We’re heading into the final weeks of another interesting—and at times, glorious—year. Over the past month, a flood of new benchmarks, case studies, trends and thought pieces have been released, offering plenty for fundraisers to chew on.
🤖 AI is reshaping content faster than ever. According to AI-powered SEO company Graphite, artificial intelligence now generates more online articles than humans.
֎ Even in fundraising communications, AI leaves fingerprints. The NonProfit Times recently had an article about it: Top 10 Tells That Someone’s Using ChatGPT. Author Willis Turner reminds us that fundraisers should care how they use AI because if your appeals, thank-you letters or campaign updates sound robotic, donors will notice it immediately.
💼 New insights on nonprofit leadership have been released. The Nonprofit Leadership Impact Study found that diversification of revenue streams rises as the No. 2 priority behind major gifts.
💵 GoFundMe has sparked a discussion recently. Be sure to claim your organization’s page so you control how it’s used. There are two visibility settings. Set visibility in line with your strategy. Remember that donors don’t live on our platforms; they live in relationships. In case you didn’t see it, here is their response on LinkedIn.
☕ So, let’s dig in. Grab your coffee (or your favorite beverage) and catch up on this month’s highlights, insights and studies worth sharing.
Roughly 34% of all giving to organizations comes in the final three months of the year (Blackbaud Institute, 2024 Trends in Giving). Year-end fundraising is pivotal to setting up organizational budgets for the year ahead, and GivingTuesday kicks off the spirit of generosity that defines the giving season.
When analyzing the value of GivingTuesday donors, it’s a matter of quality over quantity. While only 2.4% of all donors in 2024 gave on GivingTuesday that year, their track record for retention sets them apart. Donors contributing exclusively on GivingTuesday show a higher likelihood of donating again in the next calendar year compared to donors who give exclusively earlier in the year. The only segment with a marginally higher recurrence rate is those who only donate after GivingTuesday, during the year-end period.
As we see the mean and median gifts on GivingTuesday continue to rise, this is an opportunity to optimize your donation forms and ensure that you are customizing your ask amount for each of your donor segments.
The second annual DAF Day saw 4x nonprofit participation and 6x DAF participation from DAF Day 2024.
Education for nonprofits, besides donors, remains key. For nonprofit organizations, Chariot provided accessible tools such as marketing toolkits and a webinar training series that DAF champions could use to promote the message both internally to their teams and externally to their donors.
These materials saw high levels of engagement:
Mark your Calendar: DAF Day 2026 will be on Thursday, October 8th.
The 2025 Bank of America Study of Philanthropy finds that giving remains on a downward trajectory, even among the very affluent, but volunteering is up.
The report found that volunteering by the wealthy rose from 30 percent in 2020 to 43 percent in 2024, and those who volunteer give double, on average, compared with donors who do not volunteer, according to the study.
Half of all charitable bequest dollars will come from people passing at the age of 89 and older. The oldest Baby Boomers won’t hit 85 until 2031.
So, what does this mean for bequest fundraising? Don’t ignore your oldest friends. A U.S. study showed that the final documents usually contain changes in the charitable component. And if you’re communicating with your oldest friends based only on recency of donation, you’ll go silent right when they’re signing the controlling documents.
Charitable estate decedents typically stopped donating in the last 3 to 5 years of life. In a study of Australia’s biggest charities, 40% of legacy society members had no communication from the organization in their last two years of life. No surprise, this ignored group was 2X more likely to leave the organization out of their final will documents.
New research published by MIT Sloan Management Review shows that running direct mail campaigns can be a winning strategy and help brands cut through the clutter to reach consumers experiencing digital fatigue.
Marketers have spent billions on targeted digital ads. But are digital marketing channels delivering enough impact to justify their rising costs in an era saturated with online ads and perpetually scrolling feeds? As consumer ad fatigue accelerates and privacy changes erode many of digital tracking’s advantages, returns on ad spend for such channels are dipping to historic lows. Direct mail, once seen as an old-fashioned medium, is reemerging as a powerful complement to digital.
