20 Nonprofit Industry Trends to Capitalize On in 2026

Wondering what’s ahead in the nonprofit sector? It’s easy to think the rebound of 2024 and 2025 will keep rolling into 2026. Giving has nearly returned to all-time highs, and digital ad spend by nonprofits rose 11% in 2024 as teams reinvested for growth. 

But supporter behavior is evolving. Email now drives just 11% of online revenue, while SMS lists grew 8% and GivingTuesday surged to a record $3.6 billion, a 16% year-over-year gain. The real momentum, thought, is in mobile-first and digital commerce experiences. 

Here’s a breakdown of the nonprofit industry trends for the coming year, along with practical advice on how to keep up. 

Top nonprofit sector trends shaping 2026

Digital transformation accelerates nonprofit evolution

Digital transformation has always been a future goal for many nonprofits, but as more folks around the world adopt online shopping habits, it’s become a “now” goal. 

With fundraising once again the top challenge for nonprofits in 2026, organizations continue to meet the moment by expanding their use of digital channels. Data shows 85% of nonprofits changed their fundraising strategy in the past year to incorporate digital tools and increase marketing investment. 

A move to online fundraising is more than upgrading your online donation forms. It involves building a unified core that connects fundraising, data, and security:

• AI is the new digital assistant: More than half of nonprofits actively use or are piloting AI use for marketing, program design, impact reporting, and improving operational efficiency. 
• More mature data and security practices: More nonprofit corporationsreport having cybersecurity training, GDPR-compliant tools, and formal data-handling policies in place now, compared to 2024.
• Supporters are driving online growth: While overall online revenue saw a modest 2% rise in 2024, monthly giving revenue grew 5%. Supporters now account for 31% of all online revenue.

This shift creates an urgent need for a unified, reliable platform. As demand for services rises against flat staffing, automation is the only way to bridge the capacity gap. Nonprofits are consolidating systems to eliminate data silos and manual reconciliation

A single enterprise commerce platform like Shopify allows an organization to:

• Operationalize recurring revenue by managing memberships and recurring gifts through apps like Shopify Subscriptions.
• Unify event and online sales with a single system using Shopify POS at galas or popups, ensuring all sales, merch, and donation data flows into a single back-office.
• Add giving at checkout or sell event tickets using integrated apps like Give & Grow or Evey Events.

Revenue diversification beyond traditional fundraising

No matter what type of nonprofit you operate, relying on a single funding stream is risky—especially when it comes from the government. 

US giving remains strong, reaching nearly $600 billion in 2024, a 6.3% year-over-year increase. But the revenue portfolio is becoming more balanced with donor-advised funds (DAFs), earned income via ecommerce, and corporate partnerships. 

In 2024, nonprofits raised 13 cents via DAFs for every $1 raised online, and DAF revenue grew 6% year over year. Even though contributions into DAFs dipped in 2023, the total assets held within them grew 10% to $251.5 billion. Grantmaking remained essentially flat at $54.77 billion, as per the NPT 2024 DAF Report. This suggests a massive reservoir of funds awaiting disbursement in 2025/2026, making outreach to DAF-holders a critical strategy.

Beyond donations, there remains room to grow earned income. A late-2024 survey from the Urban Institute found fee-for-service revenue, like merch, event tickets, or educational programs, accounts for only 11% of public charity revenue.

Running these diverse revenue streams on a single platform allows nonprofits to match the right channel to the right economic goal. Supporter growth via subscriptions improves lifetime value, and earned income from merchandise sales and event revenue smooths cash flow and provides a source of unrestricted funds.

The rise of nonprofit social enterprises

The most advanced form of earned income is the rise of the nonprofit social enterprise. These are mission-aligned commercial ventures that funnel their surplus back into the organization's programs.

There are over 10 million social enterprises worldwide that generate nearly $2 trillion in annual revenue and create roughly 200 million jobs, as per the World Economic Forum. 

Social enterprises are also leaders in inclusion. Globally, women lead approximately 50% of them, compared to only 20% of conventional firms. 

Donors and partners are invited to support a legitimate, global model that embeds equity in its structure. Supporting a model that is a clear leader in women's leadership allows them to demonstrate their commitment to those values in a clear and impactful way.

Technology trends transforming the nonprofit sector

AI and automation in donor engagement

Nonprofits, like the rest of the world, are adopting AI and automation. In fact, more than 50% are already piloting or actively using AI—and naturally, there are concerns around data security and privacy. 

