Rossi's Roundup: DAFs are booming, Gen Z is giving and donors still need connection

Welcome to the Dog Days of Summer. For those of us in Texas, we've officially entered what I like to call the "cook zone." Morning walks are shorter, bicycle and motorcycle rides start earlier, and anything left in your car becomes a science experiment.

Speaking of things changing quickly, have you heard enough about AI yet? Probably not.

Recently, Bubbler reported on a man who had his heart broken by an AI companion that was literally designed to agree with him. He's far from alone. More than 54,000 people belong to a Reddit community called #MyBoyfriendIsAI, and New York City recently opened what is being called the world's first AI dating café, complete with a waitlist.

It's easy to laugh at these stories, but they point to something bigger. If AI can create a genuine sense of connection for tens of thousands of people, donor expectations around personalization, responsiveness and feeling understood are changing too. The bar for what it means to make someone feel seen continues to rise.

The good news? The organizations that know their supporters, tell authentic stories and create meaningful donor experiences are already ahead of the curve.

So, what else has been happening?

The U.S. Postal Service plans to raise the price of a First-Class Mail Forever stamp to 82 cents starting July 12^th. Nonprofit marketing mail, postcards and periodicals will see proportional hikes, though increases vary based on presort level (averaging 4% to 6%).
Meta is rolling out paid subscription tiers for Facebook Plus ($3.99/mo), Instagram Plus ($3.99/mo), WhatsApp Plus ($2.99/mo) and Meta AI ($7.99–$19.99/mo) as the company seeks to offset the cost of its AI buildout — one to watch as you plan digital budgets for Q3 and Q4.
Google is rolling out its first "always-on" AI agent that can plan events, collate notes and run tasks while your laptop is closed. The AI landscape is moving fast, and it has implications for how your team works.
DAF Day is set for October 8, 2026 — the only giving day dedicated entirely to Donor-Advised Fund philanthropy, with more than 4,400 nonprofits participating in 2025.
Candid reminds us nonprofit funding data is public, but it’s often outdated, incomplete or misunderstood. This article lays out what Form 990 does and doesn’t reveal and how to protect your organization against common misconceptions.

Pour your favorite beverage, grab your lunch or a snack, prepare to kick up your feet and get comfortable. Let's dive into this month's highlights, insights and studies.

1. 2026 DAF Fundraising Report — Chariot & K2D Strategies

The third edition of the DAF Fundraising Report is the most expansive yet — built from $26.1 billion in total giving across 54 nonprofits, representing $3.3 billion in DAF revenue and 907,000 DAF gifts. The headline finding is hard to ignore: Median DAF revenue grew 75% from 2021 to 2025, while non-DAF giving grew just 9% over the same period. For the first time, the report also includes sector-by-sector analysis, so organizations can benchmark their DAF performance against peers in their specific vertical.

2. Gen Z Philanthropy Outpaces That of Other Adults, New Data Shows — GoFundMe & GivingTuesday Data Commons

GoFundMe partnered with GivingTuesday to examine how Gen Z adults (ages 18–29) give today, and the findings cut against the popular narrative that younger people are disengaged. 71% of Gen Z reported some form of giving in the past week, compared to 65% of other adults, and they do so despite being significantly more likely to have lower incomes, be students or be unemployed. Their giving is also broader: They lead in volunteering, advocacy, giving directly to individuals and informal giving.

3. Free Time Does Not Predict Americans' Community Involvement — Gallup & Kettering Foundation

A survey of more than 20,000 Americans from Gallup and the Kettering Foundation surfaced a finding worth taking back to your development and volunteer teams: Having free time has almost nothing to do with whether someone volunteers. Among Americans who have ample free time and want to get involved, 54% say they simply don't know how. In fact, 51% say they've never been invited or encouraged to participate.

4. New Report Identifies Key Factors That Influence How Financial Advisers Recommend DAFs — DAFRC via NonProfit PRO

The Donor-Advised Fund Research Collaborative (DAFRC) released the first large-scale study examining how, when and why financial advisors incorporate DAFs into their work with clients. The research drew on six focus groups and a national survey of 669 financial advisors and found that 75% of financial advisors engage clients in moderate to substantial discussions about charitable giving — and that DAFs are the second most commonly recommended giving approach after direct giving.

5. The Non-Cash Assets Your Donors Don't Know They Can Give to Nonprofits — NonProfit PRO

Here is a number worth sitting with: Less than 5% of U.S. wealth is held in cash, yet cash accounts for roughly 85% of all charitable gifts. This piece from AFP ICON 2026 makes the case that the fundraising playbook's reliance on cash is one of the biggest unrecognized constraints on growth. The path to exponential giving often runs through assets donors already own and don't think of as giftable.

