What a year it has been in the Future of Philanthropy: 23 total articles, including 13 panel discussions with more than three dozen advancement leaders, and nearly 8,000 engaged readers subscribed on LinkedIn alone. First, we offer our deepest thanks to all of you who have been following, reading, and commenting, and to all those who have shared their insights and wisdom by participating in our Q&As.
We could not have done this without you, and we hope that this series has made a substantial contribution to discussions about where the profession is headed and the best ways to maximize its growth and impact.
In that vein, we wanted to wrap up the series not with a recap of each of the individual topics we’ve covered, but instead with key strategic concepts from this year-long project. Below are 10 principles that we believe can help guide the profession as we think strategically about where we go from here, and how we can engage the future with ambition and confidence.
1. Development has evolved from a silo into a broad philanthropic “ecosystem.”
We heard over and over, during the past year, that successful fundraising is built on a diverse “ecosystem” where “each part heavily relies on every other part”: from board members, to community leaders and stakeholders, to donors and their advisers, to internal allies and advocates across the organization. Adam Gerdts, SVP for Philanthropy at the New York Philharmonic, observed that “a generation ago, fundraisers were told, ‘Here’s your list of names, go bring home as much as you can.’” Whereas today, development has evolved into “the ultimate team sport.”
This is especially true in smaller nonprofits, which often need what Nick Dirks, President and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences, called “a more distributed kind of development operation,” wherein program staff and executive leadership are all active partners throughout the fundraising process—contributing their domain expertise while playing an integral role in both solicitation and stewardship.
The word that came up time and time again here was “connectedness.” Siloed development operations and those without strong, active internal and external networks will be challenged to meet the moment. The successful fundraising shop of the future will be founded on principles of connection, interdependence, and mutuality, harnessing as broad a resource base as possible in service to rising financial demands and shared philanthropic goals.
2. Funding sources are evolving, both in capacity and intent—no shop can take its current funding mix for granted.
The funding paradigms of the past several decades can no longer be taken for granted as funders change their priorities, shift their giving patterns, and adopt a more pronounced investment-oriented mindset.
Government support is less reliable. Unrestricted giving has been declining for years. Foundations are reprioritizing and refocusing their giving, sometimes passing over long-time grantees that no longer fit their impact goals. Mega-donors are ever-more important, but they’re harder to reach and are using more complex gifting strategies, and they often have higher demands when it comes to demonstrating impact. And individual donors, while passionate and very mission-aligned, can be harder to reach and are being more selective in how and where they give.
We heard from a wide range of nonprofits that they are all having to rethink the funding mix they’ve traditionally relied on, and they’re trying to diversify funding sources due to the changes mentioned above. For example, many higher education institutions are paring back their annual giving programs due to resource constraints and refocusing those resources on building the major donor pipeline. At the same time, smaller nonprofits, especially those that have been heavily foundation- and corporate-dependent, are aiming for larger individual giving programs, including programs like crowdsourcing, to increase the flow of unrestricted gifts.
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to today’s shifting donor landscape. The overall message we heard from leaders on the frontlines is that most fundraising programs—and the deployment of resources behind them—are in flux, requiring a strategic reassessment aimed at increasing productivity within the same envelope of staff and budget.
3. The increasing sophistication of the development function demands more sophistication from development teams.
Every leader we talked to emphasized the need to elevate the skill set of their development teams. As John K. White said in our leadership Q&A, sophisticated donors need to “see in you the same level of knowledge and expertise that they see in their own teams,” specifically mentioning entrepreneurship, as well as understanding business cycles, finance, and a donor’s potential investment mindset.
Many of our panelists pointed out that big gifts are increasingly “blended” gifts that may include securities, real estate, or in one notable example, a rare automobile collection. Larger donations are increasingly coming from DAFs, family foundations, and family offices, even multi-family offices. And those donors very often delegate the nitty-gritty of the gift process to a team of advisers who hold a lot of discretion over the structure of the gift.
Internally, development leaders also face increasingly sophisticated demands. Sergio Gonzalez, SVP of Advancement at Brown University, pointed out that: “Today, we’re much more data-driven, process-oriented, and business-oriented. And we still have a lot of room to grow in those areas. That’s a permanent change that’s not going away.”
