The Chronicle of Philanthropy Proves the Impact of Autonomous Fundraising

One year ago, a Virtual Engagement Officer raised the very first gift through Autonomous Fundraising. Today, autonomous fundraisers manage more than 60,000 donors with $2.5M in gifts. Through every milestone and every breakthrough, The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s Rasheeda Childress has followed our story closely, and in her latest article, she posed two questions about the state of autonomous fundraising:

Can AI raise money? And can it do so without replacing humans?

As she writes: “The answers are yes and yes...”

To date, Virtual Engagement Officers have raised more than $2.5 million in gifts as the natural outcome of donor engagement. What’s critical in this amazing accomplishment is that the VEO empowers donors to feel seen, known, and heard. Autonomous Fundraising is not about one-off scheduled solicitations, Virtual Engagement Officers build 12-month donor journeys, just as our best gift officers would, and as expressed in the article, know exactly which donors to share the most relevant news with. 

When it comes to replacing humans, if there is anything this year has taught us, it is that the labor shortage in fundraising is even more critical than we first predicted. Organizations aren't managing 5% of their donor base, most are barely reaching just 2.5%. The reality is there are so many open fundraising jobs with no candidates to hire. This gap underscores why trusted digital labor isn't about replacement, it's about partnership. 

The number one thing we've learned is that trusted digital labor must sit alongside traditional labor to bridge these capacity gaps and help organizations reach more of their donor base effectively.

The Chronicle did an excellent job of putting fundraising’s labor crisis into perspective.

In today’s permission-based economy, donors expect more than mass marketing from the organizations they support, but, without Autonomous Fundraising, the math means that only 2.5% of our donors receive more than that.

That is where Autonomous Fundraising has secured a place in the future of our industry. Not to replace human fundraisers, but to expand the surface area of relationships. To give every donor a chance to be known. To create the kind of consistent, personal engagement that leads naturally to generosity.

This story serves as a reminder of all that Autonomous Fundraising has proved in the last year, but we are far from done. Only one year in, we are still at the precipice of our research and development, and there is far more opportunity and potential that our team is working on with our Innovation Partners every day. We have answered many of the foundational questions about how and could this work, but we’re still pursuing just how great of an impact it will have on the missions of every nonprofit we work with.