AI will not rescue a disorganized development shop. It will expose it. Many nonprofit leaders are asking how AI can help with fundraising: donor segmentation, proposal drafting, prospect research, stewardship reminders, grant language, and campaign analysis. Those are valid use cases. But AI is only as useful as the system it enters. If donor records are incomplete, AI will produce shallow segmentation. If gift officer portfolios lack strategy, AI will generate more activity

This Insight is part of the Under the Elm Podcast Discussion • Season 1, Episode 14 Development Culture & Cross-Departmental Alignment In our latest episode of the Under the Elm podcast, we examine how bottlenecks arise at the level of the chief executive. I often say that Executive Directors of nonprofits have 37 jobs, ranging from raising major gifts, managing staff, implementing programs, taking out the trash, and repairing broken pipes. What may at first seem like microma

Where AI Delivers Real Value in the Grant Cycle Grant-seeking is one of the most labor-intensive functions in a nonprofit development program. Prospect research, relationship cultivation, letter of inquiry preparation, full application development, budget narratives, evaluation frameworks, reporting, and renewal strategy each require significant investment of skilled staff time. For organizations that manage a portfolio of 15 or more active grant relationships, the grants fun

Individual Giving at Mid-Year Mid-year is the most underutilized period in the nonprofit fundraising calendar. Most organizations structure their development efforts around two peaks: a spring campaign timed to fiscal year-end and a fall campaign culminating in year-end giving. The six months in between are treated as relationship maintenance time at best and a quiet period at worst. The data does not support that approach. Individual donor behavior has shifted in ways that r

Coaching as a Fundraising Performance Strategy Most nonprofit organizations approach underperformance in the development function the same way: they replace the person. A major gift officer misses goal two years running, a development director struggles to build a functional team, a CDO cannot translate strategy into consistent activity, and the organization concludes that the problem is the individual. A new hire is made. The cycle repeats. What this pattern consistently mis

Practical AI for Development Professionals Artificial intelligence is no longer a technology conversation. It is a performance conversation. The organizations that are integrating AI into their development operations are not doing so because it is new or impressive. They are doing it because it saves time, surfaces better information, and frees their staff to do the work that actually raises money: building relationships. For CEOs, executive directors, and board members, the

Burnout in Development Development professionals burn out at rates that should concern every nonprofit leader. Research from AFP and sector workforce studies consistently places fundraiser turnover at 18 to 24 months, and burnout is cited as a primary driver in departure surveys. Yet most organizations do not recognize burnout in their development staff until it is already costing them donors, morale, and momentum. Burnout is not a character flaw or a sign of insufficient ded

Philanthropic Giving Trends Nonprofit organizations are entering 2026 facing a funding landscape that rewards strategic clarity above all else. Total charitable giving in the United States has continued its long-term upward trajectory, with cumulative contributions exceeding $550 billion annually as of the most recent Giving USA estimates. But the headline number obscures a more complicated reality for the development professionals charged with building and sustaining donor r

You don't build a five-year development team by accident. You build it by design. A development team lasting five years has six characteristics. Each one's a choice made by leadership, not a happy accident. Characteristic One: Hire for Conditions, Not Skills Most development director searches focus on skills. Years of experience. CFRE credential. Major gifts track record. Capital campaign experience. Database expertise. The skill criteria fill three pages of the job descripti

The self-care advice aimed at nonprofit EDs may be among the worst in our sector. You've heard it all. Take a yoga class. Drink more water. Schedule a personal day. Practice mindfulness. Set boundaries. The articles arrive in your inbox monthly, written by coaches who've never run a $5M nonprofit through a federal funding cliff. The advice treats burnout as a personal failing fixable through personal habits. It isn't. Accepting that suggestion could keep you stuck longer than

CEOs/EDs...does this sound familiar? The conversation usually goes like this. After building the confidence to do so, the development director walks into a meeting with you with a benchmark report showing the market rate for their role is $95,000. You look at the budget and see a salary line of $72,000. You explain the budget's what it is. They smile politely. They start their job search the next morning. Underpaying your development staff is the most expensive cost-saving m

Most organizations never examine the real number. Yours probably hasn't either. When your development director leaves, the conversation focuses on recruitment. Posting fees. Search firm costs. Background check. Onboarding time. Total cost projection: somewhere between $15,000 and $45,000. That's wrong by an order of magnitude. Here's the real number. The true cost of losing a development director at month 18 sits between three and five times their annual salary. For a $90,000

I don't like the title I gave to this article. It could appear contradictory later with some of my caveats. In a world where everyone wants the step-by-step formula rather than understanding how to navigate circumstances through real-world experience, this topic has the potential to reinforce the idea that becoming proficient in Major Gifts is as simple as following the steps and that everyone fits perfectly into this step-by-step process. So, approach this concept with the a

You went into this work because you believed you could make a difference. You had energy, conviction, and a clear sense of purpose. At some point, something shifted. You started questioning whether your effort actually changed outcomes. Decisions got made around you. Resources disappeared without explanation. Your best ideas stalled in committee. You showed up, you worked hard, and somehow it still felt like the ground was moving beneath you. What you experienced is not burno

Your chief development officer just resigned, or they're retiring in six months. Now what? The default answer at most nonprofits is to launch a search for a permanent replacement immediately. The default answer is wrong about half the time. Fractional fundraising support is growing in popularity and you should be taking a closer look at its advantages. Sometimes you need an interim CDO. Sometimes you don't. The honest assessment of which situation you're in is one of the most

Open the binder on your bookshelf. The one with the strategic plan from 18 months ago. Read the first three pages. You probably haven't looked at it since the board approved it. Your staff hasn't either. The plan that consumed six months of board retreats, consultant fees and committee meetings is functionally dead. It's not driving decisions. It's not shaping budgets. It's not informing your weekly priorities. This isn't a failure of your organization specifically. It's a se

Every year, BBB’s Give.org releases its Donor Trust Report, and every year it tells us something we need to hear. The 2026 edition is no different. Based on a December 2025 survey of more than 1,500 U.S. adults, this report now spans nine years of data. It tracks how donors think about trust, where they give, and what moves them to act. Here are the numbers, and, more importantly, what they mean for your organization. The Trust Gap Is Real This is the finding that surprised m