Rossi’s Roundup: Compound signals and rewriting donor behavior

As we step into a new year, one thing is clear: Visibility, trust, and decision-making don’t work the way they used to. Ranking, PR hits and paid ads still matter, but on their own, they no longer explain why some brands, causes and messages rise to the surface, while others fade into the background. 

📡 Compound signals have become the new currency. The reality is consumers and donors experience discovery as an integrated journey, and the platforms facilitating that journey no longer wait for explicit instructions. What determines visibility is whether the brand or service has accumulated enough signals to be chosen by the system. Thanks to The Woof News for a concise and in-depth article clarifying these changes. 

📢 Speaking of signals, my friend Tom McCollum had an interesting LinkedIn post about noise being constant and signal being scarce. Noise is the nonstop stream we all live in. Signal, on the other hand, is rare. Signal is information that deserves to influence a decision. It’s data with context and patterns, not headlines. He reminds us to ask a few quiet questions before reacting: 

• Does this change behavior, or just emotion? 
• Is this actionable, or simply noise? 
• Will this matter six months from now? 

💻Reminder: The largest amount an individual can contribute using a Qualified Charitable Distribution will increase to $111,000 in 2026. If your nonprofit maintains its own website, an update is in order on January 1, 2026. 

🤝 Vanguard Charitable commissioned a Harris Poll of 2,000 adults, which showed that 75% of Americans donated to charity in the past 12 months. 30% of them said they gave more than the year before. 

☕ Time to grab your soda, coffee or favorite beverage and catch up on this month’s highlights, insights and studies. 

1. FEP 2025 Q3 Quarterly Benchmark Report 🎯 

Nonprofit fundraising remained strong through the third quarter of 2025, even as donor participation continued to decline, according to new data from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project’s “Quarterly Fundraising Report.” Total dollars raised increased year over year, while the pace of donor loss slowed compared with recent years. However, fundraising stability remains increasingly dependent on a small share of committed, high-capacity donors, with participation at the base continuing to erode. 

2. Donor Advised Funds 🙌 

🏹 New Chariot is Coming: On January 28th, Chariot will be unveiling the next chapter to streamline giving end to end, alongside some of their closest partners. 

🎁 The 2025 Annual DAF Report was released by the DAF Research Collaborative. The report found that in 2024, 3.56 million DAF accounts granted $65 billion to nonprofits and held $326 billion in assets. 

3. Americans’ Social Media Use 2025 🌐 

Even as debates continue about the role of social media in our country, including its impact on youth and on censorship, Americans use a range of online platforms, and many do so daily. 

YouTube and Facebook remain the most widely used online platforms. The vast majority of U.S. adults (84%) say they use YouTube. Most Americans (71%) also report using Facebook. These findings are according to a Pew Research Center survey of 5,022 U.S. adults, conducted Feb. 5-June 18, 2025. 

4. Important fundraising trends of 2026 and the steps to take for a remarkable year 💰 

Patrick Schmitt of FreeWill held a webinar and shared 9 steps to take for a remarkable year: 

1. Prepare to talk about tax changes early 
2. Shift focus to non-cash gifts ahead of Tax Season 
3. Confirm your planned-giving strategy (including calendar sample) 
4. Structure your comms calendar around big election dates, including November 3rd. Big primary dates to avoid sending appeals: 
   1. March 3rd—Texas & North Carolina 
   2. May 5th—Ohio 
   3. May 16th/June 27th—Louisiana 
   4. June 2nd—California (Governor’s) 
   5. August 4th—Michigan 
5. Lean on AI to prep for donor conversations 
6. Don’t neglect small-dollar donors 
7. Prioritize QCDs from older donors 
8. Go all-in on private foundations 
9. Promote DAFs as a preferred gift type 

5. GoFundMe 2025 Report: Year in Help 🔄 

GoFundMe’s 2025 Year in Help report offers a roundup of the year’s highlights, including a shoutout to the most generous country, stories of beneficiaries, and the most popular donation categories. The top five most generous states proved to be California, Vermont, Alaska, Oregon and New York. 

GoFundMe said the words "work," "home," "food," "bill" and "care" were among the top keywords in fundraisers' campaigns this year. "Monthly bills" were the second-fastest-growing category, behind appeals for support for nonprofit groups. 

