mobile-friendly giving pages—produced immediate results.
One feature that stood out to Luke immediately was Funraise's AI-powered smart ask amounts, a tool that reads each donor's giving history and dynamically adjusts the suggested donation amounts they see on the donation form. For a development director trying to maximize every gift without manually segmenting every appeal, it was exactly the kind of intelligent automation that Luke was looking for.
The Result
Maria Droste is still early in their Funraise journey, but they're off to a strong start.
Soon after moving to Funraise, Maria Droste Counseling Center held a pickleball tournament with an auction. That first auction raised $5,955, and that first event’s online revenue was $3,795, for a total of $9,750. More importantly, both events ran smoothly—for Luke's team behind the scenes and for every pickleballer bidder who showed up to participate.
For a newer Funraise customer, those numbers aren't the whole story; the real result shows out in the planning, logistics, and follow-up. You know you’re onto something good when your development team isn't fighting the platform, your donors are completing gifts without friction, and you’ve got a relationship with your technology provider that’s more like a partnership than a support ticket.
What's Next
Maria Droste is at the beginning of experiencing what Funraise can do with them.
They've already seen what the platform delivers for events and donor management. Ahead of them is a full suite of tools they’ve got the option to deploy: peer-to-peer fundraising, dedicated monthly giving campaigns, wealth screening, deeper donor intelligence and reporting, and giving pages built with conversion in mind.
For development directors carrying the weight of a mission this important, the last thing you need is a platform that makes the work harder. Maria Droste Counseling Center's story is for anyone who's been there and is ready for something different.
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