TL;DR:
- Most gift officers can hold about 30 donors in mind, so the other 120 get a quarterly email and a hope.
- AI changes what can be seen, planned, and prepared at every stage.
- AI doesn’t change who decides. Judgment, the ask, and sincerity stay human.
- The opportunity: give the whole portfolio the sequence once reserved for the top.
Every development director I have ever met can recite the four stages without looking up from their coffee. Identification. Cultivation. Solicitation. Stewardship.
Moves management.
The framework predates the CRMs it now lives inside. It has survived every fundraising trend of the last forty years because it describes something true: generosity is sequenced. A relationship deepens through a series of intentional moves, and those moves have to happen in the right order over time.
What we say less often is that almost nobody practices it past the top of the portfolio.
A gift officer carrying 150 names can hold maybe 30 of them in working memory. Those 30 get the sequence. They get the cultivation visit, the well-timed ask, the handwritten note afterward.
The other 120 get whatever is left, which is usually a quarterly email and a hope that they renew. This is not a failure of effort or of caring. It is a limit of human attention and time, and the framework has always assumed that limit. We designed a system for sequencing care and then applied it only to the people we could reasonably prioritize.
That is the ground AI enters.
It is also the ground Gabe Cooper and I have spent the past year writing about.
Our forthcoming book, N1 Philanthropy, borrows a phrase from precision medicine: there are no donors or prospects, only individuals, each with a reason for giving that belongs to no one else.
Moves management already believes this. It was designed as a one-to-one discipline. The limit was never the philosophy. It was the number of people one officer could hold in mind.
The Four Stages of Moves Management: In the Age of AI
Because moves management is shared vocabulary, it is worth walking the four stages slowly and naming what AI changes at each step, and what does not change.
1. Identification: Who Deserves Attention Next
Identification has always been a question of who deserves attention next.
The traditional answer came from wealth screens, giving history, and whoever happened to be in the room at the gala.
What changes with AI is the signal set.
Models can now read engagement across the whole database: who opened the impact report and lingered, who attended two events after a lapse, whose giving cadence quietly shifted.
Virtuous Momentum, our AI fundraising assistant, surfaces those shifts as they happen rather than waiting for someone to run a report. What does not change is the judgment about what to do with the signal.
A model can tell you a donor looks different this quarter. It cannot tell you whether that is grief, a job change, or a new interest in your work. That still requires a human who picks up the phone.
2. Cultivation: Where the Memory Limit Bites Hardest
Cultivation is where the memory limit bites hardest, and where the change is most consequential.
Cultivation is the slow middle of the relationship: the touchpoints, the invitations, the “I thought of you when I read this.”
It is the stage most often skipped for the 120 because it produces no immediate revenue and no one tracks whether it happened.
What changes with AI is that cultivation can now be planned for an entire portfolio at once.
This is precisely what Momentum does, as it suggests the next step for each donor, grounded in that donor’s history and interests, and queues it so the officer reviews rather than recalls.
What does not change is authorship. The officer decides whether the suggested note is right, whether the timing is tone deaf, whether this donor would rather be left alone this month.
AI proposes the sequence. The human still owns the relationship.
3. Solicitation: The Moment That Stays Human
Solicitation is where I get the most nervous questions, and rightly.
The fear is that the ask becomes automated, that a system decides when and for how much and simply sends it. That is not a future I want, and it is not one Virtuous is building.
What changes here with AI is readiness.
A model can indicate that a donor’s engagement has reached the pattern that historically preceded a major gift, and help an officer prepare: the giving history, a proposal outline, the program this donor has consistently responded to.
What does not change is the ask itself. Solicitation is the moment one human invites another into something larger than themselves. No amount of capability makes that moment transferable to software, and any organization that transfers it will discover what I have called counterfeit generosity: money without relationship, which does not renew.
4. Stewardship: Gratitude at Scale
Stewardship is the stage the sector talks about most and funds least.
It is also where AI does something few expected: it makes gratitude scalable without making it generic.
What changes with AI is coverage.
Every donor can receive a timely, specific acknowledgment that references what their gift actually did, not a template with a merge field.
Momentum can draft those, track whether they went out, and flag the donors who have gone quiet since their last gift.
What does not change is sincerity. A drafted note that an officer reads, edits, and signs is stewardship. A note no human ever saw is a receipt.
What Never Changes With Moves Management
One pattern runs through all four stages. At every stage, AI changes what can be seen, planned, and prepared. At no stage does it change who decides. The framework holds. What breaks is the assumption that it only applies to the top of the portfolio.
Moves management was always about sequencing care over time.
The moves were never the point. The care was the point, and the sequence was how we made sure it arrived in the right order. For four decades we accepted that most donors would fall through that sequence, not because they deserved less but because there were not enough hours to give them more.
That constraint is loosening. The question in front of every development director this fall is not whether AI will replace the fundraiser. It is whether the 120 names at the bottom of the portfolio will finally receive the same sequence as the 30 at the top.
That question is why Momentum exists, and it is the premise behind every product Virtuous is building now: not more automation without human responsibility, but more individuals actually receiving an individualized sequence based on their interests and engagement.
It is also why Gabe and I wrote N1 Philanthropy, which opens for pre-order in October and ships November 17.
The framework is ready. It always was.
What is new is that, for the first time, more of the people it was designed to serve can actually pass through it.
AI for Moves Management FAQs
What is moves management in fundraising?
Moves management is a framework that deepens donor relationships through four intentional stages: identification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship. It rests on the idea that generosity is sequenced.
Does AI replace moves management?
No. AI doesn’t change the framework or who makes decisions. It changes how many donors one officer can move through it.
How does AI help with donor identification?
AI reads engagement across your whole database and flags shifts as they happen, like a lapsed donor attending two events. It can show a donor looks different, but a person still has to find out why.
Can AI handle donor cultivation?
AI can plan it by suggesting a next step for every donor based on their history and interests. The officer still reviews each suggestion and decides if the timing and tone are right.
Should AI make the donor ask?
No. AI can help an officer prepare with giving history and proposal outlines, but the ask is one person inviting another into something larger. Automating it risks counterfeit generosity: money without relationship.
How does AI improve donor stewardship without making it generic?
AI expands coverage, so every donor can get a timely, specific thank-you that references what their gift did. The officer still reads, edits, and signs it, because a note no human saw is just a receipt.
