What's New in Development Agent

August 5, 2026

Upcoming messages are now grouped by engagement type, making it easier to identify and review the communications most important to your organization. View scheduled and unreviewed message counts for each engagement type, then preview messages, provide feedback, and approve messages individually or in bulk.

Note: Review notifications and Needs attention items for messages awaiting review no longer appear. Instead, review upcoming messages by engagement type to focus on the communications most important to your organization.

July 29, 2026

When a constituent is assigned to Development Agent, the agent now schedules and generates communications one at a time instead of creating a full year's communications plan upfront.

Note: Development Agent generates communications seven days before their scheduled send dates, providing a seven-day review cycle. By generating content closer to delivery, the agent incorporates more recent Knowledge and Brand Voice updates while still allowing time for review.

The updated scheduling experience applies immediately to newly assigned constituents. Constituents assigned before July 29, 2026, continue with their existing scheduled engagements and generated content. After those communications are sent, future communications follow the updated scheduling experience.

July 22, 2026

Brand voice has been redesigned and a new Knowledge feature gives you more control over how the Development Agent communicates and what it knows about your church.

• Brand voice (under Settings) influences how the agent writes — its tone, length, formality, and other style guidelines. Add voice samples such as past donor appeals and thank you notes to teach the agent your communication style.

• Knowledge (under Settings) provides the agent with facts about your church to reference in communications, such as programs, campaigns, organizational history, and impact stories.

The redesigned Brand voice wizard now walks through three steps:

• Writing guidelines — Set defaults for length, warmth, formality, and urgency, and define words to avoid.

• Voice samples — Add examples of your past communications, such as donor appeals and thank you notes, to teach the agent your style.

• Preview — See a live comparison of non-branded and brand-voice-applied content before saving.

The new Knowledge setting lets you add factual content about your church — such as programs, campaigns, and impact stories — for the agent to reference when generating communications. Each entry supports a content type, optional valid dates, and a content review schedule to keep information current.

July 21, 2026

You can no longer add your organization's mission statement as a manual Knowledge entry.

Mission statements are now sourced only from your Blackbaud Verified Network profile.

This single-source approach helps keep communications clear, current, and on-brand by avoiding outdated wording, conflicting versions, and legacy terms in generated content.

Any manually added mission statement content is no longer used by Development Agent.

To update the mission statement the agent uses, update it in your Blackbaud Verified Network profile. For step-by-step instructions, see Manage Your Nonprofit Profile.

June 29, 2026

Communications now provide clearer, conversational explanations of what Development Agent does and how it supports constituents, helping organizations introduce AI with transparency and confidence.

June 22, 2026

The new Development Agent dashboard brings together fundraising, engagement, and donor trends in one place. Review performance metrics, spot changes over time, and understand how outreach contributes to fundraising outcomes.

AI-generated insights help highlight activity and trends so your agent manager can better understand how your Development Agent's outreach is contributing to results.

June 16, 2026

You can now delete communications directly from the Engagements list. This option allows you to remove communications so you can maintain a clean list or comply with data retention requirements. Deleting a communication removes an engagement from the list but leaves the constituent's associated action record open.

If you would rather cancel a communication and mark the action as complete, use the Cancel option instead.

See Cancel or Delete a Communication for details on both methods.

June 15, 2026

When you provide feedback and regenerate content, your feedback now applies only to the current engagement by default. Select Apply this feedback to future engagements when you want the agent to use your feedback to influence future content across your organization.

June 8, 2026

The agent now sends email and SMS messages within defined delivery windows instead of at midnight. Communications now occur during the following timeframes:

• Email: 10 AM – 6 PM Eastern Time

• SMS: 11 AM – 7 PM Eastern Time

This update helps ensure messages are delivered at more appropriate times and aligns SMS delivery with TCPA guidelines.

May 29, 2026

When configuring solicitation messages, you can now choose to use a Blackbaud donation form instead of providing an external donation URL. When you select this option, the system automatically creates and manages a donation form on your behalf. A confirmation message appears the first time the form is created.

After the form is created, review it in Online Giving (accessible from the omnibar) to confirm the fund designation, branding card, and confirmation email align with your organization before solicitation messages begin sending.

Note: This option requires Blackbaud Merchant Services payment processing.

May 15, 2026

The Development Agent now uses your feedback more effectively to improve future content. As you provide input during the review of upcoming messages, the agent adapts and applies what it learns to generate more relevant and effective messages over time.

May 14, 2026

When the Development Agent detects a new donation, it now automatically prioritizes a timely thank‑you while maintaining appropriate spacing between engagements. The agent may adjust upcoming engagements as needed to ensure donors are acknowledged promptly, without over‑contacting them.

April 16, 2026

The Development Agent now connects with the Blackbaud Verified Network (YourCause) to better understand your organization.

When your organization has a profile in the Blackbaud Verified Network, the agent gains access to your mission statement, name, address, and nonprofit type, giving it context to align its outreach with your voice and details.

Already have a Blackbaud Verified Network profile? Revisit your profile to ensure it has up-to-date information.

Don't have a Blackbaud Verified Network profile yet? You may receive a notification that prompts you to add your organization's information so your agent can better reflect your messaging.