Fundraising Challenges In The Digital Age

Your case for support is boring. Not because your mission isn't important. Because you're writing for committees, not humans. Here's what every case statement includes: ⦿ History of the organization ⦿ Impressive statistics ⦿ List of programs ⦿ Credentials and awards ⦿ How funds will be used Here's what donors actually want: ⦿ What changes if I say yes? ⦿ What breaks if I say no? ⦿ Why me, why now? ⦿ Who else believes in this? ⦿ What happens after I give? The case statement that raises money reads like a invitation to adventure, not an annual report. Try this instead: 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘁 Paint the world you're building, not the history you're preserving. 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 Use "you" more than "we." They're the hero, not you. 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗴𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 Opportunity expires, not hope. FOMO beats obligation every time. 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗺𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗺, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 Winners attract investment. Losers attract pity. 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 They're not buying services. They're building legacy. One client rewrote their case. Removed every committee word. Told one powerful story instead. Their campaign goal? Exceeded by 40%. Your case for support shouldn't sound professional. It should sound unstoppable. When did you last read yours out loud?

3 donor emails that aren’t “asks” but still bring in donations We all know the direct asks matter. But some of the most effective emails I’ve helped send aren’t official campaigns or appeals. They’re moments of relationship. Here are 3 types of emails that donors seem to love and that often lead to surprise gifts: ⸻ 📬 1. The “We Did the Thing” Email Subject: We just finished it. Thank you. You promised to build a playground / fund a program / send kids to camp. This email says: We did. Because of you. Photos. A quote. A short paragraph. That’s it. People love seeing the result of their generosity. 📬 2. The “Saw This and Thought of You” Email Subject: This made me think of you. It might be a story from the field. A note from a beneficiary. Even a newspaper article. You send it to 1–5 specific donors with a personal sentence like: “You’ve always cared about ___, and this reminded me of you.” It’s not a pitch. It’s a connection. And it works. 📬 3. The “No Reason but Gratitude” Email Subject: No ask. Just thanks. A short note that simply says: “We’re so grateful for you. No updates, no links—just gratitude.” I do this quarterly. You’d be amazed how many people hit reply with: “How can I help?” Fundraising is more than asking. It’s paying attention. It’s following up. It’s letting people feel the difference they make. Which of these have you tried or would you add a fourth to the list?

Most fundraising appeals are too polite. Too indirect. Too passive. Too focused on what 𝘸𝘦 do— instead of what the donor makes possible. If you want more clarity, more confidence, and more response in your writing, start here: 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝘀𝗼𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽. I call it 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗩𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴. And it looks like this: “Together, we help feed people” ➡️ “You feed hungry people” “You are helping provide education” ➡️ “You’re educating children” “With your support, we can offer shelter” ➡️ “You provide shelter to those in need” “Thanks to you, we’re able to offer medical assistance” ➡️ “You’re delivering lifesaving medical care” “Your donations support our advocacy efforts” ➡️ “You’re championing human rights” This isn’t about semantics. It’s about 𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵. When the donor sees themselves as the one acting, they feel agency. They feel urgency. They feel 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘥. So cut the qualifiers. Eliminate the disclaimers. And write like the donor is the one holding the pen. 𝗕𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗮𝗿𝗲. What’s one sentence in your next appeal you can rewrite with 𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘳 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 at the center?

Welcome to the Future of Fundraising. When my team and I built the first fully autonomous fundraiser, we saw how digital labor could expand outreach and deepen engagement. Which is why now, in collaboration with our Innovation Partners, we are tackling one of the most persistent challenges in fundraising: scaling meaningful stewardship. The cycle of giving feels transactional for too many donors. They make a gift, receive a generic thank you email or letter, and then the next time they hear from the organization, it’s another solicitation. This unintentional pattern leaves many donors feeling like just another name in a database rather than a valued partner in the mission they support. Hundreds of our conversations about digital labor lead us to believe there is a solution to these challenges. Research tells us they are worth solving: Mid-level donors are often the most loyal donors, yet they receive the least personalized stewardship. In a study of mid-level giving, donors cited “lack of communication and feeling unappreciated” as a top reason for stopping their gifts. (Nonprofit Quarterly) Younger donors are making lasting connections to causes now, even if their giving capacity isn’t fully realized yet. Organizations that don’t retain these donors will lose out on major returns as they age into their prime giving years. (The Chronicle of Philanthropy) This is why we introduced the Virtual Stewardship Officer (VSO) as the next logical step in our mission to accelerate and transform philanthropy. Donors give because they care and they continue giving when they feel genuinely valued. Yet meaningful stewardship, personalized impact updates, heartfelt gratitude, and long-term engagement, is often reserved for top-tier donors making six- and seven-figure gifts. The VSO expands meaningful stewardship beyond top donors, using digital labor to create personalized touchpoints that acknowledge donor history, reinforce impact, and build lasting relationships. By scaling engagement, it ensures no donor feels overlooked, making long-term relationship-building and meaningful pipeline development sustainable for every giving level. Traditional stewardship models make it nearly impossible to engage donors in a truly personal way at scale. The VSO personalizes 1:1 stewardship to donors who give year-after-year, stretching their budgets to contribute in a way that is personally significant, even if it isn’t classified as a "major" gift; long-time supporters who have probably made their last large donation but remain deeply invested in the organization’s mission; first-time donors who, regardless of gift size, we want to retain; and more. These donors are often the backbone of an organization’s giving pipeline. The future of fundraising isn’t just about raising more money—it’s about ensuring every donor feels like their gift matters. With digital labor, meaningful stewardship is no longer just for a select few—it’s for everyone who chooses to give.