The resurgence of direct mail is not merely a reaction to digital saturation; it reflects an understanding of how tactile experiences are able to break through noise. Sophisticated marketers—including retailers such as Free People, J.Crew, Pottery Barn, Warby Parker and Wayfair—have already tapped into direct mail’s ability to engage consumers.
Altrata, a company offering intelligence on the wealthy and well-connected, releases the World Ultra Wealth Report 2025, examining the global ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) population, those with more than $30 million in net worth. The composition of today's UHNW population is dominated by the Baby Boomer generation―those born between 1946 and 1964―which comprises a 45% share.
The global ultra wealthy landscape is on the cusp of a seismic shift. Within the next 15 years, younger generations will account for the majority of the world's UHNW population, with Millennials and Gen Z growing from just 8% today to nearly 35% by 2040. For organizations, this evolution underscores the urgency of truly understanding not only today's wealth holders but also those who will shape the future. The ability to identify the right prospects, qualify them with deep, accurate insights, and connect in a way that reflects their values and industries they care about will be critical for building meaningful relationships in this new era of wealth.
Access the "World Ultra Wealth Report 2025" here.
Microsoft is discontinuing its “Ads for Social Impact” grant program. Under the program, Microsoft awarded grants―credits for free digital advertising―to cover the first $1,000 of a monthly advertising schedule. The grants were given to selected nonprofits primarily in the 501(c)(3) space. The money could be applied toward advertising on properties throughout the Microsoft Search Network or the Microsoft Audience Network.
The last of the Ads for Social Impact grants will be awarded on November 30, 2025, and nonprofits will have 45 days in which to use up their grants. At the end of their grant period, participants must actively pause their campaigns if they do not wish to be charged full freight for their advertising schedule.
While the Ads for Social Impact program is ending, along with some of the subsidized Microsoft 365 and Office 365 programs announced earlier this year, Microsoft is continuing to offer select nonprofits discounts on some of its technology and solutions, including Azure, Dynamics 365, and Microsoft 365 and Microsoft 365 Copilot.
One year ago, Givzey and Version2.ai set out with a simple but ambitious idea: Could a Virtual Engagement Officer engage donors on its own and deliver meaningful results?
Today, with more than 70,000 donors managed, the answer is, “Yes.” Many donors thrive in Autonomous Fundraising portfolios, and now we know who they are.
With 97.5% of donors traditionally unmanaged, this framework gives us a way to reach them with the attention they deserve. Knowing who thrives in these portfolios gives us a foundation to explore how strategies evolve, how donor perception changes and how growth carries forward into year two.
The government shut down began October 1, 2025, and is having an impact across the country. CNN has provided a visual guide.
Inflation remains a sticky issue: Consumer prices increased 3.0% in September from a year earlier, a rise from August’s 2.9% increase but below the 3.1% forecast.
September’s reading keeps the Fed on track to cut interest rates again at its next meeting as policymakers grapple with a slowdown in hiring. Jobs data is still on hold.
In a Pew Research Center survey conducted last month, 74% of respondents said economic conditions are fair or poor. The most commonly cited reason: high inflation. In a survey by personal finance company Bankrate, 62% of respondents said their pay isn’t keeping up with prices—the highest share in four years.
The University of Michigan said its monthly survey of consumers in October showed that people continue to expect much higher inflation readings in the year ahead than they did before the pandemic.
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index® declined by 3.6 points in September to 94.2 (1985=100), down from 97.8 in August.
Wall Street Journal just reported that Gen X (ages 50 to 61) has the highest average student loan debt. They even provide an example of an individual who took $74,000 in student loans and, at age 55, today owes $300,000.
RKD GroupThinkers Monthly LinkedIn Newsletter
Remember to update your organization profiles on Candid/GuideStar and Charity Navigator and make certain your information is accurate and up to date. This is the time of year when traffic peaks as donors visit to assess organizations before making their year-end gifts. Make sure the giving experience is simple and seamless.
If you’ve been feeling more negative than usual, it could be your brain’s natural negativity bias (an ancient survival mechanism) running in overdrive. Many fundraisers experience this. When you start to feel overwhelmed, pause and step away. Even a five-minute walk, a few deep breaths or a quick gratitude countdown can help ground you.
Cheers to an incredible finish line ahead!