8 predictions on the future of fundraising

You expect when a host throws a party that she'd at least have the decency to show up. So with no further ado, here's my submission for this month's Giving Carnival on the theme of "Predicting the Future of Fundraising."

1. Increased Regulation
   Donor demands for accountability, transparency and professionalism, will lead to greater industry self-regulation and government oversight. The tax code will be expanded to include several new types of tax benefit corporations with different levels of “public support test.” The requirements to start-up a traditional nonprofit will be increased, while some formerly for-profit businesses will be provided new, partial tax credits. The trend toward requiring fundraisers to be licensed, regulated and insured will become ubiquitous.
   
   
2. Donor Networks
   Issue-based, collaborative donor funding networks will become the norm. Larger funders view them as a way to reduce risk and exposure, while smaller donors view them as a way to leverage funding and access to evaluation tools. Traditional community foundations will be one of the casualties as donors shift their assets. These “giving circles on steroids” will increasingly function as their own operating foundation. While empowering individual donors, these internally transparent networks will become increasingly impenetrable to outside fundraisers.
   
   
3. Diversified Markets
   New revenue streams will be developed from non-traditional markets, including capital markets to fund mission-based investments. For-profit financial service organizations will lead this development. Many formally successful fundraisers will become personal philanthropic investment advisors. Planned giving vehicles become more commonplace for mid- and lower-level donors. While corporate foundations are a thing of the past, business marketing departments have been expanded to include “community ambassadors,” who raise cause-related donations directly for business sponsored events.
   
   
4. New Leadership
   The much heralded leadership crisis will result in new opportunities for youth, people of color and those from outside the sector to play an increasingly important role. The strong CEO and small board will become the idealized nonprofit leaderships model. While this team will hold agencies to higher outcomes, most have no formal fundraising training and will outsource this function. In less than ten years there will be more fundraisers working as independent contractors than in permanent staff positions. Association of Fundraising Professional membership benefits will now include health care and retirement options.
   
   
5. Changing Technology
   While social networks are attracting a lot of public attention today, the most significant strides in fundraising technology over the next decade will be made in data mining and donor tracking. Online fundraising is no longer just for acquisitions and annual fund campaigns; Major donor prospecting, cultivation, solicitation and stewardship have become the norm. A new job title, Director of IT Fund Development, is now commonplace.
   
   
6. Celebrity Fundraisers
   Money is like water; it flows to the place of least resistance and pools with other assets. Deregulation has resulted an even greater gap between the rich and the poor, with money pooled in different parts of the globe. To move in this international world, fundraisers will increasingly have to rely on or develop their own celebrity status to gain access. Bono and Lynne Twist are just two different examples of this growing trend.
   
   
7. Community Volunteers
   While some things change, others will not. Ten years from now a successful fundraising campaign is still built on turning strangers into friends, friends into donors, and donors into advocates. While managed by professionals, critical fundraising activities are still carried out by volunteers. The Professional fundraiser, who cultivates an active pool of volunteers, will be the one who succeeds in meeting her budget targets.
   
   
8. Professional Training
   The ever-rapid changes in regulation, donors, markets, leadership, technology, fundraisers and even volunteers will result in a greater demand for ongoing training for both donors and fundraisers. Philanthropic training programs will become commonplace within universities, colleges and K-12 schools. Entrepreneurial organizations and individuals, sensing a business opportunity, will start their own fundraising training institutions.

EXTENDED DEADLINE: Haven't yet gotten in your submission to this month's Giving Carnival? Have no fear. The deadline has been extended to midnight Thursday, pacific standard time. Get your submission in by than and I'll be sure to include it in Friday's full Carnival post.