As philanthropy becomes an ever-more important strategic resource, development leaders need to be prepared—and their teams need to be prepared—to fulfill a more strategic, business-driven role in the organization, and that has very tangible implications for hiring, training, and retention.
4. Diversity and inclusivity are still critical resources, despite today’s political climate.
Even in times as heated and divisive as these, one has to put aside political rhetoric and focus on the task at hand: doing the most we can to strengthen the financial condition of the organizations we serve. In that vein, diversity remains one of the most powerful tools in our toolkit. First, diverse teams are stronger teams, able to explore and leverage a diversity of ideas, to find creative and innovative solutions to our challenges.
In addition, diversification is a tried-and-true business principle aimed at reducing risk, as pointed out by Valaida Wynn Guerrero, Chief Advancement Officer at NAF, which had a very corporate-heavy donor base when she joined. In response, her focus has been “making sure that we have a diverse group of funders.”
And Martin Jacobs, chair of the board of Thrive Scholars, said that diversity is a key feature of healthy boards: “Boards need a nice balance and diversification across industries, ethnicities, communities, and a lot of other things, while also ensuring you’ve got the specific skills needed to advance the mission.”
Ultimately, inclusivity should be a fundamental operational principle of development teams, as put by Kimberly Shiner, Interim VP for Advancement at California State University at Fullerton: “When you have such a concentration of wealth, I think you leave a lot of people out, and potentially leave a lot of money on the table… What we want—and should want—more than anything, is to create loyal and sustainable relationships and connections to our institutions. And if someone feels they are not being paid attention to, or their dollar isn’t worth much, they won’t give because they feel like, ‘Oh, you only care about that top end of the pipeline.’”
Whether or not one uses the label diversity, or the business-friendly term “diversification,” we cannot lose sight of the fact that casting as wide a net as possible for our teams, our donor pools, our boards, and our community stakeholders is a good thing that will ultimately accrue benefits to the organization and its ability to generate impact.
5. An increasingly demanding donor base wants to see impact backed up by hard data and lives transformed.
Donors have always wanted to see their funds make an impact, but today they are demanding back-up to support a nonprofit’s claims of impact, which creates a demand for hard data and tangible stories. Dino Hernandez says about the donors he has worked with, “They definitely want to see a return on investment and an impact from their hard-earned dollars. So, I think the onus is on us to make sure they see that, and it’s not just a publication with glossy photos and quotes, it’s seeing how lives have been transformed.”
The task of collecting and synthesizing data may be a heavy lift for some, but in addition to making a strong contribution to any stewardship program, it can be an extremely useful tool in solicitation discussions. Andrew Berg, Chief Development Officer at the Detroit Opera, adopted a very “data-driven” approach to board communications: for example, he showed them that, in inflation-adjusted dollars, the cost of one of their core productions had risen by 41% in 10 years, while board giving had actually declined by 1%. It sparked a productive discussion around the Opera’s funding model and an increase in giving by a majority of board members.
Data adds weight and scale to stories of transformation, and in the future, an ability to produce detailed data, with compelling stories of transformation, will provide a strong advantage in the increasingly competitive pursuit of philanthropic dollars.
6. Storytelling will be both an essential skillset and a competitive differentiator. 
Data on its own is not a story. It is up to the development team to use that raw material to “connect the dots,” according to Shelley Goode, SVP and Chief Development Officer at the AARP Foundation. She said, “One of the things I need to stress, in delivering on our mission, is the importance of communications and what we say—that is, when communicating a narrative to our audience, one might assume everyone understands what we are trying to convey, but they may not.”
Laurie Kelly, SVP and Chief Philanthropy Officer at Providence, echoed that sentiment with her comment that a key challenge in healthcare philanthropy is “our ability, in this current climate, to articulate our cause in a way that resonates with people effectively. Not just from our perspective, but from theirs, continually reminding people why we matter to them.”
It’s up to development teams to create a story of how the organization’s impact is relevant to a specific audience, how they can contribute, and how a charitable contribution aligns with their own values and goals. It’s also important to note that storytelling skill is essential not just for external audiences, but internal audiences as well. It’s a powerful tool in recruiting, and because leadership teams and peers outside the development team do not always understand what we do, good storytelling is critical to enlisting them as allies and advocates.