However, a 2025 benchmark report found that while interest is widespread, many organizations still lack a formal AI strategy. For those building one, the most practical wins come from:

• Advanced donor segmentation and propensity scoring
• Automating supporter journeys, such as welcome series, winback campaigns, and recurring gift upgrade prompts
• Drafting personalized appeals and summarizing calls with major donors

Leaders must build clear policies to manage privacy, data bias, and transparency. A unified platform can help by connecting AI-driven segments to automated tools like Klaviyo and Shopify Flow, so teams can send abandoned donation nudges or automated upgrade prompts.

Unified commerce platforms replacing legacy systems

Nonprofits operate on omnichannel frameworks without always knowing it. Sales channels bounce around between disconnected systems for donations, events, and merchandise, which is expensive and inefficient. 

Omnichannel is being phased out by a newer, validated concept called unified commerce strategy. The model integrates your online store, POS, inventory, and marketing into a single, centralized system. 

The benefits of unified commerce include:

• It creates a single supporter view, allowing you to see every interaction, from buying merch to attending an event to making a membership payment, in one unified profile.
• It eliminates the data silos, integration risks, and high maintenance costs associated with multi-system stacks.
• It enables teams to launch new campaigns, popup shops, and ticketing pages faster.

Shopify acts as this unified stack by default. It instantly syncs all orders, inventory, and supporter profiles, whether a transaction happens online or in-person at a gala.

Mobile-first strategies for younger donors

Data shows that while 53% of nonprofit website traffic comes from mobile devices, a staggering 70% of all online revenue is still captured on desktop. And the average donation on mobile is $76, significantly lower than the $145 average on desktop.

To close the gap, organizations are shifting to mobile-first tools that meet younger audiences where they are. Peer-to-peer (P2P) texting is now mainstream, with 23% of organizations running P2P programs. It's a major touchpoint for Gen Z and millennials, used to drive event attendance for 85% of nonprofit orgs, and volunteer recruitment for 75%.

💡Pro tip: Optimize your mobile donation experience with one-tap pay, fewer form fields, and wallet support. Shop Pay converts up to 50% higher than guest checkout and at least 10% higher than other accelerated wallets in same-store, like-for-like tests.

Data analytics driving mission impact

Most organizations are expanding their digital tools and seeing real gains in online fundraising. But for many, a truly data-driven infrastructure still feels out of reach.

A 2024 survey from Datatelligent revealed that only 10% of nonprofits feel they have a data-informed culture. The biggest barriers aren't a lack of tools, but human-centered challenges:

• Data is disorganized or not integrated (55%)
• Staff skills and training gaps (43%)
• A culture that doesn't prioritize data (43%)

Before nonprofits can unlock the power of analytics and AI, they must invest in the fundamentals—data hygiene, transparent governance (like data dictionaries and retention policies), and staff training.

A unified commerce platform provides the clean, integrated data you need to make wise decisions. For example, using Shopify Analytics, you can apply tags to create cohorts such as Gala Attendee, Sustaining Member, or Merch Buyer. You can easily track a supporter’s lifetime value (LTV) across all their activities.

All of this clean, organized data can be pushed into your main customer relationship management (CRM) or customer data platform (CDP), finally giving you a full 360-degree view of your donors. 

Fundraising and donor engagement trends

Shift from one-time to subscription-based giving

The fight to keep donors is an age-old battle, and pressure isn’t letting up. Overall retention slipped again to just 18.1% in the first quarter of 2025, showing clearly that the old model of relying on one-time gifts isn't working—in fact, that revenue stream is flat.

But here’s the bright spot: subscription-based giving. As mentioned earlier, monthly gifts account for 31% of an average nonprofit's online revenue, but the ceiling can be higher. Just look at public media, where mature sustainer programs pull in 48% of all online revenue from monthly gifts. 

💡Pro tip: The numbers show one-time giving is stagnant, somake yourmonthly option the star of the show on your donation forms. Have a plan to welcome new sustainers, a strategy to upgrade them later, and a system to win back anyone who leaves.

Consider the success of Fire Dept. Coffee, a veteran-owned company. When the company needed to handle their rapid growth, they upgraded to Shopify and focused on building out a subscription service. Fire Dept. Coffee quickly saw results, quadrupling their total revenue as that subscription service grew to account for 25% of all sales. 

