Q&A with Utah State University's Director of Annual Giving

When Utah State University launched its Virtual Engagement Officer, Sage, it was the first institution in the state to deploy autonomous AI for fundraising.

As the Director of Annual Giving, Jonathan Young has become an industry resource and Autonomous Fundraising champion. We sat down with Jonathan to understand what's driving this level of interest and what he's learned in the first six months with Sage, their Virtual Engagement Officer, on his team.

Q: You've been in fundraising for over a decade, specifically with Utah State for seven. What made you decide to explore Autonomous Fundraising?

A: Honestly, it came down to capacity. We have over 200,000 solicitable constituents, but only two of us on our annual giving team. We saw a gap in reaching leadership-level donors and transferring people from annual fund to major gifts as easily as we would like.

Q: How did you land on your specific use case for Sage? 

A: We looked at our data and narrowed it down to LYBUNTs who had donated $500 or less and were between the ages of 38 and 70. We wanted to figure out a group that we weren't able to reach out to on our own—that Sage could target, rather than just letting them sit until our team sent the occasional solicitation. 

Q: As the first organization in Utah to implement Autonomous Fundraising, how did your onboarding process go? What does day-to-day management look like now?

A: The onboarding was super easy, and I'm not just saying that. I've worked with a lot of companies in the annual giving world, and this was probably the easiest setup I've had. The Version2.ai team had a Trello dashboard set up that showed us exactly what we needed to provide. And the team worked really closely with our legal team to make sure we were meeting the standards within our state. We took extra time to make sure we were implementing this technology correctly. Once we went live, it's been pretty much hands-off. We get a weekly update from Sage, and then we meet with the Version2.ai team monthly to go over the data and see where we can optimize. 

Q: These donors are still getting all your mass communications. How does Sage fit into that broader engagement strategy?

A: That's exactly right. These donors are getting everything they used to get, plus personalized one-on-one engagement they never had before. It’s that one unique touchpoint that I can't give them just due to bandwidth. It's really about expanding that connection. 

Q: What kind of content did you feed into Sage's knowledge base?

A: We first looked at all the top engaged websites across the university to see how they would apply. We also plugged in our event pages, our alumni pages, and then we had some backend donor history information that fed into the system. And it’s constantly evolving as new information is provided. 

Q: What's been most exciting for you so far? Most surprising? 

A: The interest in AI from donors and other schools has been most surprising. I’ve loved seeing how proactive Sage has been in building relationships and keeping our community informed. When our new president started, Sage sent tailored messages about him without us having to prompt the idea. It’s been exciting to see how the older alumni have been interacting with this technology. I’ve seen some of our VEO-managed donors in person, and they've told me they love the interactions. These folks weren't getting reached out to at all, and now Sage is filling that void.

Q: Can you share some results?

A: Since we launched Sage, over $30,000 has been raised from the portfolio! We’ve also been able to recapture 9 lapsed donors. A huge win was a $20,000 gift that came in for basketball. We dove into the details and realized the donor hadn’t been contacted by any human staff members; it was solely Sage. That was super exciting.

Q: You often share your experience and results on LinkedIn. How’s that been going?

A: I've had a lot of people reach out through LinkedIn wanting to know more, so it's been exciting connecting with others I wouldn't have otherwise connected with. And the questions are genuine. People want to understand how this works day-to-day, if it's effective as it sounds, and my experience using the technology.

Q: What would you tell other fundraising leaders who are curious about Autonomous Fundraising but hesitant?

A: I'm here as a resource. I've had a lot of universities reach out, saying they've thought about it but are scared or don't want to invest in something uncertain. I’m happy to share what we’ve learned and continue to learn. Sage has allowed our team of two to continue doing what we need to do while also building relationships to make more donors feel like they’re part of something again.

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