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Hey you, it's Rhea Wong. If you're listening to Nonprofit Load On, I'm pretty sure that you'd love my weekly newsletter. Every Tuesday morning, you get updates on the newest podcast episodes. And then interspersed, we have fun special invitations for newsletter subscribers only and fundraising inspo because I know what it feels like to be in the trenches alone. On top of that, you get cute dog photos. Best of all, it is free. So what are you waiting for? Head over to riawong.com now to sign up. Foreign. Welcome to Nonprofit Lowdown. I'm your host, Rhea Wong. Hey, podcast listeners, Rhea Wong, coming to you from Wintry Brooklyn. It is the end of 2025, and I was recently at an interesting panel discussion. There were some business owners that were reflecting on the state of the Union in 2025. And so I thought, what a great way for me to do this for my audience. Because it is the end of the year. It invites reflection. So I'm going to talk about what happened in 2025 and my predictions for 2026, and more importantly, what to do about it now. Let's reflect. Let's go back in time. January of 2025. It has been a ride, y'. All. And I don't need to tell you this. Between tariffs and funding cuts and the attacks on DEI and foreign wars, I mean, it has been a lot out here. And I think as leaders, you have been called to do so much more with less. But I think the important thing, too, that we don't often say enough is that you that there has been this element of emotional labor that has been put on you, and it is heavy. So you have been holding space for the folks that you serve, for your team, for your donors. And I'm not surprised. That burnout is very high in our sector. So I just feel like the first thing I want to reiterate here is to give yourself a little bit of grace. It has been a crazy year. I keep using the words unprecedented, but it truly has been unprecedented. And so if you're sitting here and it's the end of 2025 and you didn't accomplish quite as much as you wanted to, you didn't do all of the things, you didn't get that gold star A plus. I also just want to invite you to also remember that we're working in extraordinary circumstances. And the fact that you were able to do what you could do is in and of itself a bit of a miracle. So let's just recognize that, that there was a lot happening. It was a Pressure cooker. Between the economic instability, the political tension, the emotional fatigue, AI and donor overwhelm, it just felt like a pot boiling over. 2024 was simmering on the stove and 2025 just turned the heat up and it was boiling over and it kept tossing in new ingredients. I think the important thing here to remember too, that as leaders, if you were feeling the overwhelm, so were your donors, so were your fundraisers, so were the folks that you serve. And so we're all kind of at capacity. And so I think the play here is that we, when everyone is zigging, we need to zag. What I mean by that is, in 2026, I want to see us double down on clarity, simplicity, trust, and basic human relationships. What we know in the sector is that we're seeing DAFs proliferate at an unprecedented rate. So that indicates that the wealth is out there. But simultaneously, what we're also seeing is a trust recession. People are slower to trust, they're slower to make decisions, they're slower to lean in, whether it's conversations, volunteer opportunities, or relationships. And so I think, especially in the face of all of this AI, we need to take it back to basics. And relationships and solid fundraising systems are the true currency of your success. And I think 2026 were the fundraisers who recognize these shifts and make the pivot early. So let me talk about five trends that I see in the upcoming year. So trend one, quality conversations are the new currency. And I know, I know, I know I say this every single year, but I think it's still true. And it's even true. It's never truer than in the age of AI, where you can send a bajillion emails. Instead, the trend is going to be that depth beats volume and relationships are going to beat reach. The people who are going to win in 2026 are the ones who are getting in front of people consistently, not for donations, but for conversations, but to educate the audience to provide value to them. And what I hear consistently from fundraisers is, ria, I just don't have time for conversations. But the truth is, in order to scale, you have to do things that don't scale. And what is the work if not having conversations? And so what I see people doing is defaulting to things like email and doing email asks at scale. And while that may bring in some money, the real money is going to be in those conversations. When you're sending out those email blasts, your weekly newsletters, your end of year solicitations, creating a feedback Loop to surface to people who actually want to have a conversation is key. Putting on your website opportunities for people to engage in conversation and invite them into the next step is key. In your email, in the PS Having a link that allows people to book time in your calendar is key. What that means is that the mass outreach blast email era is dead. Because right now donors are overwhelmed, they're fatigued and they're craving connection. I think a lot of us see this in our personal life. We are over the zoom meetings, we are over the big conferences. We want small, we want intimate, we want connected. And so that means a 10 minute real conversation is going to outperform 50 unpersonalized touch points. What this means for you right now is if you're listening, do this now. Identify your top 20 donors and prospects. Schedule 510 minute temperature check conversations in the next week. Actually, I lie. If you're listening to this in December, don't do this the next week. People are totally overwhelmed. Do this in January. Make clear that the reach out is not a solicitation. It is simply an opportunity to check back in to see what