“Shopify fit us when we had just one product. Shopify fits us now as a $10 million business with multiple product lines. And it will fit us as a $100 or $200 million business. That’s the beauty of it—there’s nothing we can’t do with Shopify,” says Luke Schneider, founder and CEO of Fire Dept. Coffee. 

Social commerce revolutionizing cause marketing

Social commerce is a full-blown revolution in how people shop. In the US alone, sales hit $71.6 billion in 2024—a 26% spike from the year before, largely due to the rise of TikTok Shop. 

Shopping on your social channels is now normal behavior, and nonprofits are jumping in. Data shows that 52% of organizations are already working with influencers, and for good reason. TikTok had the fastest-growing audience in 2024, with average follower counts increasing by 37%.

Plus, the audience you’re looking for is on social media. A 2024 GoFundMe survey found that 41% of Gen Z say social media content motivated them to research or donate. It’s clear the old cause-marketing playbook has to change.

Take The Met museum in New York City, for example. A recent TikTok video offered behind-the-scenes content with photographer Tyler Mitchell for the Superfine: Tailoring Black Style exhibition catalogue. It’s not a polished, heavily edited ad and feels rather exclusive and authentic, which works well on TikTok. 

The Met is leveraging the name and artistry of Tyler Mitchell, a well-known photographer, which aligns with the new-age strategy of working with influencers or creators to build credibility and reach. The ad also has a call to action (CTA) for viewers to “Order the catalogue in the link in bio,” which is one of many products The Met promotes to support its mission and programs. 

Personalization at scale for donor retention

Nonprofits are sending more emails and messages than ever, but the scattershot approach just isn't working like it used to. 

In 2024, fundraising email revenue per 1,000 sends fell 10%, and the average donation page completion rate dropped to a painful 12%. With donor retention already so tough, organizations have to get smarter with targeting.

Leaders are embracing personalization tactics to connect with supporters at scale. Here’s how you can do it too:

• Build customer groups. Separate your audience into simple, logical groups, like first-time donors, repeat givers, monthly sustainers, high-value donors, and lapsed supporters. Each group needs a different conversation and a different offer.
• Use behavioral triggers. Send the right message at the right time. Did they browse a specific page? Attend an event? Click a social link? Use that info to send a relevant follow-up. Of course, all of this has to be guided by clear AI and data privacy policies.
• Close the loop. To get donors to give again, show them their impact. Send reports that are personalized to their interests. Show them exactly how their support made a difference in the area they care about most.

Economic trends impacting nonprofits

Inflation's effect on giving patterns

After a few concerning years, the industry saw some good news: charitable giving in 2024 grew, posting its first real after-inflation increase in three years. While inflation cooled significantly to 2.9% by year-end 2024, its impact continues to influence donor behavior.

Total dollars raised rose about 3.5% in 2024, but total donors dropped by 4.5%, and donor retention slipped another 2.6%. Nonprofits are relying on fewer, more generous donors to hit their goals, as smaller-dollar givers feel the persistent pinch on their budgets. 

Corporate social responsibility evolution

In a tough economy, it’s easy to assume corporate giving will be the first to get cut. But the data shows the opposite is happening. Companies are treating their community investment as a core business function. 

From 2021 to 2023, corporate community investment as a percentage of pre-tax profit increased by 38%. Median investment remains strong at $22.9 million. Employees are also more engaged than ever, with 77% of companies reporting a rise in volunteerism in 2024.

Workforce and operational trends

The nonprofit talent crisis and solutions

Nonprofit workers are stretched thin. Burnout remains a top concern for leaders, with 50% feeling more worried about it than they were last year. And unfortunately, it has real consequences with nearly half of all nonprofits struggling to fill vacancies. 

The pressure to compete on salary is real. But there’s also a critical skills gap. Nonprofits are investing in new data systems, yet the median tech budget allocates only 1% to staff training. Hardware alone eats up 54% of tech budgets, leaving little to train people on the very tools meant to make their jobs easier.

Remote work reshaping nonprofit operations

Flexibility is an on-the-job perk for younger talent. On major nonprofit job boards, remote roles receive about nine times as many applications as onsite jobs, and hybrid roles receive twice as many. As the new normal, expect a mix of onsite, fully remote, and hybrid jobs. 

Volunteer engagement in digital environments

Volunteering is back, and it's gone hybrid. After a dip, national volunteer participation rebounded to 28.3% of adults in 2023. And for the first time, we can truly measure virtual volunteering at scale.

