Every year I read this report the way an operator reads it: not "what's trending," but what changed, for whom, and what should we do differently on Monday? This year's edition is unusually clear on all three. The sector is under real pressure, and the organizations pulling ahead are the ones treating digital, data, and AI as one connected system rather than three separate projects.
01 · Pressing forward despite pressureDemand is up. Capacity isn't. That gap is the story.
About half of nonprofits globally saw demand for their services increase, driven largely by the higher cost of living. Demand rose most sharply outside the US: 54% of Australian and 50% of European nonprofits report increases, versus 39% in the US. Yet only a third of organizations grew their staffing. The result: 36% are inventing new ways to deliver services, only 24% managed to expand capacity, and 19% of large organizations actually cut services back.
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| Region | Increased demand |
|---|---|
| Australia | 54% |
| Europe | 50% |
| United States | 39% |
Meanwhile, the challenge leaderboard changed hands. For the first time in four years, fundraising overtook staffing as the most-cited challenge, though workforce strain hasn't gone anywhere: 64% of nonprofits still report challenges recruiting, retaining, or supporting staff, and workload pressure intensifies in larger organizations.
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| Challenge | % citing |
|---|---|
| Raising sufficient funds | 36% |
| Managing workload | 33% |
| Recruiting staff | 29% |
| Retaining staff | 28% |
| Supporting staff and their well-being | 27% |
One more pattern worth flagging for boards: government support is a force multiplier. Where nonprofits report strong government backing, the report finds more innovation, higher AI use, more digital investment, and greater confidence. Where it's lacking, fundraising anxiety spikes: 48% of nonprofits without government support cite fundraising as a top challenge, versus 37% of those with it.
You can't hire your way across the demand gap. Redesign how services get delivered, streamline internal workload, and treat funding diversification as risk management, not a someday project.
02 · Evolving fundraising strategiesFundraising is now digital-first, but not digital-only.
85% of organizations changed their fundraising strategy this year, and over half made three or more changes. The top moves: investing more in fundraising, marketing, and communications (30%), diversifying the channel mix (29%), and increasing focus on digital channels (28%). The hybrid model still rules (90% use at least one digital channel, 72% at least one traditional channel), but the mix underneath is shifting fast.
The chart below is the single most useful artifact in the report for planning next year's channel budget. Sort it by biggest declines and you'll see the squeeze on the old reliables: face-to-face, mail, email. Sort by biggest gains and a different picture emerges: TV, display, SMS, instant messaging, crowdfunding, and chatbots (up 5× from 2%) are quietly becoming real fundraising channels.
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| Channel | 2024 | 2025 | Change |
|---|
US nonprofits lead on fundraising innovation, especially in digital payments, recurring giving platforms, and crowdfunding. Notably, digital fundraising shifts are strongest among smaller nonprofits and those with government support, evidence that going digital is no longer a big-org luxury.
Donors aren't abandoning traditional channels; they're spreading across more touchpoints. Rebalance your channel mix around where your donors actually are, not where your habits are, and connect digital and traditional into one journey.
03 · Moving the needle with digitalDigital delivers real gains, if your data house is in order.
40% of organizations increased their use of digital tools for engagement and fundraising this year, and the payoff is measurable: new supporters, new donor demographics, and new money. About a third saw the demographics of their supporter base change as a direct result of digital channels. That's tomorrow's donor file being written today.
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| Gain | % reporting |
|---|---|
| Acquiring more supporters through social media | 32% |
| Acquiring new demographics of donors and supporters | 30% |
| Acquiring more supporters through email newsletters | 28% |
| Raising more money through digital channels | 25% |
The flip side: capabilities and safeguards are lagging behind ambition. Only 41% of nonprofits provide cybersecurity training for staff (up 7 points, but still a minority), 11% have no data protection plan at all, and roughly 20% rank data security and privacy compliance among their top challenges. The bright spot is momentum: 69% have now taken concrete steps to protect their data, and every measure in the report improved year over year.
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| Measure | 2024 | 2025 | Change |
|---|
Two regional notes worth stealing from: Australian nonprofits lead on cybersecurity training (about half have it), European nonprofits lead on GDPR-compliant tooling, and US nonprofits lead on automation: 41% use automation tools to create unified stakeholder profiles, versus 17% everywhere else. Unified supporter data is quietly becoming the dividing line between organizations that can personalize engagement and those that can't.
