Autonomous Fundraising: Getting Started Doesn’t Slow You Down

Launch a Virtual Engagement Officer in 3 Weeks or Less

Fundraising doesn't leave a lot of room for taking on new projects. Events, appeals, fiscal year-end reporting, there's always a sprint.

Which is exactly why we designed Version2.ai’s onboarding to fit into this season—not compete with it.

We believe onboarding should feel like a relief—not another burden. That principle shaped everything about our process. It’s fast because it’s focused. Three weeks. Around 8 to 10 hours of your time. Start to finish—with real results on the other side.

Onboarding That Fits the Reality of Fundraising

Our onboarding framework isn’t light-touch by accident. It’s designed to move fast and stay focused—without skipping what matters.

Because we’ve been fundraisers ourselves, we knew we couldn’t just make the process quick—it had to be smart, strategic, and fully supported. The result is a guided, three-week plan that takes about 8 to 10 hours of your team’s time, spread out across a month. And every step is anchored by a dedicated Customer Success Manager and a hands-on Onboarding Specialist, ensuring nothing gets lost in translation and your team is set up for long-term success.

Here’s how it works:

Week 1: Create Your Virtual Engagement Officer (VEO)

Onboarding begins by shaping the VEO's identity—name, tone, visual presence. This step is more than cosmetic. It's about ensuring the VEO shows up in a way that feels consistent with your organization’s brand and culture. You provide your brand kit and any relevant guidelines, and our team handles the rest—building a public-facing presence that donors will recognize and trust.

Week 2: Define the Portfolio and Purpose

In week two, we focus on how the VEO will drive impact. That means choosing the donors your VEO will engage, defining success metrics, and setting clear goals for outreach. Behind the scenes, we collaborate with your data team to set up the right CRM connection and ensure that data flows reliably into the system. This step is critical—and supported—because we know that for many teams, automation isn’t always a given.

Week 3: Build the Knowledge Base

This is where the VEO begins to learn. You provide access to existing communications—your website, social channels, marketing emails, and other approved content. We feed this material into the VEO’s knowledge base, giving it the context it needs to communicate accurately and naturally in your voice. We also work with you to identify handoff points, so when a donor needs a personal touch, there’s no ambiguity about who steps in.

After Launch: Low Lift, High Visibility

Once your VEO is live, it’s built to operate independently—while keeping you informed and in control.

• A weekly manager report gives you insight into donor engagement, performance, and featured content

• A 30-minute monthly check-in helps you align on goals and adjust strategy as needed

• And you’ll spend about 10–15 minutes per month responding to handoffs—only when a human reply is needed

We also continue working with your team behind the scenes—helping refine portfolio assignments, streamline content ingestion, and support activity data flow into your CRM. These parts of the process can be heavier for operations teams, but our goal is always to minimize friction and make the work collaborative—not burdensome.

Why a Better Onboarding Experience Matters

Speed is only part of the story. The real value of this onboarding process is that it gives fundraising teams the ability to start seeing results quickly—without pulling focus from everything else they’re managing.

We often work with teams during their busiest seasons—spring appeals, year-end closing, campaign pushes. That’s not a coincidence. The process is structured to meet teams where they are, not waiting for the “perfect time” to begin.

Because what fundraisers need isn’t more complexity—it’s more capacity. And the right onboarding process should reflect that from day one.

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See It for Yourself

If you’d like to see how this process works in practice, we’re hosting a 30-minute webinar Thursday, June 5 at 1:00 PM ET that walks through the Version2.ai onboarding experience from the inside. You’ll hear directly from our Customer Success team about how fundraising teams are getting up and running with Virtual Engagement Officers—without putting everything else on hold. Save your seat here.

Or if you’re ready to talk about what onboarding could look like for your team, we’re happy to start that conversation. Schedule your demo.