Data from AmeriCorps and the Census found that 18% of all formal volunteers served, at least partially, online in 2023. Corporate volunteer programs are also leaning into virtual and skills-based opportunities, expanding access and increasing the hours people can log.

Regulatory and compliance trends

Evolving tax implications for nonprofit commerce

One of the biggest hurdles for nonprofits launching earned income streams is tax compliance. It’s a common myth that a 501(c)(3) status grants a blanket exemption from all taxes, and getting it wrong can be costly.

If your nonprofit generates $1,000 or more in gross income from a trade or business that is “not substantially related” to your mission, you must file a Form 990-T. If you expect to owe $500 or more in tax, you're also required to make estimated payments. The IRS has updated e-filing rules and mailing addresses for the 2024-2025 season, so be sure to check the latest guidelines.

Your nonprofit status does not automatically exempt you from collecting and remitting sales tax. States like Colorado and California, for example, require charitable organizations making retail sales to get the same licenses as any other retailer. When you sell goods, you are generally treated like a retailer.

💡Tip: For specific legal or tax advice on UBIT, consult legal counsel or a qualified tax professional specializing in exempt organizations.

Data privacy regulations affecting donor management

State-level data privacy laws are getting more complex, and nonprofits are not always exempt. A wave of new laws went into effect in 2025, and they impact how you can manage donor and supporter data.

• Delaware (DPDPA): Effective Jan. 1, 2025, this law applies if you control data for more than 35,000 consumers, with a lower limit of 10,000+ consumers if you get 20% of your revenue from selling data. It has specific new protections for teens (age 13–17), requiring their consent for targeted ads or data sales.
• New Jersey (NJDPA): Effective Jan. 15, 2025, this law has no exemption for nonprofits. If you meet the thresholds, you must comply. It also requires consent to process data for teens age 13–16.
• New laws in Iowa, Nebraska, and Tennessee: The good news for many is that the new laws effective in 2025 in Iowa (CDPA), Nebraska (Data Privacy Act), and Tennessee (TIPA) do include exemptions for nonprofit organizations.

Sustainability trends in the nonprofit sector

Environmental impact of nonprofit operations

Donors and partners expect organizations to measure and manage their own carbon footprints. The standards are set by the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Better Climate Challenge, which asks organizations to commit to a 50% reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions within 10 years using the established GHG Protocol.

To get started, build an inventory of your emissions. The EPA's GHG Emission Factors Hub, updated in January 2025, provides the latest default numbers for everything from electricity and travel to waste and commuting. It even includes new data on grid-loss percentages to help you accurately measure Scope 3 emissions from your power usage.

Then take action with the following steps:

1. Rethink your facilities. Assess whether a remote or hybrid model can lower your carbon footprint by reducing commutes. For physical spaces, simple fixes like programmable thermostats, switching to high-efficiency LEDs, and sealing air leaks can save energy.
2. Tackle travel. Reduce business trip emissions from air travel and opt for driving as an alternative for short-haul flights. 
3. Make your operations green. This can be as simple as reducing paper use, participating in community recycling programs, or buying sustainable supplies. It also means considering the hidden environmental costs of technology, as data centers and AI use enormous amounts of power.

Circular economy models for charitable retailers

Charity retailers are moving to position themselves as circular retailers. This means they quantify impact on sales, but also report on the dual social and environmental returns. The Reuse Network (UK) reported, for example, that in 2024, its members reused 2.55 million furniture and electrical items, supporting 1.5 million households and saving 92,566 metric tons of CO2.

Local government partnerships can support these sustainable business models. In the UK, the charity retail sector's 10,100 shops keep 339,000 metric tons of textiles from disposal each year, saving local councils an estimated GB£31 million in waste charges. 

ESG reporting for nonprofit accountability

Even where not mandated, nonprofits can adopt environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting to satisfy donors and partners. The new global baseline is being set by the FRS S1 (general sustainability) and S2 (climate-related) standards. Nonprofits can use this structure to disclose their own climate risks and other sustainability opportunities.

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Local government partnerships can support these sustainable business models. In the UK, the charity retail sector's 10,100 shops keep 339,000 metric tons of textiles from disposal each year, saving local councils an estimated GB£31 million in waste charges. 

ESG reporting for nonprofit accountability

Even where not mandated, nonprofits can adopt environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting to satisfy donors and partners. The new global baseline is being set by the FRS S1 (general sustainability) and S2 (climate-related) standards. Nonprofits can use this structure to disclose their own climate risks and other sustainability opportunities.