In fundraising, anyone who's worked a portfolio knows the work doesn't stop when the fiscal year does; it just changes hands. For many, June 30 is when one half of the advancement shop finally exhales, and the other half turns on the gas. Now that our customers have closed their books, we've completed our end of that handoff — the analysis on what FY26 in Autonomous Fundraising is telling us. The Donor Attrition Problem: Dollars Up, Donors Down A consistent theme for a while

Virtual Engagement Officers (VEOs) have collectively raised more than $20 million in independently generated gifts across healthcare, nonprofit, and educational institutions. VEOs manage year-round, one-to-one engagement, reaching donors who would otherwise go unmanaged entirely. Just five months ago, we announced $10 million raised. To see that number double in such a short span shows just how fast organizations are adopting Autonomous Fundraising every day. And with over 25

Why Digital Labor Is Becoming Advancement's Next Structural Answer How do teams break down silos to keep pipelines fluid? For many years, the majority of advancement teams were only staffed for major gifts and annual funds, leaving a real gap between them. That gap is exactly where the modern donor pipeline still gets stuck today. Closing the Mid-Level Giving Gap Leadership Annual Giving programs became the industry's answer to that gap, but LAG's home base and qualifications

At Givzey | Version2.ai, we’ve built an onboarding experience that moves at the pace at which advancement teams actually operate. Designed for Advancement Teams As a team of former fundraisers and advancement professionals, we designed Autonomous Fundraising onboarding around how advancement teams actually work, delivering results in weeks, not months. "Our goal isn't to create extra work," says Liz Giroux, Director of Onboarding at Version2.ai. "It's to organize the work tha

The Role of Autonomous Fundraising in Year-Round Cultivation Every organization has supporters who show up once a year. The alum who gives every Giving Day. The person who signs up for the annual 5K walk. The volunteer who shows up at the shelter every summer. These folks are loyal and care about the organization, but that loyalty rarely gets matched with much beyond that one moment each year. Sometimes, organizations are so siloed in ownership of events, volunteers, or dono

AI has been integrated into all facets of work, but not all AI is the same. For fundraising teams, the distinction between the two categories it actually splits into is key when deciding what you need to expand capacity to close the donor gap. The Two-Question Test There's a simple way to sort any AI tool into the category it belongs to, regardless of how a vendor markets it: Does a human have to start or finish the job? If a person has to prompt it, or has to take its output

What Advancement Teams Can Do About the Donor Capacity Gap Every advancement team knows there are more donors in the database than there are gift officers to manage them, and no amount of hiring closes that gap fast enough. This leaves the top donors getting personal attention and everyone else to mass outreach. Version2.ai surveyed more than 100 nonprofit organizations, putting a hard number on the donor capacity gap — the space between the donors an institution has and the

Rethinking Planned Giving Beyond the Seasonal Campaign During the month of August, an initiative teams often leverage for their planned giving campaigns is Make-A-Will-Month. Though it's a natural hook for fundraisers to lean into, the message can fall flat when it’s an impersonal checklist or a beneficiary reminder that donors are left to make sense of, largely on their own. The awareness around planned giving isn’t what donors are missing. It’s the next step. Rated prospect

Identifying who should stay in a portfolio and who should be removed, is a difficult decision frontline fundraisers have to make. Once removed, it's unlikely those rated, known prospects will receive one-to-one engagement again. But that one-to-one engagement is exactly what these donors need to move through the pipeline. This is the common pain point across advancement: not enough capacity to reach the volume of rated and known donors who could make a real impact on the miss

Less than 3% of donors have a prospect manager. At an institution with 250,000 solicitable donors, that can mean upwards of 50,000 rated, giving donors with no assigned gift officer. Mass communication can check a box to reach those donors, but it can't replicate what one-to-one engagement does for retention, upgrades, and lapsed donor reactivation. Traditionally, to reach more donors and solve the capacity problem, organizations have had to add more people, but there are nev

Over the last few months, several fundraising reports have analyzed last year’s philanthropy, with Giving USA's annual report among the most recent. The common thread as I’ve read through them: philanthropy continues to grow. But anyone who's spent time inside a development office knows that a topline number rarely tells the full story. Most organizations have more donors who deserve individual attention than staff allow. That gap has always existed, but with each new report

There's a particular feeling that sets in around this time of year. Emails return vacation auto-replies more often than responses. The event calendar skips ahead to fall. The only thing gaining momentum is the summer slump, and your donors' attention is much harder to earn. For organizations on a July-to-June fiscal year, it feels impossible to "start the year strong" until September. For everyone else, momentum plateaus. Teams stretch thin, take well-deserved vacations, and

Caps and gowns are packed away, campuses have quieted down, yet for many advancement teams, the clock is ticking on the final stretch of the fundraising year. The Ask That Wasn't an Ask Commencement season isn't just a milestone for graduating students. For fundraising teams, it's one of the most emotionally resonant moments in the alumni relationship, a time when many reflect on their institutional connections and the impact it made on their lives. This spring, VEOs across o

Introducing PHI Detection for Healthcare Partners A grateful patient reaches out to your institution. When sharing why they want to give, they mention their diagnosis, their physician, and the treatment that changed their life. It's a deeply human moment, but a data liability. Human gift officers face this every day. Over time, they develop judgment about what goes into the CRM and what doesn't. They know when to document and when to leave something out. They understand, with

When thinking about unmanaged donors, it's often assumed that these supporters are unrated or unknown. But thousands of donors in databases have demonstrated real generosity, real loyalty, and real connection to the institution — and never hear from a gift officer. Some of these donors have six and seven-figure capacity. Yet a majority are giving smaller amounts, and would give deeper if given the opportunity. Our team has had the opportunity to work with Macalester College a

Over the last few months, we've shared updates about the many Giving Days Virtual Engagement Officers have supported this spring, and if you've ever held a Giving Day, you know how much goes into it. But what comes out of it is just as exciting, and as we wrap up the Giving Day season with nearly 70 completed campaigns, the data tells a story that goes beyond the totals. As Autonomous Fundraising becomes a strategic part of Giving Day success metrics, the ROI is undeniable. A

Virtual Engagement Officers have sent over one million personalized messages to thousands of previously unmanaged donors. What's come back isn't just giving or engagement data. We're seeing an actual window into how donors think, what moves them, and where most cultivation falls short. More and more, I've been asked by fundraising leaders how we as humans can learn from analyzing the engagements and millions of dollars raised by the VEO. I'd like to share three things that A

Virtual Engagement Officers have been busy this spring supporting 67 Giving Days, and the results thus far are nothing short of incredible. Across the participating organizations, VEOs raised $1.74 million from 6,600 gifts, which is more than 5X what we saw a year ago. Nearly 40% of that total revenue was net new revenue from upgrades and lapsed recaptures. More than 1,300 donors increased their giving, totaling $488K, and 755 lapsed donors renewed their support, contributin

Autonomous Fundraising for lapsed donor re-engagement It's a universal experience: you pull up a donor record and see years of consistent giving in meaningful amounts, demonstrating real affinity for the institution. Then, the giving just stops. There's no explanation in the donor's record. No response to direct mail, email, or event invitations. Just silence, and a gap in the database that gets harder to close the longer it sits. This is the lapsed donor problem, and it's on

The past couple of weeks have been an exciting whirlwind for our team, attending conferences across the United States and Canada. We’re so grateful to have shared the stage with our wonderful partners, presenting their achievements through Autonomous Fundraising. From those results, there is a consistent story being told: the biggest opportunity for deeper engagement and increased revenue comes from donors who are known and give annually or have recently lapsed. At the CASE I