A New Fiscal Year, A Proven Case for Autonomous Fundraising

Congratulations to everyone who just wrapped up the fiscal year-end. As the new fiscal year begins, fundraising teams are keenly aware of new goals and what it will take to achieve them. This time of year often highlights just how many donors remain untouched or only lightly engaged, and how many more prospects in the pool deserve cultivation but go uncontacted. There’s no question there is potential within every donor base, but turning that potential into real engagement and giving consistently runs up against the same barrier: time and fundraising capacity.

The College of Charleston was one of the first in the entire world to boldly address this gap when leadership introduced its Virtual Engagement Officer, Alex, to donors. Vice President of Advancement, Dan Frezza and his team had one clear goal: test if trusted digital labor could do what we’ve always wished possible, one-to-one personal engagement at scale to increase giving, participation, and build pipeline.

Eight months into the Autonomous Fundraising journey, College of Charleston saw an 11x increase in giving and a 4x increase in participation from the same donors the year before. Some of those gifts came from people who hadn’t given in years. And all of this happened alongside the work staff were already doing.

College of Charleston and Alex helped prove that Autonomous Fundraising is possible. Now, they are showing us that there is indeed a major impact when we evolve the donor experience beyond marketing and direct mail. The difference is that Autonomous Fundraising deepens donors’ connections and engagement with an organization and in doing so, the natural outcome is donors who are inspired to give.

And it’s not just College of Charleston. Across our community, we’ve seen other partners show that when you put a segment of 1,000 donors into a VEO portfolio, you get results that mass outreach simply can’t deliver. When you combine consistency, thoughtful messaging, and real long-term moves management, people respond. They remember what inspired them to give in the first place, and feel that sense of connection again.

That’s how you create a pipeline that doesn’t just get you through this year, but sets you up for the ones ahead.