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With innovation and invention comes the unknown. After my team and I announced that we were developing the world’s first fully autonomous fundraiser, the industry immediately had questions. Without autonomous fundraisers acting on the behalf of organizations, we didn’t have answers right away. As former fundraisers, we chose to hold to the truths we believed were fundamentally right - that fundraising is rooted in trust, that donors deserve to be understood and valued as individuals, and that organizations deserved tools that help them amplify their mission. From there, we remained open to learning through thoughtful and purposeful R&D.
Since then, we’ve had hundreds of conversations about autonomous fundraising, and the Virtual Engagement Officer (VEO) has too, with close to 1,500 engagements and on track to exceed $250,000 in funds raised by the end of the year (only two and a half months after launching). The VEO has secured hundreds of annual gifts, matching gifts, a $10,000 leadership gift, a $25,000 planned gift, and most recently, its first Donor Advised Fund gift.
Although we’re far from understanding the full impact that VEOs will have on our space, these kind of results mean we have a lot more answers now than we did a few months ago. Emily Groccia, VP of Customer Success and the head of our Autonomous Fundraising program, and Renee Quinn, Director of Sales and Partnerships, came together on a live virtual discussion to answer the 10 most common questions about fully Autonomous Fundraising.