Givzey | Version2.ai Releases Cutting Edge Autonomous AI Model Built for Donor Retention

The Virtual Stewardship Officer evolves to address decades of declining nonprofit donor numbers

BOSTON, MA, UNITED STATES, October 13, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Givzey | Version2.ai, which pioneered Autonomous Fundraising, today announced the launch of the Virtual Stewardship Officer 3.0 (VSO), deployed to turn around declining donor retention rates at nonprofit organizations with Autonomous AI. The VSO is the first fundraiser that uses Autonomous AI to engage donors throughout the year with the singular goal of retention. Today marks VSO 3.0’s general availability and the opening of a new cohort of partners who will work with a VSO to challenge a problem that plagued the industry.

Across nonprofit fundraising, “dollars up, donors down” is the annual headline we’ve come to expect for nearly two decades. The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently reported that individuals accounted for 80% of all charitable contributions between 1986 and 1990; by 2025 that share had fallen to 64%(1). As donor pools continue to shrink, retention is increasingly important to maintain healthy philanthropic support. Givzey spent the last year refining the VSO to address this issue head-on, with the first Autonomous Fundraiser built specifically with the goal of donor retention.

“We built the first Autonomous Fundraising solution to actually deliver results, and that focus has guided everything we’ve done since,” said Adam Martel, Founder and CEO of Givzey | Version2.ai. “As we’ve grown and defined the Virtual Stewardship Officer alongside our partners, it became clear that retention was the metric we needed to address. For leadership teams, that means confronting a reality that has held organizations back for decades: your current donors are connected to your mission but need more than direct mail to continue giving, and traditional staffing was never built to solve for that. This release gives advancement teams a real way to address retention head on.”

The VSO is an Autonomous AI fundraiser that independently manages a portfolio of one thousand current donors, focused entirely on the goal of donor retention. The VSO uses year-round moves management and one-to-one personal engagement to provide donors with continuous direct and indirect opportunities to renew their gift, coupled with impact-focused stewardship that connects donors to outcomes. As soon as the donor renews their gift, the VSO then ends solicitation and moves into proactive stewardship, deepening a donor’s understanding of impact and building connections that lead to renewal the following year, without additional asks. The VSO’s donor portfolio is refreshed annually with new donors the organization prioritizes for retention.

One major new upgrade for the VSO is that it connects donors to matching gift opportunities. Through its engagement with donors, the VSO searches for employer-based gift matching programs to double the value of gifts, in addition to retaining donors. Research shows that donors whose companies offer a match are increasingly likely to also give in the future.

“Retention is one of the biggest untapped opportunities in Autonomous Fundraising, and it’s a problem we’re built to solve,” said Emily Groccia, VP of Customer Success, Givzey | Version2.ai. “We’re attacking the retention curve in stages: first reducing the rate of donor drop-off, then halting it altogether, and ultimately turning that curve upward so retention becomes a growth driver instead of a leak.”

Nonprofit organizations can use the VSO to target wherever donor retention is a focus. That may be donors who fall into lower giving bands, where existing forms of stewardship feel impersonal, and the process transactional. For others, the opportunity lies within giving societies, where staff capacity limits the ability to educate and provide donors the benefits of membership. Other organizations can use the VSO to target affinity groups and donor types, such as first time donors, parent donors, or other previously inconsistent donor groups, such as those who give after a natural disaster.

Givzey | Version2.ai is building fundraising’s first digital workforce with Autonomous AI. Today, this includes the Virtual Engagement Officer designed to engage highly rated donors, the Virtual Planned Giving Officer to discover and cultivate bequests, and the Virtual Stewardship Officer to address donor retention.

Givzey | Version2.ai is now accepting new cohort members of the Virtual Stewardship Officer. To learn more about how a VSO can address your retention goals, please visit https://version2.ai/demo.

About Givzey | Version2.ai
For advancement teams who have hundreds or thousands of unmanaged donors and limited hiring capacity, Givzey | Version2.ai deploys Autonomous AI fundraisers that independently cultivate donors, uncover planned gifts, and generate revenue — without adding headcount. Unlike AI tools that require human oversight to function, our Virtual Engagement Officers and Virtual Planned Giving Officers operate completely autonomously, expanding your team’s capacity in ways no hiring plan or AI assistant can match. Learn more at www.version2.ai.

Source: (1) https://www.philanthropy.com/news/u-s-giving-hits-617b-has-great-wealth-transfer-begun/

Kevin Leahy
Givzey | Version2.ai
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