One Week of Progress for Autonomous Fundraising

This week, our team took a couple giant leaps forward as the autonomous fundraiser, for the first time ever, introduced itself to three small portfolios of real donors to help encourage these donors to make end-of-year gifts. 

As expected, the outcomes ranged per donor but four successes were documented for the first time ever.  First, the AI technology held up and there were no major issues related to the autonomous activities of the virtual fundraiser. Next, there were a set of donors who opted-in to work with an autonomous fundraiser with slight proof of pockets of donor acceptance. Third, the autonomous fundraiser made an independent introduction to a staff member at the donor’s request, proving that the AI can add three-way value. And Fourth and most importantly,  there were end-of-year gifts made through the autonomous fundraiser which was the first proof of effectiveness and financial viability which could lead to direct ROI equations.

This early test yielded lots of data for us to learn from. For example, we got the first glimpse into why donors might opt-out of working with an autonomous fundraiser and why some donors might not engage at all. There’s still much learning to do, but we’re so excited to be exploring brand new territory and learning about areas of fundraising no one has ever explored before. 

This week I also had the opportunity to join Craig Shelley, the Chief Growth Officer at the Orr Group and the President of the AFP New York Chapter for a conversation about AI, autonomous fundraising and the future of fundraising. 

Our discussion explored why autonomous fundraising is one of the most important initiatives in fundraising right now and how autonomous fundraising will change the Social Good sector.

We also discussed some of the early challenges that we are facing as we research, develop and deploy the world’s first autonomous fundraiser and outlined our vision for how the autonomous fundraiser can reimagine fundraising programs like the phonathon, alumni campus engagement, donor volunteer programs, and personalized, donor-centric stewardship. 

One of the areas of the conversation that I was struck by was the overwhelming interest in ways the autonomous fundraiser can cross the digital threshold to give donors an unexpected and magical experience. Crossing the digital threshold is one of the many ways we can improve the effectiveness of the autonomous fundraiser and enhance its ability to both provide donors with hyper-personalized service while independently inspiring donors to support the causes they care about. 

In the conversation I was also able to preview the announcement we made yesterday about our partnership with robotics company, IgnitePOST. Arian Radmand and his team have been building teams of robots that put real pen and ink to real paper and can “hand write” notes and cards at scale. A lot of their great work has been done in partnership with marketing efforts and this is the first time they’ve applied their technology to an AI-enabled vertical application like helping the autonomous fundraiser cross the digital threshold. 

The importance of this partnership can’t be overstated. The success of the autonomous fundraiser will be defined by its ability to autonomously communicate with donors. This communication has, up until our announcement yesterday, been limited to email, text, and video. Now, with this partnership, the autonomous fundraiser can cross the digital threshold and send personalized introductory notecards, birthday cards and stewardship/thank you cards, all robotically hand-written with AI-enabled hyper-personalization at scale. 

As we move forward in our R&D, this new method of communication will help us continue to make progress as we introduce the autonomous virtual Engagement Officer to donors and work to build trust with small pockets of constituents. 

Still lots to learn and many, many hurdles to overcome, but we are making progress. 

If we can continue to prove the technological and financial viability of an autonomous fundraiser, I believe it will forever change the industry of Social Good and has the chance of changing the world.