Top Challenges
- Personalizing fundraising outreach for deeply invested donors, closely tied to the college community.
- Using data to inform their approach for outreach and campaigns.
The Virtuous Difference
- Utilized data-driven personalization to reach a highly invested donor base.
- Used digital engagement metrics, giving statistics, and retention data on the Virtuous Responsive Dashboard to drive fundraising strategy.
Awarding Those Who Serve: 2025 User Summit Awards
At Virtuous, supporting nonprofits fuels everything we do. And as your nonprofit fundraising suite of choice, we often get an inside look into all the behind-the-scenes work that drives Responsive Fundraising. We also know that these efforts often go unnoticed or overlooked. So, we wanted to do something about that.
As part of our 2025 User Summit experience, we held our first-ever User Summit Responsive Awards, where we had the opportunity to take our inside-scoop knowledge of our nonprofits’ fundraising efforts and give recognition where we felt it was due.
Of the 10 awards we gave, 5 of them required nonprofits to submit self-nominations, and the other 5 were hand-selected by us.
Behind the Award: Responsive Fundraiser of the Year
Among the award winners chosen by Virtuous is the Responsive Fundraiser of the Year award. While all other awards focused on an organization as a whole, this award put the spotlight on an individual. We wanted to recognize a fundraiser who truly put the ideology of Responsive Fundraising into practice every day.
Jeff Schneider: Using Data as a Force for Connection
Our selected winner?
Jeff Schneider, Chief Information Officer at College of the Ozarks.
Fully funded by the generosity of its community members and partners, College of the Ozarks provides a tuition-free experience for its students. This requires a fundraising approach that is closely attuned to its donors.
Jeff Schneider led the way in using data as the tool for that attunement.
Over the past year, College of the Ozarks logged 1,500 visits to the Responsive Dashboard within Virtuous.
This is a specialized dashboard within Virtuous that provides our customers with a detailed breakdown of metrics, including:
→ Retention
→ Average Gift
→ Donor Lifetime Value
→ Lapsed vs. New
→ Total Giving
→ Digital Engagement
→ And much more!
Learn more about how the Responsive Dashboard helps track these metrics below.
All 1,500 visits logged by College of the Ozarks serve as a true testament to the data-driven fundraising approach that Jeff has adopted and shared with his colleagues.
Specifically, Jeff tapped into digital engagement metrics, giving statistics, and retention data to help determine whether their strategies were working or needed adjustment.
Using data as a beacon, College of the Ozarks illuminated the right moments to connect, delivering personal, timely touchpoints that made every donor feel seen.
“[Jeff’s] actions signal relentless tracking of donor behavior and enable real-time personalization that deepens relationships.”
– Nick Bingaman, Senior Enterprise Customer Success Manager, Virtuous
How Jeff Schneider Embodied Responsive Fundraising
Responsive Fundraising is a highly personalized approach to fundraising based on four key concepts:
1) Listening
2) Connecting
3) Suggesting
4) Learning
Jeff and the team at College of the Ozarks embodied the heart of Responsive Fundraising through their approach:
Listening:
By relentlessly engaging with real-time data, Jeff ensured that the College was always listening to its donors, not just through surveys or anecdotes, but through observable behavior across giving, engagement, and interaction history.
Connecting
Using that insight, Jeff and the College team delivered more personal, relevant touchpoints across donor journeys.
Suggesting
Jeff used their data to power personalized next-best actions.
Learning
By continuously reviewing dashboards, testing outreach strategies, and analyzing the results, his team was focused on improving rather than simply executing. Every insight gathered was looped back into strategy, driving smarter decisions and stronger relationships.
Learn more about Responsive Fundraising here.
Virtuous: The Only Responsive Fundraising Suite
Jeff Schneider showcased what it can look like to use data as a platform for building stronger relationships with donors. For that, we were honored to name him the 2025 Responsive Fundraiser of the Year.
With Virtuous CRM+, access multiple dashboards, like the Responsive Fundraising Dashboard, the CRM Dashboard, and the Marketing Dashboard. Plus, build a custom dashboard for more tailored data-tracking for your nonprofit.
If you’d like a first-hand look at these dashboards, book a demo to see it in action.