AI is only as powerful as the problems it solves. For nonprofits, one of the most fundamental challenges is knowing how much to ask for, and when. Ask too high, and you risk discouraging a gift. Ask too low, and you leave potential impact on the table. That’s why we’ve taken Intelligent Ask Amounts to the next level for GoFundMe Pro partners. Grounded in deep user research and powered by GoFundMe’s AI models, this improved version gives nonprofits the ability to dynamically optimize campaigns for what matters most: one-time revenue, conversions, recurring gifts, or a balanced mix. The ask amounts adapt in real time to donor behavior and campaign goals—helping nonprofits drive more sustainable giving. The best part? These improvements are to a product that has already delivered results. For example: the National Civil Rights Museum used Intelligent Ask Amounts during key giving moments and saw a 62% increase in average gift size on December 31st year-over-year, along with other strong gains. (I’ll link the case study with more details in the comments!) What makes me proud isn’t just the AI, it’s the teamwork behind it. Three product pods, Applied Science, Research, CX, Legal, Marketing, Comms and more all came together to turn a complex fundraising challenge into a solution that’s both powerful and practical. Because at the end of the day, innovation is only meaningful when it helps nonprofits raise more with less friction—so they can focus on their mission. 👉 Learn more here: https://gfme.co/47CvtSc 

Welcome Emily Groccia, VP of Customer Success at Givzey to talk about AI at Version2.ai on this episode of 🔥 The Lantern 🔥 What is Version2? Version2 is the world’s first autonomous fundraiser. Announced less than a year ago, this product directly addresses the labor shortage in non-profit fundraising. Their team creates trusted digital labor that can be applied to donors who are not managed by humans in non-profit donor portfolios. In September of 2024 they launched their first cohort of 13 innovation partners. Each partner assigns a portfolio of 1,000 donors to a virtual engagement officer responsible for executing a series of 8-12 touchpoints throughout the course of a year to lead those donors to a gift. Just like an institutional giving officer! 👀 How is that impacting the donor experience? 👀 Only 1-5% of the top donors are usually managed by a human gift officer so most of the donors served by Version 2 lie outside of a major gift portfolio. Every organization would love to manage every individual donor in a 1:1 relationship, but it’s just not possible. Version 2 is allowing organizations to reach that other 95% with a much more personalized experience. 📈 What are some of the highlights from Version2 thus far? 📈 Version2 publishes a dashboard of autonomous fundraising 2x per week. VEOs (virtual engagement officers) have raised >$500k in gifts, 3k+ engagements, and 45k+ donor activities. Their opt out rate is only 0.13%! Donors want to hear from these organizations more, in a deeper way, with the ability to reply. They value personal engagement. 🤔 Why is autonomous fundraising working? 🤔 San Diego State is a customer using Version2 for their planned giving portfolio, serving older donors. This portfolio has the highest engagement of any partner because personalized interactions that connect to donors resonate with their customers. 🔍 What is the roadmap ahead for Version 2? 🔎 Now that they’ve proven autonomous fundraising works, they are leveraging their learnings to further define use cases and apply digital labor to more aspects of advancement in the non-profit space. More to come!! The Lantern is brought to you by Givzey & MGMT Boston this March

