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As my team and I have now filled a second cohort of autonomous fundraising innovation partners, we are seeing organizations from many different fields in the nonprofit sector finding diverse and widespread opportunities to address fundraising capacity with the Virtual Engagement Officer. This week, I’d like to share more about the use cases VEOs are actively engaging with in Cohort 1.
Leadership Giving and Pipeline Development
Our cohort partners are amplifying leadership giving efforts (or in some cases, filling a gap where no human team exists) by assigning a portfolio of donors giving in the $1k-$20k range. The focus for these portfolios is renewed or increased giving and enhanced cultivation and engagement that will move them toward major gift readiness for a handoff to a human fundraiser.
Alumni Engagement: Gaps and Geographic Barriers
One of our innovation partners saw a 10-year gap in its annual giving program, when it was sunset by past leadership. They are using the VEO to focus on alumni who graduated during this “lost generation”. Another recognized that engagement opportunities with alumni outside the geographic region of their campus were much more limited, and used the VEO to begin and restart those engagements.
Employee Giving
For employee giving campaigns, VEOs can explore unique approaches to philanthropy, such as giving in recognition of colleagues’ achievements or using creative options like PTO donations. By engaging with each employee, VEOs help identify what works best and is most meaningful to them, fostering stronger connections and increased participation. In the past few weeks, we’ve seen VEO engagement result in increased gift sizes, renewed gifts after several year lapses, and first time gifts.
Planned Giving
The VEO is also uncovering and securing deeper philanthropic opportunities. Recently, one organization’s VEO secured a $25,000 planned gift by engaging a donor in a personal one-to-one conversation. There is tremendous opportunity with planned gifts, yet sometimes they are not uncovered until they’re realized. One of our Innovation Partners has a portfolio that is dedicated to rated but unassigned planned giving prospects. Their VEO will now have the ability to cultivate and steward these prospects in a meaningful way, with the natural goal to secure planned gifts well in advance of them being realized.
Engagement
Virtual Engagement Officers can bring more than just gifts into an organization. A number of our first cohort partners use the VEO to focus on improving sentiment, learning about affinities that matter most to the alumni in their portfolio, updating contact information and preferences, and more.