Virtuous

Virtuous was founded by Gabe Cooper on a conviction that's easy to say and hard to build: that generosity is personal, and that fundraising should treat donors like people, not records in a database. He called it responsive fundraising — and the early product was a strong start with a long way to go. The work I joined to do was to help carry that vision from a single CRM into a platform: to deepen the product, mature the design and UX practice, and make the experience as human as the philosophy behind it.

Design for the other side of the screen. Every decision started with the person doing the work and worked back to the product. I led product and design as one discipline, because the experience and the system are the same problem seen from two sides. We organized around outcomes instead of features, set customer-centric rhythms, and committed to an approach that is AI-forward and human-centered: AI woven into real workflows to give people their time back, never a bolt-on, and never at the expense of the relationships the whole platform exists to protect.

What began as a CRM grew into a connected platform spanning the relationship, marketing, giving, and intelligence surfaces nonprofits actually live in — built so a nonprofit team can know their donors, reach them personally, and spend less time fighting their tools. We crafted an AI-forward product strategy from prototype to production inside that system — donor intelligence and AI research agents that do real work for fundraisers, and matured the design, product, and product marketing practice that keeps the whole thing coherent as it grows.

From early-stage to a recognized, AI-forward leader serving thousands of organizations, scaled past $50M+ ARR, with retention and satisfaction at the top of the category. The deeper outcome is harder to put in a number: a product and a design culture that hold the line on Gabe's original conviction — that giving is personal, and the people on both sides of the screen deserve to be treated that way.