6. How Omnichannel Campaigns Can Deliver the Experience Donors Actually Expect — NonProfit PRO

Donors now expect from nonprofits the same seamless, personalized experience they get from Amazon or Netflix — and when that expectation isn't met (like receiving a donation ask right after they just gave), it erodes trust. The core of a true omnichannel program is data: a CRM that serves as your source of truth, connected across channels, so that a gift through one channel triggers the right next action in another rather than an accidental duplicate ask.

7. Creative Is Becoming the New Performance Driver — M+R Insights

M+R's latest digital marketing insight makes a case that has significant implications for any organization running paid digital campaigns: Platforms are no longer just asking for more assets — they want more distinct ideas. As AI-powered ad-delivery systems get better at finding the right audience, the creative itself is increasingly the primary lever for performance. The organizations winning in digital are the ones producing genuinely different creative executions, not just variations on a theme.

8. Pet Studies and Notables

How Organization Size Shapes Intakes and Adoptions in the U.S. — Shelter Animals Count released a new data analysis using 2025 data: 87.7% of shelters take in 1,000 or fewer animals per year, and mid-sized organizations (501–2,500 adoptions annually) represent just 13.4% of the field but account for 40.8% of all U.S. adoptions. A striking reminder of how distributed — and dependent on small and mid-sized organizations — the national system really is.
Study Finds More Than 84% of Dogs Show Signs of Fear, Anxiety — Texas A&M researchers analyzed data from more than 43,000 dogs across the U.S. and found that more than 84% showed at least mild signs of fear or anxiety in everyday situations. The most common triggers were unfamiliar people and other dogs.
U.S. Pet Industry Reaches $158 Billion in 2025, Poised for Continued Growth in 2026 — The American Pet Products Association (APPA) reports that total U.S. pet industry expenditures hit $158 billion in 2025 (up 3.7%) and are projected to reach $165 billion this year. Dog ownership expanded to 53% of U.S. households in 2025, with Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X all driving growth. Even as consumer budgets tighten, most owners are protecting pet spending — though value-seeking is rising.
Every Viral Pet Study Is a Sales Funnel Now — The Underbite takes a long, sharp look at how peer-reviewed science gets bent into product marketing in the pet wellness space, using a recent benzene/dog cancer study as the case study. The actual research found no meaningful difference in chemical exposure between sick and healthy dogs, but that didn't stop supplement brands from treating it like a sales pitch.

9. Economic Headlines

According to the Federal Reserve's Beige Book, higher-income households are weathering higher inflation better than middle- and lower-income Americans, underscoring the prevalence of the so-called K-shaped economy.

U.S. GDP growth was revised down to 1.6% for Q1 2026, below the 2% previously estimated. The same report highlighted a striking economic divide: Labor's share of gross domestic income sank to 51%, the lowest since records began in 1947, while corporate profits' share climbed to 12.1%, the highest since 1950.

U.S. job openings increased to 7.6 million in April, up from 6.9 million in March. However, the hiring rate worsened from 3.5% to 3.2%, and the quit rate declined to 1.9%.

The University of Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment dropped to 44.8 in May — the lowest level on record, falling below April's already-grim reading of 49.8. For fundraisers, donor psychology is at least as important as donor wallet right now.

Americans are falling behind on their $1.25 trillion credit-card bill — the percentage of credit-card balances at least 90 days delinquent rose to 13.12% in Q1, the highest level in 15 years and the most elevated since the period following the 2008 financial crisis.

10. Visit the RKD Resources website page for some great posts, podcasts and benchmarks

Blog updates:

Podcast updates:

On Demand Webinar, Gathering and Roundtable Recordings:

To close out this month, the economic data tells a consistent story: Donors are not necessarily giving less because they have less; they're giving less because they feel less certain about what's coming. That distinction matters enormously for how we communicate with them.

Also, this is a great time to grab your team and think about some questions regarding your strategies:

Are your donors getting the care and range of donor experiences they need and deserve to help them stick around?
Are you offering the right payment options?
Have you built a donor-advised fund plan?
Are you trying too many new “shiny” strategies, or are you not being consistent (even if it’s boring to you) in your messaging and images?
What did you predict would happen this year — but maybe it hasn’t — and what are you increasing/creating to fill the gap?
If your results are up and outpacing your goals, where could you shift some expense to help create new revenue/attain new donors?

The RKD team is always ready to help in any way possible, answer questions or provide resources. If you'd like to discuss any of this month's insights or need access to an article or study, please reach out. We’d love to chat.

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