is top of mind for you. Remember, you also want a reason to reach out. So use something that's happening in your organization or something in current affairs or the media to create a reason for reaching out in this conversation. Your goal is not to pitch, just reconnection and curiosity. Once you start to understand what your donors are thinking about, caring about, concerned with, you can then both tailor your marketing to address the conversation already happening in their brain and or just start a genuine conversation. Amazing, right? Like we, we're just human beings out here having a human conversation. And I think what I think often gets in our way is that when we feel pressed, when we feel pressured, when we feel like we gotta close the gift, we're often listening without intention. We're listening with an agenda. And our agenda is often, okay, I need you to get over the blah blah, blah so I can get to saying what I want to say. I know where I want to move the conversation and I'm just waiting for my turn to do it instead. If we can actually listen with intention, with no agenda other than to truly listen to what is here and what is not being said, how might your conversations go better? Okay, trend number two, you've heard me talk about this, but AI, AI, AI, A.I. is the force multiplier. A.I. is no longer optional, it is the new baseline everyone is using. AI AI is now a required competency for 2026. But here's the thing about AI, AI without strategy is just more noise and you're looking for signal. Ultimately what AI will and won't do. I'm the first one to say that I think AI has not fully lived up to the promise that I believe that all of us were made back in 2023. But AI will not replace fundraisers, but fundraisers. Let me put it this way. AI is not coming to take your job. Someone who knows how to use AI is coming to take your job. Fundraisers who do not use AI will be outperformed by those who do. And the AI that you should be using, remove administrative drag so you can focus on relationship. What does that mean for you today? Pick one process to automate with AI this week. So that could look like drafting a proposal. Drafting donor research summaries, drafting thank you letters and thank you post donation sequences. That could mean creating meeting agendas. If you can free up 2 hours, use it to reinvest into donor conversations. And I want to get back to donor conversations for a second because I just think this is something that is missed. Often when I think people talk about donor conversations, they think, oh, I'm just going to tell the donor all about the things that we do and all of the wins that we had and how great we are. Conversations are like tennis games. There's a back and forth. And so anybody who raises their hand to have a conversation has something to say, they have a point of view, they have a perspective that they would like to share. Your job as a fundraiser is to help uncover that and to be the guide for them to lead them to their philanthropic dreams. And so when you're entering into conversations, it's not just the conversation for the sake of spending time on the phone. It's a conversation to help uncover something new, to help uncover a collaboration, a possibility, a synergy that you did not know existed before. Okay, let's talk about the third trend. Leverage is greater than expansion. So I have talked about this extensively. I suffer from sos, which is Shiny Object Syndrome. I like the new thing. I was listening to a podcast recently, like I have enough new ideas that I can take my business. The people who are winning in 2025 are not about diversification, they are about simplification. They're doubling down on existing strengths instead of chasing new strategies. I think a lot about Jim Collins. Good to great. If you haven't read that, it is a classic. I recommend it. But he uses an analogy of the hedgehog and and the fox. So the fox tries many different things. The fox is wily in his pursuit of the hedgehog. But the hedgehog only does one thing, which is it curls up in a little ball, but it does that one thing extremely well. And so I think the people who are going to win in 2026 are the ones who figured out their hedgehog, who aren't chasing a bunch of different strategies, who aren't trying a million different things. It's the ones who are disciplined, focused, and focused on doing the one thing that they do really, really well. What that means for fundraisers is I want you to stop all of the new things. Stop the new events, stop the new campaigns, stop the new donor programs. Instead, how are you getting maximum value from your existing donors? How are you increasing the average lifetime value of your donors? What is already working? Can you just do more of that and focus on the top 10 to 20% of your donors who are likely responsible for probably at about 90% of your overall? What this means for you is you can do this now. Run a leverage audit. Ask yourself and your team what worked in 2024 and 2025, which donors have momentum and which programs are constantly converting new donors. Choose one thing to double down on in Q1 this should be somewhat reassuring to you that you don't have to chase all of the new shiny things. You just have to figure out what works and just keep doing more of it. It sounds so simple to do, but I think especially in this age of new information coming at us all of the time, it is very, very tempting to chase the new shiny. But if you hear nothing else, hear this, don't do that. You don't have the time, you don't have the emotional bandwidth, you don't have the energy to do all of the things. Just do one or two things exceptionally well. Trend 4 the contributor correspondent era Collaboration is the new Power Move I know a lot of you are out here thinking about how can I be a influencer or a thought leader? Thought leader, Thought leader. Everyone says thought leader. What I think is shifting is that the influence that you have is shifting from one off interactions