6. GivingTuesday 2025 Shatters Records With $4B Raised 🤗 

Americans showed up for GivingTuesday 2025, donating $4 billion on Dec. 2—a 13% increase over last year’s record, according to the GivingTuesday Data Commons. An estimated 38.1 million people took part, pushing the cumulative total of GivingTuesday donations since its 2012 launch to $22.5 billion. 

The fastest-growing categories were volunteering and advocacy—two pathways donors used to build connections with the causes they care about beyond financial transactions. 

For insight on what you can do with this information, don’t miss our blog: Perception matters: What nonprofits can do with GivingTuesday’s new insights on community generosity. 

7. The Hidden Science Inside Every Gift: What Neuroscience Is Teaching Us About Generosity ⚕️ 

For decades, we’ve talked about giving as if it’s a purely financial decision—a rational act made after careful weighing of budgets, needs and priorities. But the deeper Cherian Koshy, Vice President of Kindsight, has gone into the neuroscience of generosity, the clearer one truth has become: Giving isn’t a transaction. It’s a biological event. 

We’re finally seeing the architecture beneath generosity: identity, trust, meaning, memory and motivation—and it’s giving us a roadmap we’ve never had before. 

Cherian Koshy is the author of “Neurogiving: The Science of Donor Decision-Making.”

8. 5 Changes Driving Fundraising in 2025 and Beyond 🚀 

In an opening keynote for NonProfit POWER, Erik J. Daubert, a nonprofit management specialist with the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, drew on current research and tax policy changes to explain what’s shaping philanthropy right now and what it means for nonprofit leaders.  

1. The Economy Is Rewriting Donor Behavior: Households at the top of the “K” have experienced dramatic asset growth through rising home values and stock portfolios. Private foundations alone now hold about $1.7 trillion in assets, positioning them for increased grantmaking due to 12-quarter rolling averages that dictate payout levels. 
2. A New Era for Small-Dollar Donors: Beginning in 2026, taxpayers who take the standard deduction will be able to deduct up to $1,000 (individuals) or $2,000 (married couples filing jointly) in charitable contributions. So, why does this matter so much? Small donors are often the pipeline to major gifts. 
3. Generational Giving Is Shifting Fast: While baby boomers still represent the largest share of total giving, Daubert emphasized that millennials are now “adulting”—and quickly becoming a powerhouse donor class. 
4. Donor-Advised Funds Continue To Surge: Donor-advised funds (DAFs), though often misunderstood, remain one of the fastest-growing vehicles in philanthropy. 
5. AI Is Reshaping Fundraising: AI adoption among consumers has accelerated dramatically, and nonprofits are increasingly experimenting with AI-powered tools for copy, prospecting, analytics and more. But what Daubert wants nonprofit leaders to understand is that AI isn’t a replacement—it’s just another tool in our toolbox. 

9. Pet Studies and Notables 🐶🐱 

Wagmo Survey: 75% of Working Pet Parents Say Pet Health Directly Affects Work Stress and Productivity. Working pet parents take an average of 7.3 days off work annually for pet health issues, according to new findings. Seventy-five percent of working pet parents say their pet's health directly affects their stress levels at work, while nearly 70% report decreased productivity when their pet is sick or injured.  

🐩 A study published December 3 in the journal iScience found that the family dog prompts changes in our gut microbiome that result in better mental health. Kikusui’s team, in a new study, found that a person’s dog-owning status at age 13 could predict their future mental health and behavioral scores. 

🏪 Shelter Animals Count recently released a first-of-its-kind look at the landscape of animal control field services across the country. This report pulls together data, using a dataset from Shelterluv, that features analysis from de-identified agencies nationwide to shed light on the realities of the types of activities that officers respond to, community needs, and opportunities that exist in consistent data collection. 

They also released National Trends in Foster-Based Rescue Operations. Key insights include: 

• Foster-based rescues represent 15% of national intakes but achieve a 75% adoption rate—higher than the shelter average of 56%. 
• Dogs are most often transferred in (51%), while cats are more likely to enter as strays (36%), showing how rescues relieve shelter overcrowding. 
• The median length of stay for foster-based rescues, 46 days, is longer than shelters but decreasing over time. 