Storytelling, in an age of high distrust in institutions and information, is a new and evolving skillset for development teams: being able to create powerful, compelling stories for each audience that engender trust in our institutions, and then deploy those stories strategically in our work.
7. We need to maintain the human touch while leveraging technology to drive scale.
It was interesting to see in our Future of Philanthropy readership data that the panel discussion on technology was the least-read of all the pieces in the series. Interesting because technology is possibly one of the most important sources of leverage for resource-constrained and under-resourced development teams. (If you haven’t read it, you can find it here.)
It’s possible that in a relationship-based profession, technology could be seen as putting distance between fundraisers and our donors. In particular, automation technology can be painted with a broad brush as being impersonal. Yet, all the leaders in our technology panel emphasized that the role of technology should be to “enhance our ability to create more of a human touch in our work.”
Josh Newton, SVP for Advancement at Emory University, said that, “Technology can be more automated and yet still bring more customized, individualized engagement with our major donors… I don’t want a machine to take over my engagement with that person. Rather, I want these automation tools to help strengthen my personal engagement. That’s the kind of capability we’re working on.”
Technology will prove to be an invaluable resource across a vast array of tasks, from donor research, to wealth analysis, to segmentation, to building engagement strategies, to managing broad communications (e.g., crowdsourcing for smaller nonprofits) and personalized stewardship, to providing deep “business intelligence” about the organization and its fundraising programs.
Elizabeth LaBorde, President of the Adventist Health Glendale Foundation, pointed out that technology enables her team to be innovative in their response to the needs of a digital age, like supplementing impact reports with personalized videos for donors, and creating digital flip-books for attendees after major events.
The goal of technology should always be enabling more personal contact with donors and enhancing communication, rather than technology itself replacing our personal connections. Technology tools can be a huge boon to many development teams, particularly smaller ones, if designed and implemented in the right way. And the teams that do it well will likely have a leg up over those that don’t.
8. A core skill for all development teams will be adaptability and the ability to deal with uncertainty.
Hiring managers have to take into account a wide range of variables when recruiting, training, and retaining staff. And all of the traditional demands remain, even as the landscape changes: Organizations still need to hire with a long-term plan in mind (for the organization and the employee); they need to hire for the right balance of innate talent and hard skill; and they need to invest in their people because, as Sue Mann said, “the absence of an internal development program is not the absence of an expense. It is costing you. It’s just costing you someplace else in the organization.”
However, the leaders we spoke with almost unanimously called out one new talent that organizations will have to recruit for, and candidates will need to demonstrate: adaptability.
As Shelley Goode said, “I’m looking for people with adaptability who can pivot, and who are not looking for a rinse-and-repeat role. Because even if you’re the best, if you’re pushing, you can still get better. Especially in growing organizations, people need to be able to operate in a space of ambiguity as you’re continuing to push an organization forward.”
As the philanthropic landscape continues to evolve in the coming years, every organization will be challenged to keep pace with change, as well as respond with creativity and innovation. Therefore, an ability to adapt and “operate in a space of ambiguity” will be essential to every organization and team, no matter the size.
9. A culture of philanthropy is a culture of “ownership.”
The first item in our list of must-haves for the future is an appreciation for philanthropy as an “ecosystem.” And central to that ecosystem is a culture of ownership for staff, leadership, donors, board members, and all stakeholders. Having a personal stake in the mission acts as the glue, or a force of gravity, holding the fundraising ecosystem together. Strengthening that bond is especially important in an age when charitable giving is more and more conditioned on its connection to a donor’s sense of personal purpose.
Renzo Martorella, Regional Director of Development at the Salvation Army of San Diego, emphasized that “a teamwork mentality is really important. In a sense, that’s how we become whole. It comes back to having a common sense of ownership.” Amy Yancey, of the UConn Foundation, likened it to creating a sense that “donors are co-invested with us.”
An “ownership” culture also applies to staff and can be an important driver of retention. Steven Brady, VP for Institutional Advancement at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, gave the example of a staff member who came back from a conference with the idea to start an alumni affinity group, and Steven empowered him to go get it done. Several years later, when that staff member left for a bigger job elsewhere, Steven said that, “Leaving his job wasn’t the thing that gave him pause, it was leaving the group he created. He felt like it was his because he built it; he was invested in it.” According to Steven, it was a sense of ownership that kept this staffer on the team about 18 months longer than he otherwise would have stayed.
