The Fundraising Everywhere Podcast

What happens when you hand your fundraising campaign over to an AI? In this episode, Host Simon Scriver speaks with Ben Cohen, AI Lead at Good Innovation, about a bold experiment he ran during his London Marathon fundraising campaign. Rather than host another bingo night or curry evening, Ben built Zosia; an AI agent - and gave her one job: raise £500 in a month. Ben shares how he set Zosia up with her own email address, a website, a newsletter, and even a Telegram connection, then gave her as much autonomy as possible. The results were remarkable (she raised nearly £2,000), but not without a few surprises along the way - including the moment she tried to break into his WhatsApp. They explore what it really means to build an AI agent, why personifying your AI can actually make it work better, and what this experiment reveals about the future of fundraising. Ben's donation page For Dogs for Good Meet Zosia Want to dive deeper into supporter experience? Join us at our Supporter Experience Conference on Thursday 21st May 2026 If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to hit follow and enable notifications so you'll get notified to be first to hear of future podcast episodes. We'd love to see you back again! And thank you to our friends at JustGiving who make the Fundraising Everywhere Podcast possible.

Are you looking to make your emails stand out in ever busier inboxes? It’s time to step away from the humdrum and get creative. In this session the mobilisation agency Claire Donner of More Onion will take you through the key elements of the creative process including practical exercises and ideas you can take away and use with your team right away. They’ll share how you create richer experiences whatever your budget and team size. Patrick Beswick of the homelessness charity St Mungo’s will then share examples of how they’ve used creativity to step up their supporter engagement and strengthen their fundraising work. Join us to learn how to add elements of interactivity, creativity and humour to make your emails and webpages stand out and keep supporters engaged. Key learning from this session: How to be creative at any budget level and create richer supporter communications. Want to dive deeper into supporter experience? Join us at our Supporter Experience Conference on Thursday 21st May 2026 If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to hit follow and enable notifications so you'll get notified to be first to hear of future podcast episodes. We'd love to see you back again! And thank you to our friends at JustGiving who make the Fundraising Everywhere Podcast possible.