top of page

Your Fundraising Team Is Growing—Meet the Digital Workforce

  • Writer: Sara Montgomery
    Sara Montgomery
  • Jun 11
  • 4 min read

Fundraising teams are built for relationships. You cultivate trust, inspire generosity, and move people to take action. But most staffing models weren’t designed to deliver relational fundraising at scale—especially across hundreds or thousands of annual and mid-level donors.


And yet, your organization depends on those relationships. The nonprofit business model requires meaningful, consistent connection to retain donors, grow giving, and build long-term commitment.


That’s where the digital workforce comes in.


Autonomous Fundraising, Powered by Trusted Digital Labor


Autonomous Fundraising is a new way of working—where trusted digital labor takes on real fundraising responsibilities and delivers personalized engagement at scale.


These are digital colleagues who manage portfolios, strengthen donor connections with your organization, and move supporters through the giving journey with care and intention. They extend your team’s reach and help you succeed in targeted areas where traditional capacity has fallen short.


Meet your digital workforce:

  • A Virtual Engagement Officer (VEO) that cultivates donors, leading to the natural outcoming of giving.

  • A Virtual Stewardship Officer (VSO) that drives retention and deepens connection after the gift.

  • A Virtual Planned Giving Officer (VPGO) that grows your legacy giving program through ongoing education and cultivation.


Each one is built to scale what your team already does best: 1:1 strategic fundraising.



Virtual Engagement Officer (VEO): Scaling Personalized Engagement, One Donor at a Time


The VEO is your digital frontline for Autonomous Fundraising. It manages a portfolio of 1,000+ donors—people who typically had no 1:1 attention previously—and brings them closer to your organization through meaningful, mission-aligned communication. It doesn’t just send messages. It encourages responses, provides a valuable resource and point of contact for the donor, all while listening and learning from every interaction, and adapting to cultivate individual interests over time.


The VEO applies traditional moves-management strategy to craft tailored donor journeys that span email, text, handwritten notes, and more. Each touchpoint reflects the donor’s history, behavior, preferences, and level of engagement—creating communication that feels both personal and timely.


And it’s not one-way communication. The VEO responds to replies, signals, and giving patterns to determine what comes next—whether that’s a moment of cultivation, a solicitation, or a warm handoff to your team.


It reactivates lapsed donors, surfaces upgrade opportunities, and makes giving feel like a natural continuation of connection—not a cold ask.



When to Use a VEO:

The VEO is ideal for organizations that want to manage more donors for the purpose of pipeline development, upgrades, retention, participation, and re-activation. . It’s a foundational part of any digital workforce strategy—especially when your staffing models or campaign priorities create gaps in the attention you’re giving to certain segments of donors.



Virtual Stewardship Officer (VSO): Strengthening Relationships Between Every Gift


Donor relationships don’t end with a gift—they evolve. The Virtual Stewardship Officer (VSO) ensures that donors feel continuously connected to your mission through consistent, personalized, and mission-aligned follow-up.


The VSO delivers high-touch, gratitude-driven engagement that builds trust and extends donor lifetime value. t crafts timely, thoughtful communications—impact stories, program updates, giving society benefits—matched to each donor’s giving history and interests.


It’s especially powerful for donor segments that traditional staffing models often overlook:

  • Monthly sustainers, multi-year leadership gift donors and giving society members who deserve meaningful recognition.

  • “Above the line” donors—those who have made gifts in the past but are no longer major giving prospects,  or planned giving donors, who may not be actively managed but still deeply care about your mission.


The VSO helps every donor feel informed, understood, and valued. And that drives something essential: retention.


When to Use a VSO:

The VSO fits any team that’s serious about consistent, personalized stewardship. Whether you're trying to keep loyal supporters engaged, improve retention of giving society members, or solve a need for long-term stewardship, the VSO complements your strategy by keeping the relationship strong long after the gift is made.



Virtual Planned Giving Officer (VPGO): Building Your Legacy Pipeline—Proactively


Planned giving is one of the most impactful opportunities in philanthropy—and one of the most underdeveloped. For many teams, legacy conversations happen too late, too infrequently, or not at all. Staffing limitations make it nearly impossible to proactively identify and cultivate planned giving prospects at scale, which means entire segments of legacy-minded donors go unnoticed.

The Virtual Planned Giving Officer (VPGO) changes that.


The VPGO takes a portfolio of planned giving prospects – those donors who meet all of your industry standard indicators, and delivers personalized, values-driven education about legacy giving options, mixed in with traditional cultivation that continues to bring a donor closer to the organization. It helps donors understand how their long-term goals can align with your mission. It removes complexity, replaces static mailers with meaningful dialogue, and makes the topic approachable.


The VPGO nurtures interests and earns trust through consistent, thoughtful communication. When a donor expresses readiness, the VPGO makes a warm handoff to a gift officer, creating space for a high-value conversation to unfold.


When to Use a VPGO:

If your current planned giving strategy relies on passive website traffic, generic mailers, or inefficient 1:1 discovery outreach, the VPGO offers a more scalable and intentional path forward. It brings active cultivation into a channel long limited by bandwidth, and ensures your legacy pipeline stays full, warm, and in motion.



A Smarter Way to Scale Your Team


The digital workforce isn’t replacing fundraisers. It’s expanding your ability to reach more donors in new ways. It’s helping your team stay strategic and connected—even as your donor base grows.


Each Virtual Officer serves a focused, intentional role—working alongside your advancement team to enhance, not complicate, your efforts. Together, they create a scalable digital layer that drives results, keeps your team agile, and ensures no donor feels overlooked.


Want to meet your next teammate? Schedule a demo today.

 
 
bottom of page