In 2020, GBN published an article on the skills required for fundraising. A well-written piece that highlighted the challenges and, while acknowledging the complexity, showed that it was all still manageable.
That was six years ago. Since then… well… you know.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, Americans collectively spent more on Halloween candy than their federal government did on humanitarian aid in 2025. A grim reality for anyone who is not a dentist.
The good news first: the key principles of fundraising remain the same: know your mission, diversify your sources, maintain donor relations, produce rigorous reports. Business as usual. So while the rules of the game haven't changed, the bad news is that the board is now on fire. Every move is critical, and there is no more room for error.
The main accelerant is the current US administration, which eliminated 83% of USAID's budget in early 2025, cancelling over 5,000 operations overnight, like the Global Measles and Rubella Laboratory Network, which worked on tracking outbreaks of Mpox, avian flu, and Ebola. Why spend $8 million on a project like that when you could instead pay for half a fresh coat of paint on a reflecting pool?
Worldwide, humanitarian funding has fallen by 40% since 2022, according to Refugees International. Washington's message was as subtle as a punch to the face: "Adapt, shrink, or die."
Surprisingly, people are giving more money. Just fewer of them. The Association of Fundraising Professionals reported that the total amount raised in 2025 increased by 5%, the strongest growth in five years. However, the number of donors dropped by 3.6%, the fifth consecutive year of decline. The small, loyal recurring donor is fading out: donors giving $100 or less dropped by over 10% in 2025 alone.
They are being replaced by donors with deeper pockets and higher expectations. Windmill Hill Consulting describes it as "selective generosity": donors are not giving less, they are giving to fewer organizations, the ones they have a genuine connection with and that can show proof of impact. They are not tired of giving. They are tired of your organization patting itself on the back for having another roundtable to discuss the possible roadmap to eventually consider options to move forward on opening a dialogue about the challenges you face to find a consensus in...
Big donors are more critical than ever, and yet, relying on a single dominant backer is as reckless as jumping from an aeroplane with one massive parachute but no backup. Following USAID's budget cut, 81 NGOs had shut at least one office by April 2025. World Vision laid off close to 3,000 people. Search for Common Ground lost $23 million overnight, 40% of its entire budget, per The Conversation. So, how do you make sure you do not leave a hole in the shape of your organization on the pavement?
Private foundations, Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs), equity donations, corporate partnerships, hybrid revenue streams: all worth exploring. DAFs in particular deserve special attention. These are philanthropic vehicles that allow wealthy individuals to centralize their giving in a dedicated fund, distributing grants over time while receiving an immediate tax benefit. Grants through these vehicles grew 25% in 2024. People want to give, but they need proof of impact.
Orr Group notes that we are living in a historically favorable moment for major gifts and planned giving, a convergence of strong stock market performance, unprecedented generational wealth transfer, and favorable tax conditions. But that window only opens through genuine relationship-building, not cold prospecting. Donors retained for two or more years now account for 62% of all individual funds raised, as the Fundraising Effectiveness Project pointed out. And the most counterintuitive advice of the year, courtesy of Windmill Hill Consulting: the single most disruptive fundraising move in 2026 is a handwritten letter. No Mailchimp, no autofill. A pen and a piece of paper.
Somewhere out there, a communications manager is scheduling their thirteenth post this month. All ignored by everyone but their colleague, Linda from Accounting. God bless Linda. According to Era92 Creative, donors in 2026 are tuning out volume and rewarding depth: a single well-crafted story, told honestly and without spin, now outperforms a month of polished campaign updates. The organizations pulling ahead aren't posting more. They are building one coherent narrative about who they are and what they stand for, and running it through everything they publish. Consistency, it turns out, is what signals maturity to a donor who has seen a thousand mission statements and believed about three of them.
Less content. More conviction. I could go on, but that would defeat the point.
Nearly 80% of nonprofits now use AI in some capacity, up from 55% in 2023. The sector is splitting into two camps: those using it to spam the living hell out of their database, and those using it to free up time for genuine human interaction. One of them is messing up. Any guess?
The key is in what you point it at. Used well, AI flags a donor whose engagement is quietly dropping before they officially lapse, ensures that someone who gave to one program does not receive a generic appeal for a completely different one, and cuts the hours spent on manual prospect research so that fundraisers can actually be in the field. In other words, it handles the dirty work so that people can focus on the relationship.
Take out the intelligence, and all you're left with is artificial.
Fundraising has not changed drastically since 2020. The world has. Errors are more costly than ever, competition is ruthless, and the donors worth chasing have more options than ever before.
Same game. Much higher stakes.
By the same author:
No More Safety Net: The Great Withdrawal
Main image: Maksim Romashkin from Pexels
Communication Officer
