It’s a small step, but it’s a giant leap forward for our industry

Friday marked the first major milestone for our team at Version2.ai in proving that fully autonomous fundraising, powered by artificial intelligence, is possible. 

Dan Frezza and the team at College of Charleston introduced their autonomous fundraiser directly to two donors to help guide them through their gift journeys. Both donors interacted with the autonomous fundraiser and made gifts directly in response to the interactions.

With these positive results, we've now proven that it’s possible for an autonomous fundraiser to solicit and close a gift. We've also proven that there are a set of donors who are willing to work with an autonomous fundraiser to make their gift. 

While we recognize this is a narrow test on an extremely small subset of donors, this is the very beginning of proving that autonomous fundraising is a viable fundraising solution. If we were trying to prove that a spaceship could leave earth, land on the mar and return to earth, this would be the equivalent of the spaceship lifting off the ground by just an inch and landing intact. It’s a small step, but it’s a giant leap forward for our industry. 

This week, we will be testing ways that the autonomous fundraiser can work with small portfolios of LYBUNTS to solicit annual unrestricted end-of-year gifts. Our goal is to prove that autonomous fundraisers can, without human intervention, receive opt-in permission from donors to work with AI and guide these donors through end-of-year gift solicitations with the natural outcome being gifts closing by June 30.

As part of these tests, we are also trying out new perception-enabled learning methods that give the autonomous fundraiser the ability to understand and learn what the donor really cares about supporting (Scholarship, Athletics, Student life, etc.). The ability for the autonomous fundraiser to receive a direct, first-hand understanding of what the donor is passionate about will have a lasting impact on its ability to scale hyper-personalized experiences for each donor in the future. Getting this right will be crucial to its effectiveness.

Leading these tests are Meghan Dauler Palombo, the Associate Vice President for Annual Giving & Philanthropic Engagement at William & Mary and Laurie Soenen, Executive Director of Advancement Services at College of Charleston. 

Both Meghan and Laurie will be working directly with our team to conclusively prove that autonomous AI is able to sit alongside fundraising staffs, particularly at the busiest times of year. The hope is that this technology can help amplify the efforts of fundraising staffs across the country who are all working tirelessly to close end of year gifts. 

Special thank you to Dan Frezza, Matthew Lambert, Meghan Dauler Palombo, Bruce Aird, and Laurie Soenen for your leadership, partnership and courage to be the first to explore what's possible.

We’ll be announcing the results of our tests and key learnings next week. Stay tuned.