The present invention provides aqueous binder compositions comprising one or more polyol and a multistage copolymer, preferably, an all acrylic and allylic or all acrylic copolymer, having as the outermost stage a polymerized acid functional aqueous solution polymer and as the one or more remaining stage(s) a vinyl emulsion polymer, wherein the emulsion polymer stage(s) in the multistage copolymer comprises 5 wt. % or less of hydrophilic monomer, based on the total weight of monomers used to make the emulsion polymer stage(s). The multistage copolymer enables incorporation of a much higher amount of hydrophilic monomer into a polymeric binder without the attendant handling or viscosity problems. Also provided are methods of using the aqueous binder compositions comprising pultruding two or more non-woven fibers or a fiber roving with the aqueous binder composition, and drying, Articles comprising the bound fiber(s) are provided.