One of the biggest themes at Pet Connect 2025? The cat revolution is finally here. Peter Kenseth on LinkedIn posted the highlights. 

🐕 The Dogs of Today Are Undergoing a Mysterious Brain Expansion, Study Suggests. A research study in Europe says modern dog breeds have brains larger than those of ancient breeds. The team credits the evolutionary change to the more complex social environment that modern dogs inhabit.  

10. Economic Headlines 📊 

A long-delayed government report showed third-quarter GDP grew at an annual 4.3% rate. It was the highest growth rate in two years and reflected robust spending by consumers on services like healthcare, as well as spending on recreational vehicles. 

The jobs market has weakened, with unemployment rising in November to 4.6%, the highest level in more than four years. The economy gained 64,000 jobs in November, while 105,000 jobs were lost in October, according to a delayed government report.  

Inflation is hovering above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, though the latest report, for November, showed consumer prices rose a smaller-than-expected 2.7% from a year earlier.

The monthly index from the University of Michigan reported consumer sentiment rose to 53.3 in December, from 51 in November, exceeding economists’ forecasts of 52. 

The Conference Board’s reading for consumer confidence ticked 3.8 points lower in December to reach 89.1, according to data released Tuesday, sliding lower for the fifth month in a row. 

Americans continue to spend, despite their pessimistic outlook. The most vigorous spending has come from the nation’s top 10% of earners, who have gradually come to account for nearly half of national spending.  

WSJ reports, Consumer Loans Are Getting Harder to Tally—and the Risks Harder to Gauge. The increasing migration of consumer lending to less-visible parts of the financial system is only adding to the difficulty.  

11. Visit the RKD Resources Website Page for some great posts, podcasts and benchmarks 🧐 

Blog updates:  

• Fundraising lessons from 2025: Clarity in the noise
• Regional nonprofits made real progress in 2025, and it shows 
• 2026 digital predictions: The year complexity becomes the strategy 

Podcast updates: 

• Thinkers: What nonprofit leaders learned in 2025
• Thinkers: Why the nonprofit sector’s future depends on leaders learning together 
• Chat: Feeling wheels and growth mindset: Lessons from 17 years at Wisconsin Humane Society  

On Demand Webinar Recordings: 

• From surge to sustain: Retaining new donors amid rising need 

As a reminder from “The Love Project,” a report from the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy released in March, here are 9 tips for thank yous that make donors feel valued: 

1. Use Sensory Storytelling To Evoke Feeling: Pairing sensory text with a photo will set a scene and place donors in a moment by telling an immersive story about what their gifts will accomplish. 
2. Don’t Keep Donors at Arm’s Length: Make sure your letter begins with a short, heartfelt story about the direct impact of their gift. 
3. Tie Your Thank-Yous to Your Campaigns: Reference the appeal that prompted the gift in your donor acknowledgments. 
4. Abide by a 48-Hour Rule: Missing that two-day window substantially lowers the chance that the donor will give again. 
5. Don’t Use A.I. Without Careful Editing: A.I. programs like ChatGPT could be useful to “spark a feeling of gratitude” for the writer of your thank-you letters, but the output will not be good enough to send because it will lack an authentic, person-to-person connection. 
6. Adapt Your Language Over Time: Every long-term relationship starts with getting to know each other, so earlier thank-you letters should look very different from the ones you send after years of loyal giving, all the experts agree. 
7. Tailor Your Thanks to Donors’ Communication Preferences: For online donors, you should begin saying thanks as soon as they click “donate.” For blockbuster results in future giving, pick up the phone to thank longtime or major donors—nothing beats a thank-you call. 
8. Don’t Send Trinkets: Be conscious of resources and mindful of donor preferences. That said, the British Columbia SPCA mails out stickers for donors to put on their doors that list the animal residents of a home as a way to notify first responders in an emergency. “Mission-aligned gifts are a different beast,” they say. 
9. Finish With a Flourish: The letter should be signed by the person in your organization who is the strongest point of connection to the letter’s content, says Shang. Don’t sign off with “sincerely,” she says. Use, ‘For the good in your heart, we hope good comes back to you.’ You can take every corner of your thank-you and make it beautiful.”