Digital gains only compound on top of unified, protected supporter data. Fix the foundation first (one profile per supporter, baseline security training, a written data policy) and every later investment pays twice.
04 · Picking up speed with AIAI crossed the chasm: from 12% to 55% in one year.
This is the report's most dramatic number. Last year, 12% of nonprofits were actively using or piloting AI. This year it's 55%, an inflection point, not a gradual climb. Only 26% of nonprofits aren't using AI at all. And the use cases have matured: last year AI mostly meant writing content; this year the top applications are service delivery (42%), impact reporting (39%), program design (37%), and marketing communications (36%).
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| Item | % |
|---|
Adoption is uneven in revealing ways. The report's analysis puts US adoption at 89%, versus 44–48% in other regions (its US regional snapshot, which counts active AI users more narrowly, lists 71%). Large organizations (100+ staff) lead in both usage (66%) and openness (65%); small organizations trail at 28% and 40%. Among non-adopters, over half say they simply don't know where to begin. And the top concerns aren't hype-driven; they're operational: data privacy (46%), data security (44%), lack of internal skills (33%).
Sentiment is warming too: 58% express positive feelings toward AI, and skepticism fell from 21% to 16%. On autonomous AI agents specifically, familiarity is broad (68%) but shallow. 54% see agents having a positive impact if safeguards are in place. That conditional clause is your roadmap: governance first, then scale.
Belief is no longer the barrier to AI; capacity and safeguards are. Write the governance, train the team, then scale small pilots into the operational wins your peers are already seeing.
05 · Regional snapshotsSame mission, very different starting lines.
The report's regional snapshots read like six different sectors. The Netherlands operates in near-ideal conditions: 89% report supportive government, 91% are open to AI, and precisely 0% report not using AI. The UK faces the harshest squeeze: 64% saw demand rise while government support sits at 20% and fundraising tops the challenge list at 43%. Pick a metric below and see where your region stands.
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| Country | AI users | Open to AI | Digital | Traditional | Supportive gov. |
|---|
Benchmark against your region's starting line, not a global average. Your channel mix, AI roadmap, and funding strategy should reflect the conditions your nonprofit actually operates in.
06 · From data to Monday morningThe playbook, by role.
Reports don't change organizations; owners with next steps do. Here's how I'd translate this year's data into action depending on the seat you're in. Each move is tied to a specific number from the report.
Your job this year: close the demand and capacity gap without burning out the team, and put AI governance in place before AI use spreads on its own.
Treat capacity as a design problem, not a hiring problem
Half of nonprofits saw demand rise; only a third grew staffing. The 36% who found new ways to deliver services outperformed the 24% who simply added capacity. Before the next hiring request, map which service-delivery steps could be redesigned, automated, or AI-assisted.
Attack workload before it attacks retention
Two-thirds of nonprofits report staffing challenges, and workload pressure is most acute in large organizations. The report's own advice is refreshingly small: streamline meetings, automate repetitive work. Pick the three most manual internal workflows and modernize them this quarter.
Scenario-plan your funding mix now
Government support strongly predicts confidence, innovation, and digital investment. If yours is shaky (French nonprofits already rank replacing cut government funding among their top challenges), diversify revenue before you're forced to, and make the digital channels that smaller nonprofits are successfully adopting part of that plan.
Put governance ahead of adoption
55% of your sector is using AI, but only 41% train staff on cybersecurity and 11% have no data protection plan. Establish a data policy, baseline security training, and an AI use policy before scaling pilots. 54% of your peers say agents will be positive if safeguards are in place. Be the org that has them.
Your job this year: rebalance the channel mix around where donors actually are, and use AI to know your donors better than your capacity ever allowed.
Audit your channel mix against the sector's shift
If 85% of your peers changed fundraising strategy and you didn't, your mix is aging by default. Run the 2024→2025 channel chart above against your own budget: are you still over-weighted in the declining channels (face-to-face −11 pts, email −9, mail −6) out of habit?
