Transcript for "Status of ANZ Fundraising 2026: The Trends Fundraisers Can't Ignore": Alright. Hello, everybody. Good morning. For those of you in Australia, good afternoon. For those of you in New Zealand, very excited to spend time with you today. We have a great hour ahead of content talking about the Australia and New Zealand fundraising report that Blackboard runs every year. And I have to admit this time around so I've been presenting this for a few years, and this time around, I'm quite nervous for two reasons. Firstly, because there's some controversial data to share with you today. So, it should keep you engaged and interested, get you to think about whether this information is relevant for you and whether it aligns to what you're experiencing in your organization. And then, of course, the second reason is because, Sean TriNet has joined this webinar, and he is the world's best webinar presenter. So he'll be judging me throughout the session. So thank you, Sean, for that. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Kevin Sher. I am the managing director here at Blackboard Pacific. Been with Blackboard for eighteen years now and just an absolute honor to be part of the social good community and supporting organizations that you work for and supporting fundraisers who do, in my view, just an incredible job, for society. So, thank you for inspiring my dedication to Blackboard, and for the work that you do. When I'm not working, in the sector of Blackboard, you can find me walking my caboodle, Lily, or doing some pottery, which I took up, during COVID and have continued with. Some housekeeping today. This session will be recorded. So if you want to go back and have another look at it or share it with others, you can. The audio is broadcast through your computer, obviously, so if things freeze, refresh. If that doesn't work, go for a walk and come back and watch the recording. We have a q and a section and also a chat section, and I see many of you are starting to put some comments in the chat, so thank you for that. I love to have interactive, webinars. I'm monitoring the chat while speaking, so if I if there are things that you wanna, provide insight to or discuss, put it in the chat. Others will respond, and, we'll keep the conversation going. There is a resource section as well. So it's it says docs on on your screen where we will provide a copy of of this presentation there and also any of the other content that we're sharing throughout the session will be provided in that doc section. So, so please, reference that, as you see fit. Okay. So in terms of content, today, what is on the agenda? So we'll talk about the report itself, what we did, and, and the the research, and also, the fact that we do this in The UK as well and Canada, and we'll be sharing we'll be sharing some comparisons. We'll be talking about performance and resilience, some of the economic pressures that are really impacting the sector. And then on the flip side, we'll talk about what organizations are doing to overcome those pressures and those challenges. And there's some really very interesting insights, in that area too. We'll then flip to, digital maturity technology and AI because that is part of the report. And then I'll talk a little bit about, what some of the insights are that, we have, we have gathered from, from this analysis. Now just to be clear, the report itself, which, you can see on the screen here and is copied in the docs section, is a very, statistically, quantitative report. So it asks questions and it provides responses. And today in the session, I'm gonna, not do too much interpreting. I'm just gonna share the results of this report with a little bit of analysis on on on top of it. And it's only a very small snapshot of what is actually in the report. So there's a lot more data in the 37 pages of this report. So feel free, to to download it, and and do some reading. And I'm just loving the chat. Everyone's just saying where they're from. So, really great to see, all of you here from so many different locations and organizations. If you haven't put your comment in the chat, let us know where you're from, geography wise and organization wise so, the rest of the audience can share the same. And many of you I know, so, thanks for reaching out on that front. Okay. Let's dive in. So we surveyed, customers of Blackboards and the general marketplace in Australia. This report had 246 respondents, which is a pretty good cross section. Most of the respondents were fundraisers, people doing fundraising activities for their day to day work. Major gift officers, appeals managers, fundraising directors, regular giving managers, major gift folks, etcetera. So people who are asking for money. Distribution between managers, non managers, so, you know, people who are doing their actual day to day stuff and and strategy people was was quite balanced. And this year, we had a slightly higher percentage of people who, were from larger organizations. So the the median, income was about, $8,000,000 in the survey, and 39% of the organizations had an income a fundraising income of over $10,000,000, which does tend to represent Blackboard customers in general. But specifically for the 246 people that responded, half were Blackboard customers, half were not. So the so the the responses are really gen generalized to the broader fundraising community, not just specifically for our customers, which is, which is great because it makes it relevant, for for everybody. So very high level. I'm gonna share with you four