Dear Subscriber,
To kick off the year, we present our 2025 trends issue. The stories in this issue span the challenges, insights, and ideas that are top of mind for the nonprofit sector.
Here’s a sneak peek:
Sara Herschander dives into the triple economic threat that many nonprofits face: inflation driving up expenses, pandemic relief funds drying up, and falling donations. Take Feeding America, which in 2023 spent about $100 million on produce — over five times more than it spent in 2019. Organizations are nervously awaiting what’s next for themselves and the people who need them most.
Jim Rendon reports on a pattern of disengaged board members — in the era of more video calls and remote meetings — as well as tactics organizations are using to diversify and bolster boards. For example, all boards need to be well-informed about the organization and sometimes reminded of their roles — whether the board has new members or not — shares nonprofit consultant David La Piana. When La Piana was a nonprofit CEO, he gave board members a cheat sheet on the basics of the organization, including its budget, funding sources, and the size of the staff.
Drew Lindsay explores the potential for donor-advised funds to become more accessible to everyday givers, as a way for the DAF industry to further tap the 60 million households that give to charity every year. Two of the three largest DAF providers — Fidelity and DAFgiving360, the charity arm of Charles Schwab — have eliminated their minimum contribution to open an account. While this could create more ways to give, critics argue that the proliferation of DAFs could harm working charities that need money faster. “These are behaviors of the wealthy,” says Ray Madoff, a professor at Boston College Law School and longtime DAF skeptic. “We should not be encouraging tax deductions now and benefits to charities later.”
Rasheeda Childress finds that polarization is likely to keep spilling over into relationships between donors and the organizations they support. “We’ll continue to see donors express their values through their charitable giving,” says Laura MacDonald, president of the fundraising consultancy Benefactor Group. “As we see the nation become more polarized, we may see those giving patterns diverge more and more.” Experts say fundraisers can consider a few tactics in this environment, such as communicating frequently with donors and enlisting peer support.
