Bloomerang Names Dave Stevens Chief AI Officer
Most fundraisers start the week the same way: staring at a donor list too long to work through by hand, guessing who needs a call today.
The recurring donor whose gift lapsed last month and nobody flagged it. The one-time donor who gave twice this year and might be ready for a monthly commitment. The major donor prospect who opened every email but hasn't heard from anyone in six weeks.
Bloomerang has named Dave Stevens its first Chief AI Officer, effective July 1, 2026, a role built to close exactly that gap. Stevens, who has led Bloomerang Innovation Labs, now owns the company's AI strategy, model development, model governance, and the intelligence layer running underneath the intelligent Giving Platform for the more than 24,000 nonprofits that use it.
Why did Bloomerang create a Chief AI Officer role?
Bloomerang built this role around direct customer feedback.
At GiveCon 2026, Bloomerang's annual conference, Stevens laid out his vision for where fundraising technology needs to go: away from systems that store donor data and toward systems that act on it. Fundraisers in the room asked for the same thing in different words: they don't want another dashboard. They want a platform that surfaces data in easy to understand insights— who they should call, why, and what to prioritize.
"Dave is one of the rare leaders who has actually built and shipped AI inside a software company," said Dennis Fois, CEO of Bloomerang. "Our customers told us clearly that they want a platform that works alongside them. Dave's job is to make that real, and to make sure the intelligence we build belongs to the nonprofits we serve."
Who is Dave Stevens?
Stevens has spent more than two decades building and scaling technology companies, with the last several years focused entirely on applied AI.
As VP of AI at CentralReach, he built the company's generative AI organization from the ground up and shipped multiple AI products before the company's acquisition by Roper Technologies. Before that, he co-founded Chartlytics, which CentralReach later acquired, and founded Rad/s2, an AI venture studio he started to build AI products for other companies.
Stevens has advised Bloomerang Innovation Labs since early 2026. He's also the author of "The Rise of the Chief AI Officer," which argues that AI capability has to be built into a product from the ground up, not layered on top of it after the fact. That argument is now his job description.
What will Bloomerang's Chief AI Officer actually do?
Stevens owns three things. Here's how they break down:
Two efforts already underway will run through his office, and they do different jobs. Predictive donor intelligence is the forecasting layer from Bloomerang's partnership with Dataro. It scores each donor's likelihood to give, lapse, upgrade, or convert to monthly giving, suggests the right amount to ask for, and surfaces that ranking on the CRM dashboard so a fundraiser knows who needs attention first. Penny is Bloomerang's AI fundraising partner. It picks up from where predictive intelligence leaves off, turning a flagged donor into a plain-language explanation, a drafted check-in, or a campaign ready for a fundraiser to review before it goes out.
What principles guide Bloomerang's approach to AI?
Bloomerang published three AI principles, and Stevens's role and scope run through all three.
Mission is the metric. Every AI feature has to answer one question before it ships: does it help a team raise more money, retain more supporters, or serve more people? If the answer isn't clear, Bloomerang doesn't build it, whether the customer is a one-person shop or an enterprise team with a dedicated analyst.
The relationship stays human. Bloomerang calls this glass box, not black box: every AI recommendation comes with its reasoning attached, so a fundraiser can read it, accept it, change it, or ignore it instead of getting an answer with no explanation. It's the same principle behind the Penny and predictive donor intelligence split above. Bloomerang prepares, drafts, and recommends. The fundraiser decides, approves, and connects.
Your data stays yours. Bloomerang doesn't sell nonprofit data and doesn't share it without permission. Whatever a nonprofit contributes comes back as sharper recommendations inside its own account, not as training data for someone else's product.
"These are the lines I want our team held to, publicly, as we build what comes next," Fois said when Bloomerang published the principles.
What does this mean for the fundraisers using Bloomerang?
Stevens framed the opportunity around what Bloomerang can see that other vendors in the sector can't.
"Bloomerang sees something no one else in this sector can: the full lifecycle of giving and volunteering, across tens of thousands of nonprofits, tens of millions of donors, and the volunteers who power them," Stevens said. "The opportunity is to turn that into intelligence that does the work alongside fundraisers, and to do it in a way nonprofits can trust. That is the outcome I am most excited about creating."
For the fundraiser staring at that Monday morning donor list, this is the practical bet behind the new Bloomerang Chief AI Officer role: less time hunting for the signal in the data, more time spent on the donor conversation it points to.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Bloomerang's new Chief AI Officer?
Dave Stevens is Bloomerang's first Chief AI Officer, effective July 1, 2026. He previously led Bloomerang Innovation Labs and was VP of AI at CentralReach, where he built the company's generative AI organization before its acquisition by Roper Technologies.
What will the Bloomerang Chief AI Officer be responsible for?
Dave owns Bloomerang's AI strategy, model development and governance, and the intelligence layer behind both Penny and the platform's predictive donor insights. He reports through Bloomerang's leadership team and works directly with engineering and product on what ships next.
Has Dave Stevens worked with Bloomerang before?
Yes. Dave advised Bloomerang starting in early 2026 before joining full time as Chief AI Officer.
Final thoughts
We're excited to welcome Dave Stevens to Bloomerang. For the more than 24,000 nonprofits already using the intelligent Giving Platform, his job is straightforward: make sure the intelligence built into Bloomerang keeps pointing fundraisers to the donor who needs them next, so more of their week goes to donors and less to guesswork.