So, a shared sense of ownership reinforces the connectedness that defines successful networks—inside and outside the organization. It’s central to the way we tell stories, build trust, recruit staff, and engage board members. It keeps the interests of staff aligned with the interests of donors. And ultimately, it’s that sense of ownership that drives donors to make the all-important decision to fund the organization, because it aligns with their values and the change they want to see in the world.
10. Leadership is both a challenge and a mandate.
Adam Gerdts, of the New York Philharmonic, commented: “I don’t think it’s a given that philanthropy leaders have a seat at the table as comprehensively as is required… I think we can’t take for granted the need to advocate for ourselves in forging a connection with institutional leadership.”
His observation is one we heard frequently during our many discussions with development leaders. As philanthropic revenue increases in importance, so too should the strategic role of the fundraising lead within the organization. But the need to take a leadership role also applies to the entire development team, as they have to advocate, and even evangelize, for philanthropy throughout the organization to enlist support from their peers across almost every department. The entire development shop has to be a “leader” in the creation of a philanthropic ecosystem—a “leader” in the cause of philanthropy.
That makes leadership both a challenge and a mandate. As a profession, we are challenged to do more to advocate for our role at the leadership table, while also investing more time and energy in recruiting and developing the leaders of the future. At the same time, we face a mandate to train up a new generation of leaders capable of taking the profession into a future that looks vastly different from the one most development executives grew up in.
For a helpful summary of the profession’s leadership mandate and how to meet it, see Claire McCully’s thoughtful piece from earlier in the series. The qualities she outlines—vision, entrepreneurship, connectedness, trust, and endurance—need to guide not just the work of development leaders in their fundraising programs, but also their work in building up the skills of their people, our future leaders.
As former advancement professionals ourselves, the senior team at Aspen Leadership Group brings decades of hands-on experience in the field, a perspective that helps us take a thoughtful, strategic approach to helping our clients add the right talent, at the right time, for the right purpose. And the conversations we have with hundreds of development leaders every week contribute to our insight into the sea-change taking shape in the profession.
Don Hasseltine best captured the ethos of that change in his initial article: “The central imperative of our profession is no longer just raising money; it’s thinking strategically about how the world of philanthropy is changing and how to use limited resources to their highest and best use in that changing world.”
Our purpose with this series, however, wasn’t just to define the contours of this change, but also to offer practical guidance based on how some of the best and brightest in the profession are coping and responding. We hope that their thoughts, and ours, will prove enduring and useful as we navigate the many changes happening today, and those to come.
The last thing we would add here is that now is the time to invest in advancement.
More philanthropists are aware of the need for investment than ever before. They know that every nonprofit is under attack or threat in some way, shape, or form, directly or indirectly—from ideological attacks, to withdrawals of funding, to declining fee income, and many other difficulties. Yet, there is plenty of opportunity to forge philanthropic partnerships with people committed to your mission.
All the philanthropists we have engaged with are digging deep and accelerating their giving, because they know deserving organizations are going to need it. So, the big picture is that now is a great time for true philanthropic partnership because a wide variety of like-minded people and families are either aware of the value of what you do, or are ready to receive the message about how your mission aligns with the impact they see themselves making in the world.
So, we would encourage you all to have hope. Take to heart the lessons that your peers across the nonprofit sector have shared over the past year. Build out your networks, tell your own compelling story, share ownership of the mission with those truly passionate about your cause, be adaptable and innovative, and assume the mantle of leadership that your communities very much need.
We wish you all the best and look forward to continuing our thought leadership conversation with you in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, to stay up to date on ALG initiatives, please consider signing up for our email newsletter here or following us on LinkedIn here.
We welcome any feedback you may have. So, please feel free to reach out directly to us or any member of the ALG team.
Best wishes,
Ron & Don
Contributing authors:
Ron Schiller, Founding Partner and Managing Director, Aspen Leadership Group
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Don Hasseltine, Managing Director and Philanthropy Practice Lead, Aspen Leadership Group