From Capacity Gap to Closed Gifts: How Foundations Are Using Autonomous Fundraising to Reach Donors

Every advancement office has them: donors who are rated, identified, and ready to give but never hear from a gift officer simply because there aren’t enough hours in the day. For many organizations, such as the Iowa State University Foundation (ISUF), this wasn’t a new problem. It was a structural one.

In this session, ISUF leadership will share how the institution evaluated autonomous fundraising as a response to that capacity gap—what the decision-making process looked like, what questions needed answers before moving forward, and what the results have shown in practice. The conversation will be grounded in the specifics: which donor segments were prioritized, what engagement actually looked like, and how ISUF measured outcomes.

Whether your institution is actively exploring artificial intelligence in your advancement program or still in the early stages of asking what’s possible, this session is designed to help you think through the same questions others did—and make sense of what those answers might mean for your own program.

Speakers:

Melissa Hemesath, senior executive director of development operations, Iowa State University Foundation
Renee Quinn, director of sales and partnerships, Givzey | Version2.ai