The Future of Fundraising
Welcome to the Future of Fundraising:
Last week our team announced a direct integration with Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT enabling the Virtual Engagement Officer to answer a donor’s specific questions about their past giving. This innovation was in direct response to results from early tests that our team ran with our partners, where donors asked the VEO questions about whether they had made a gift this year, how much their last gift was and lifetime giving to the organization.
While still in early beta, the autonomous fundraiser now has a memory to facilitate direct responses guiding donors to make informed and thoughtful decisions about their giving. This access also enables the autonomous fundraiser to provide unexpectedly delightful moments for donors, an experience that was previously unimaginable. It’s clear that there are many more ways a VEO can add value to donor-centric relationships that we still have yet to discover.
Last week the Givzey team also attended CASE Summit in New York. It’s one of the premier conferences for senior Advancement leaders in higher education fundraising and there was an overwhelming buzz about autonomous fundraising.
In almost every conversation we had, the same set of issues kept coming up: there’s a shortage of fundraising talent, fundraisers are leaving jobs at a pace unhealthy for organizations, resulting in a compromised and inconsistent donor experience. Autonomous fundraising is a unique and clear response to these age-old challenges and it was fun to explore the potential of how autonomous fundraising could solve many of the specific and individual challenges that each organization was facing.
There’s also a very clear shift in the group's mindset from the previous year’s Summit where leaders had been far more skeptical of AI applications, particularly as they related to interactions with donors. It truly feels like the industry is rooting for our team to be successful, both for the good of individual organizations and for the good of our industry as a whole.
The question of whether we should be building autonomous fundraising capabilities also seems to have passed and the new question of how fast can our team build a lower cost version of a fully autonomous fundraiser is now the predominant topic of conversation. While it was an inspiring few days, it was also a stark reminder of the immense responsibility our team has as we work to invent the future of our industry.
This week our team will be testing three new ways for the autonomous fundraiser to analyze and learn from its 1,000 donor portfolio as it applies our new FNA 1.2.2 models. The new FNAs will produce enhanced twelve-month donor journeys and more dynamic next actions for the autonomous fundraiser to take with every donor. The outcome of the improved analysis, we hope, will be more thoughtful next steps a VEO can take immediately to engage individual donors. Lots of learning to do, but we’re making great progress.
Have a great week.
William & Mary's Senior Vice President of University Advancement, Matthew T. Lambert Discusses Innovation and Autonomous Fundraising with Version2 at CASE Summit on Alumless Podcast
Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Summit for Leaders in Advancement is one of the premier conferences for senior Advancement leaders in higher education. The Alumless Podcast , hosted by Ryan Catherwood , Chris Marshall , Carla Willis , and Bonnie Devlin , kicked off the show with a live version of the podcast.
The full podcast included special guest interviews with Matthew Lambert , Senior VP for University Advancement at William & Mary Foundation , Amy Yancey , President and CEO of The University of Connecticut Foundation, Inc. , Josh Harraman , Director of Constituent Experiences & Strategy at The Ohio State University , and Sue Cunningham , President and CEO of Council for Advancement and Support of Education .
It's a must-listen. (VIEW CLIP )
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Givzey Guidance: How Do I Document a Letter of Intent (LOI) in the CRM?
In this Givzey Guidance, an Advancement Services professional asks how to properly document a Letter of Intent (LOI) in the CRM and how to set up donor reminders for intended gifts. Question: I know how to record a pledge agreement in our CRM, but how do you document an LOI?
How do you send reminders for the intended gift? (KEEP READING )
Givzey Announces Artificial Intelligence Roadmap for Intelligent Gift Documentation Management Platform
The infusion of AI into the Givzey platform will enable compliance automation, empower fundraisers around multi-year solicitations, and elevate the donor experience. The rollout of the AI Roadmap will run in parallel to Givzey's work on Version2.ai, our AI R&D lab solely focused on creating the world's first autonomous fundraiser. (KEEP READING )
Givzey Exceeds $50M in Gifts Under Management on Intelligent Gift Documentation Management Platform
In less than two months, Givzey, fundraising's first all-in-one Intelligent Gift Documentation Management Platform, has more than doubled gifts under agreement to surpass $50 Million in gift agreements under management on the platform, and just four months after surpassing $10 Million.
"With the explosive growth that Givzey has seen on our Intelligent Gift Documentation Management Platform this year, there is no doubt that there’s a growing need for a fundraising solution that addresses retention, de-risks the documentation process, builds major gift pipeline, and empowers the scale of strategic fundraising activities like multi-year giving. As we continue to create the category, build Givzey’s Intelligent Gift Documentation Management Platform, and fold in our AI roadmap, we’ll empower nonprofit organizations to turn their giving processes and donor experiences into strategic fundraising assets,” commented Givzey CEO, Adam Martel. (KEEP READING )
Fundraising Jobs
Our featured jobs always come from our amazing subscribers. If you have jobs you would like posted in the Future of Fundraising newsletter, please email hello@givzey.com with your requests.