Fundraising squads on the march in an agentic AI world

Posted on 18 Sep 2025

By Matthew Schulz, journalist, Institute of Community Directors Australia

Factory Robots Engineer hutterstock 2488204067

For decades, the humble org chart has dominated the ways we visualise organisations. It shows who reports to whom, who sits where, and how authority flows. It is hierarchical, rigid, and often outdated the moment it is drawn.

But as we keep hearing, we are entering an era where AI agents – autonomous digital colleagues – will sit alongside us as true collaborators. With that, the org chart starts to look clunky.

According to McKinsey & Company’s recent podcast episode “The Future of Work is Agentic”, we will move towards the work chart: a living map of people and agents, tasks and flows. Not just “who you report to,” but “how work actually gets done.”

At the same time, thinkers in technology and business strategy are reimagining the Spotify model of product development – one underpinned by collaboration, transparency, and simplicity – for the human–AI enterprise. In a recent CIO article, experts described how the model could evolve to include composite teams, liquid workflows, and “cognitive meshes” (shared knowledge), integrating humans and AI agents seamlessly.

So what does this mean for fundraising organisations?

Agentic AI and the fundraising landscape

IBM defines agentic AI as “an artificial intelligence system that can accomplish a specific goal with limited supervision. It consists of AI agents – machine learning models that mimic human decision-making to solve problems in real time”.

Agentic AI is not just about generating content, as we have come to expect from chatbots. Agentic AI systems can:

perceive reality (understand context and data)
decide (choose the best course of action)
act (execute tasks autonomously)
learn (improve over time from feedback).

For fundraisers, this opens powerful possibilities:

AI agents scanning hundreds of funding databases daily, identifying relevant opportunities
agents preparing donor research briefs and drafting correspondence
agents monitoring giving trends, tailoring appeals, and optimising campaigns in real time.

The critical point is that AI becomes a teammate, not just a tool. Just as Spotify “squads” (teams) once mixed product managers, developers and designers, the fundraising squads of the future will mix fundraisers, data experts and AI agents.

"The critical point is that AI becomes a teammate, not just a tool."

Catherine Brooks

Currency 20bills shutterstock 1543210919 — Many fundraising activities could become automated in the future.

From org charts to work charts

Here are examples of what fundraising work charts could look like for organisations of different sizes. Instead of static boxes and lines, think of nodes (humans and AI agents) connected by flows (tasks, feedback, and collaboration).

Small organisation (under $2 million turnover, one to three fundraisers, such as the CEO or chair)

Today: One person wears multiple hats – grant writing, donor calls, social media, events

Tomorrow: human: development manager

AI agents:

grant finder agent – scans databases, drafts applications
donor research agent – builds profiles before meetings
communications agent – drafts appeal emails, social posts, donor thank-yous

Work chart flow: Human sets strategy and maintains relationships, while AI agents handle the paperwork and research.

Impact: Frees up the development manager’s time for what really matters – connecting with donors and telling the organisation’s story.

At my company, Equitable Philanthropy, we expect to help charities develop their funding strategy, then train AI agents on each organisation’s strategic plan, fundraising goals, and context. As agent capabilities develop, we can scale fundraising efforts so leaders spend more time developing relationships with funders and supporters.

Medium organisation ($2–10 million turnover, five to ten fundraising staff)

Today: Fundraising is split into functions – grants, corporates, events, community. Silos emerge.

Tomorrow: Borrowing from Spotify’s squad model, we see composite teams:

grants squad – grant manager, grant finder agent, compliance agent
corporate squad – partnerships manager, market scan agent (tracks corporate social responsibility shifts), pitch agent (creates tailored pitch decks)
community squad – events officer, social media agent, donor data agent (personalises donor journeys)

Workflow: AI agents can flow between squads. If a corporate foundation opportunity emerges, a grant agent temporarily joins the corporate squad.

Impact: The organisation gains agility, adapting quickly to opportunities and reallocating capacity dynamically.

Equitable Philanthropy will design squad-based fundraising strategies tailored to team structures, introduce AI agents that work across functions, and train staff on managing workflows. Governance frameworks will ensure ethical, transparent and trusted adoption.

Large organisation (over $50 million turnover, 50+ fundraising staff)

Today: Major silos – major gifts, annual giving, bequests, corporate, digital. Lots of duplication, little integration.

Tomorrow: Humans and AI agents form interconnected nodes:

major donor squad – relationship manager, wealth screening agent, impact measurement agent, personalised communications agent
digital giving squad – digital manager, campaign optimisation agent, behavioural insights agent
board engagement squad – CEO, executive assistant agent (scheduling, preparing briefs), strategy agent

Agentic governance layer: Ensures ethical AI use, data integrity and donor trust.

Impact: Fundraising shifts from managing silos to orchestrating a fluid ecosystem of people and agents. The system itself learns as it goes.

Equitable Philanthropy will support charities at this scale to integrate AI across multiple fundraising streams, build cross-team shared knowledge, and establish strong governance policies. We help boards and executive teams set guardrails so AI enhances performance without undermining donor trust.

Challenges of working with agentic AI

This is not a simple plug-and-play future. Fundraising leaders will need to wrestle with:

trust – can staff, boards and donors trust decisions partly made by AI?
governance – how do we prevent AI sprawl and ensure ethical use of donor data?
capability – fundraisers will need new skills, such as overseeing and coaching AI agents that write drafts.

These challenges are not blockers. They are design features – part of building an agentic fundraising organisation responsibly.

Why this matters for fundraising

The future of fundraising does not entail replacing humans. It means freeing humans to do what only they can do: build trust, cultivate relationships and inspire generosity.

By shifting from static organisational charts to dynamic work charts, we reimagine how we organise ourselves:

small organisations focus on efficiency
medium organisations focus on agility
large organisations focus on integration.

Across the board, AI agents become collaborators – not just tools.

The questions you need to ask

If you are a CEO, fundraiser or board member, consider:

What would my fundraising work chart look like if I added AI agents as true teammates?
Which part of our workflow is most ready to trial an agentic squad?
How can we ensure good governance, trust and transparency as we experiment?

In a world where work charts replace org charts, the organisations that thrive will be those bold enough to reimagine, yet wise enough to govern.

We are standing at the edge of a new fundraising era – one where humans and AI build bridges together. The question is not if this shift will happen, but how quickly each organisation will choose to step into it.

A version of this article was first published on Catherine Brooks’ substack.