to recurring trusted contributors, which means the collaboration with others in your field, in your sector, in your area is going to be stronger than competition. What this could look like is thinking about ways to get in front of your audience, various recurring podcasts, newsletter contributions, co branded content, co branded panels, throwing things in partnership with other organizations. Because what that means for fundraisers is that donors need repeated exposure to trust your organization. There is a psychological phenomenon where exposure leads to affection and so if you are doing all the things you're doing your galas, you're doing your newsletters, you're doing your tour. It's not enough. By collaborating with others, you're building recurring donor touchpoints and co creative experiences with partners that you don't have to do alone. And so it is the amplifier effect of collaboration with others in your sector. Now I know that there's some of you out here saying like, well if we collaborate, like maybe they'll give to this other organization instead of to us. While that may be true some of the time, the other thing that is also probably true is that sometimes people give to you and not the other organization. So I don't think that we have to fear collaboration and scarcity. I think what we can do is think about how we're lifting each other up so that we are all getting more exposure. So if you're listening to this and this is resonating with you, here are a couple things you can do right now. Identify three partners so they could be corporate partners, nonprofit partners, foundations, community leaders where you can co create something that donors would value. So that could look like a joint donor briefing, a recurring insider update, a quarterly impact roundtable, something that is about adding value to the field in collaboration with others. You're building your ecosystem. Do not go alone. And I say this all if those of you who are familiar with my work, my one of the things that I value so highly is my 10x crew. And so it's a group of other entrepreneur women like Jess Campbell, Rachel Barabauer, Tanya Bhattacharya, of course Brooke Richie Babbage, Kel Haney and Cindy Wagman. And we get together every six months in person. But above and beyond that, just knowing that they have my back, just knowing that we're sharing each other's content, just knowing that we are supporting each other is huge. And so what is, what has been great for me is that if you as, as I like to say, if you marry one of us, you marry all of us. And so as people have come into my network or other folks have come into their networks, there is an exposure effect where they then get to know the work of a lot of us. So it's been a powerful amplifier. I highly recommend that you create that you think about how to use that as a strategy for your organization. Finally, last trend, identity before strategy. Clarity is the only moat left. What I mean by that is 2025 exposed shaky positioning and scattered messaging. So people who succeeded had a strong sense of identity, purpose, voice and brand. Strategy is cheap. I can go on ChatGPT, I can talk to a million strategists, I can get a million ways to do do a thing that I want to do. Now two people can run the same strategy. One skyrockets, one stagnates. And the reason is because of clarity of identity and brand confused. Donors do not give. And so if I'm not clear with the messaging, if I'm not clear about my brand, if I'm not clear about my value proposition and what I do and what problem I solve in the world, donors are going to move on. We have a very short attention span. It's about the length of a TikTok. And so if you can't communicate in total clarity to your donor about the thing that they care about and the problem that you're solving in the world, they will move on. And so donors are looking for clarity. They're looking for conviction. They're looking for a bold point of view. How many of you are out here publishing hot takes on your cause area? You want to become a category of one because of the clarity of your conviction. You want to have a mission that feels inevitable. If you don't know who you are and why you matter, donors will not either. So here are the three things that you can do this week to help get some clarity for 2026. You can answer these three questions within your organization. What does our organization stand for that is non negotiable. What future are we inviting donors into? And why should a donor trust us now in this environment? You can turn this into your 2026 message spine. The thing I will add here too is in a trust recession, we're going to have to use proof and roi. So when we are talking about our major gift donors, these are people who think in financial terms. And so one thing that I am recommending to all of my clients is that you create a clear articulation of the ROI of your work so that they understand the impact of their contribution. If this, then this by inviting them into a future supported by deep data, that is when you get partners for life. So 2025 was the wake up year. I think we're going to see a lot of mergers and acquisitions in the coming, coming months, particularly if the economy continues to be a little bit shaky. I think the pressure points revealed and what really matters are clarity, trust, relationships and focus. I don't think that we can wait until the end of Q1 to figure it out. I think pick one trend, act on it this week and your 2026 fundraiser will thank you. Hey fundraisers. Looking to nail those big fundraising asks? Check out my big ask gift program@riawong.com bag say goodbye to uncertainty and hello to confidence with my program. Get expert strategies and personalized support to secure those game changing donations. Don't let fear hold you back. Join me and take your fundraising to new heights. We're enrolling now@riawong.com bag. That's riawong.com bag. So if you like big asks and you cannot lie, I'll see you in the program.