“But why do you need a DAF payment option - can’t DAF holders just go through their portals?” 🤔 This is a question that I get from almost every DAF provider that’s learning about us 🙋🏻♀️ And I have both snarky and thoughtful replies - I’ll share the thoughtful one first! ☺️ There’s 3 key functional reasons this is so important for donor experience that increases giving: 1️⃣ Friction Extra steps create friction, which reduces conversion and usage. No denying it ⚠️ There’s a reason it’s smart to have Google Pay and Apple Pay in a checkout form in addition to a straight credit card check out. Consumers have grown to expect tap to pay & express checkout experiences ⚡️ Especially with giving… every extra click, redirect and second has a negative impact 😔 2️⃣ Lack of specificity A portal only lets you select a nonprofit at the EIN level. Many large nonprofits could have a laundry list of programs or chapters that you can’t select within the portal 🤷🏾 Or what if you want to support a walker or rider in a peer-to-peer fundraiser? All of these examples rely on unstructured data - a memo field - for the DAF holder to provide written instructions, which often doesn’t happen or isn’t clear enough (reference point number 1!) and generates more work for staff at the DAF and nonprofit🤦🏼♂️ 3️⃣ Time Delay What if the reason they are giving is time sensitive? A crisis response or participation in a giving day? 🚨 If they make their gift through their DAF portal, the receiving nonprofit has no idea it was initiated and won’t know until it arrives - for most DAFs, there is a multi-week lag 🐌 That gift will not be a part of the moment that inspired it 😕 Because of these reasons, DAF holders regularly make credit card or check gifts instead of using their DAF - or worse, just give less than they would otherwise 🤷🏻♂️ These don’t even get into all the nonprofit issues with receiving DAF gifts! 🙈 The delays, data mess, unidentifiable donors… gifts through DAFpay mean nonprofits convert more DAF donors, that make large gifts, provide their name + email and know about the gift right when it’s initiated 🌟 My snarkier response is… Why do you need a credit card when you could just use cash? Why don’t you log into your bank account any time you want to buy a pair of shoes you see online? 👀 It’s convenience, it’s access and it’s the data disconnect that make our modern payment rails so powerful 💥 The world of philanthropy deserves that same kind of power - now more than ever! 🙏🏼 #nonprofit #fundraising #philanthropy  

Before it was about getting donors to write checks. Now it’s about involving them in your ecosystem. Here’s 5 steps to get started today: You’re not just fundraising anymore. You’re onboarding stakeholders. If you want repeatable, compounding revenue from donors, partners, and decision-makers, you need to stop treating them like check-writers… …and start treating them like collaborators in a living system. Here’s how. 1. Diagnose your “center of gravity” Most orgs center fundraising around the mission. But the real gravitational pull for donors is their identity. → Ask yourself: What is the identity we help our funders step into? Examples: Systems Disruptor. Local Hero. Climate Investor. Opportunity Builder. Build messaging, experiences, and invites around that identity, not just impact stats. 2. Turn every program into a flywheel for new capital Stop separating “program delivery” from “fundraising.” Your programs are your best sales engine → Examples: • Invite donors to shadow frontline staff for one hour • Allow funders to sponsor a real-time decision and see the outcome • Let supporters “unlock” bonus services for beneficiaries through engagement, not just cash People fund what they help shape. 3. Use feedback as a funding mechanism Most orgs treat surveys as box-checking. But used right, feedback is fundraising foreplay. → Ask donors and partners to co-define what “success” looks like before you report back. Then build dashboards, stories, and events around their metrics. You didn’t just show impact. You made them part of the operating model. 4. Make your “thank you” do heavy lifting Thanking donors isn’t the end of a transaction. It’s the first trust test for future collaboration. → Instead of a generic “thank you,” send: • A 1-minute voice memo with a specific insight you gained from their gift • A sneak peek at a challenge you’re tackling and ask for their perspective • A micro-invite: “Can I get your eyes on something next week?” You’re not closing a loop. You’re opening a door. 5. Build a “Donor OS” (Operating System) Every funder should have a journey, not just a transaction history. → Track things like: • What insight made them first say “I’m in”? • Who do they influence (and who influences them)? • What kind of risk are they comfortable taking? • What internal narrative did your mission fulfill for them? Then tailor comms, invitations, and roles accordingly. Not everyone needs another newsletter but someone does want a seat at the strategy table. With purpose and impact, Mario

The connection between donors and the mission is crucial for fundraising campaigns. Imagine your donor, with a morning coffee in hand, sitting at the kitchen table, not just reading about your cause but becoming an active part of it. Here's how to transform your donors from passive contributors to active participants: 𝐒𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐲𝐬 & 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐬: Include a survey in your mailings to gather their opinions and preferences. This simple step shows donors that their input is valuable, making them feel heard and respected. 𝐏𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬: Encourage them to sign a petition related to your cause. It’s more than just adding their name; it’s taking a stand. This shared action binds them more closely to your mission. 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬 & 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬: Give them the opportunity to send a personal message to someone benefiting from their support. This direct interaction creates meaningful connections, making the impact of their donation deeply personal. These strategies are more than just fundraising techniques; they are powerful engagement tools that transform the act of giving into a participatory experience. When donors are actively involved, they not only contribute more, but also become long-term advocates for your cause.

𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻’𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹. They’re identity-driven. They want to see themselves in the mission...not just on a mailing list. If your fundraising strategy still centers around “give, get, repeat,” you’re going to lose them. Younger generations - especially Gen Z - care deeply about impact, alignment, inclusion and visibility. Here’s how to meet them where they are: ✅ Invite co-creation: “How would you like to see your gift in action?” Let them shape the story. ✅ Give them language to share: Impact reels. Digital badges. Something they can proudly post and say: “This reflects who I am.” ✅ Build a community, not just a pipeline. Think less annual gala, more cause-based Slack channel or micro-volunteer events. People want to belong, not just donate. Be the vehicle that helps them do that. #fundraising #nonprofits #belonging