Pilot two emerging channels with small budgets
TV (9%→19%), display (13%→19%), SMS (14%→18%), instant messaging (16%→20%), crowdfunding (11%→14%), and chatbots (2%→10%) all grew. You don't need all six. Pick the two that fit your donor base and test them properly with tracking in place, so next year's budget argument is data, not opinion.
Keep hybrid, but connect the two halves
Digital-first doesn't mean digital-only: face-to-face, mail, and events remain vital for legacy donors and local supporters. The report's recommendation is to integrate digital and traditional touchpoints into one seamless supporter journey: a donor who gives at an event should land in your digital nurture flow within a week, not never.
Modernize the giving experience itself
A quarter of nonprofits now raise more money through digital channels; digital payments, recurring giving platforms, and crowdfunding keep growing, led by the US. Audit your donation flow on a phone this week: payment options, recurring-gift default, load speed. Then use AI on donor data (a top mature use case in the report) to personalize asks and timing.
Your job this year: turn digital reach into owned relationships, and graduate AI from content generator to a full engagement system, safely.
Design for the audience you're acquiring, not the one you have
A third of nonprofits saw supporter demographics shift because of digital channels. That's a rebrand-level signal: review your messaging, imagery, and channel voice against who's actually arriving. Social (32% gained supporters there) and email newsletters (28%) are your two proven acquisition engines.
Build your first-party data engine before you need it
Only 17% of nonprofits systematically collect first-party data, and only a minority unify supporter profiles (41% in the US, 17% elsewhere). Every campaign should feed one supporter record; that unified profile is what makes personalization, reporting, and AI actually work later.
Move AI up the value chain, with a voice guardrail
AI in marketing has matured past drafting posts: peers now use it for personalizing supporter journeys, analyzing donor data, and impact reporting (39%). Codify your brand voice and review workflow first, then expand AI from content creation into segmentation and reporting. That's where the compounding wins live.
Make trust a visible feature of your marketing
Data privacy is the sector's #1 AI concern, and 20% of organizations rank privacy compliance among their top challenges overall. Say the quiet part out loud to your audience: publish how you handle supporter data, get consent cleanly, and follow the European lead on GDPR-compliant tooling. Trust converts.
Your job this year: turn a set of disconnected digital touchpoints into one supporter experience that loads fast, converts cleanly, and remembers people.
Treat your website like a product, not a brochure
The website slipped from 50% to 44% as a fundraising channel even while 90% of nonprofits fundraise digitally. The difference is experience quality: optimize the donate, join, and engage journeys, page speed, mobile giving, and recurring-gift defaults, and review them on a real phone every quarter.
Connect the stack before adding to it
40% of nonprofits increased their use of digital tools this year, but the report's gains (new supporters, new demographics, more money raised online) concentrate where tools feed one supporter journey. Map how your site, email, CRM, and automation hand off to each other before buying anything new.
Make the unified supporter profile your core digital asset
Automated data ingestion into unified profiles nearly tripled (9% to 24%), and US nonprofits lead at 41% versus 17% elsewhere. It's the fastest-growing data capability in the report for a reason: personalization, impact reporting, and AI all depend on one record per supporter. Wire every form and campaign to feed it.
Open new digital front doors, carefully
Chatbots quintupled as a fundraising channel (2% to 10%), instant messaging rose to 20%, and SMS to 18%. Conversational surfaces are becoming supporter entry points. Pilot one with a clear handoff to humans and visible data safeguards; 63% of your peers name data privacy and security as their top AI concern, so trust is part of the experience.
Your mission deserves a better digital experience.
Every trend in this report runs through your digital experience: a website that converts, journeys that keep supporters engaged, one unified supporter record, and AI applied safely on top. That's exactly what we design, build, and run for nonprofits. Bring your questions; we'll bring a whiteboard.
Source & method: All figures are from the Salesforce Nonprofit Trends Report, 7th Edition (© 2025 Salesforce, Inc.), a global survey of 1,229 nonprofits across the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Australia, spanning small (0–100), medium (101–500), and large (501+) organizations. Charts on this page re-visualize the report's published data; analysis and recommendations are Socient's own. This article is independent and not endorsed by or affiliated with Salesforce.