high level outcomes from this entire report, and you can feel feel free to, you know, leave at the end of this slide. But I'll I'll represent the the data behind these results, in in the rest of the presentation. So, essentially, what we found from this report were four very high level themes. Firstly, and really importantly, economic pressure is real. So cost of cost of living, economic pressure, there are material challenges that are impacting the sector. And that's nothing new, I'm sure, for all of you, but it it it continues to be an incredibly challenging fundraising environment. Under investment is a problem. So many of the organizations felt that that decline in investment in fundraising has dramatically impacted fundraising outcomes, and we'll talk about that. On the flip side, and this is really where this this data becomes interesting, is that organisations who acted proactively, who took steps independent of the economic pressure and under investment had good outcomes. And then on the AI side of it, there's some interesting insights including, an insight, about next phases of impact for AI. And so I'll talk about all of those, in a minute. But first, I wanted to ask you, the audience, a question about your fundraising activity and the resilience of your fundraising activity. Because one of the questions we ask in the survey is, you know, are you achieving your fundraising goals, and targets? And that kind of relates directly to resilience. So I'm gonna ask you all to answer this question, then I'm gonna tell you what the re report actually said. So let me pull up a poll, first of just a couple of polls, and I'm gonna share that poll with you now. So if you can respond to that poll, I think, this allows you to respond, and then we'll it'll show you in real time, what is happening, in in the poll. So, you should have it on your screen now, and let's see where where you where you got to. Let's get a few people to vote. Wow. Fascinating. Alright. So, I mean, this is very interesting. I won't, I won't lead you all, but this the line's so closely with the research. So majority of you, hit or exceeded with 46% of you exceeding. So great job. And there might be a correlation with great fundraisers attending webinars, but we'll we'll leave that for now. Some of you fell short. And, yeah, it just tends to be groups of organizations that don't have targets, and that's consistent right across across the research. So very, very, very interesting. Okay. So let's remember that data, and thank you all for responding, to that, and we'll move back to the, the slides, and we'll see what happened in the actual survey itself. So when we surveyed, the the market, we found something very, very similar. There were a good group of people who exceeded their targets, 29% in our report, over forty four percent of of you guys. So you're doing better than the average, which is which is great. 28% reached their targets, 35% didn't. And just like the audience today, about 8% of people, didn't have have targets. So there is a resilience and positivity, in the sector. Right? So the cohort on this webinar, most of you exceeded targets or met. The survey had similar results. So there is a consistency, and, the Australian fundraising sector is really holding up well. So, you know, great job to to all of you. When we compare that to other markets, which I know you're all interested in, we're not super super competitive, but it's always good to compare. You could see that, we're doing okay, but other markets are also doing quite well. So if you look at, The UK and Canada in particular, they had a very resilient year last year with, 45% of Canadian organizations exceeding targets. And flip on the flip side, only 20% not not meeting their targets. So quite a lot of resilience, which is surprising again because of the, the economies in those, in those market, places. But the Canadian one is interesting in particular, and remember that because later on in the in in this presentation, there's a data point that the Canadian market, is doing that I think is driving, that that outcome. So, really, really interesting, interesting data there. The other question we ask is, did your income increase your fundraising income increase from from last year? Right? So while it's good that you exceeded targets, were those targets set conservatively, or not? And and did you, in fact, increase your fundraising income? So I'm not gonna ask this group, that that question on on a poll. But, generally, and, again, talking to the resilience of the sector, 44% of of the respondents said they had an increase in fundraising income year on year. So very, very, very resilient results. Natalie's asking about Canada. Natalie, I will get back to that in a in a few few minutes. If I don't, remind me, but there is something quite interesting I think that they are doing. So we are we are being quite resilient, and, we're doing quite well. Now if you compare that again to historical years in Australia and New Zealand, you can see another very interesting point. In our most recent survey, 2026, 44% of organizations increased their fundraising income, which is great. Last year, we had a blowout with 48% increasing, and that that was on the back of a dip in in 2024. But what I found most interesting about that 44% is that, yeah, it's tough out there. The market and economy is difficult. And the fact that our sector is still increasing fundraising income year on year and exceeding targets talks to a level of resilience that, you know, we should all be be be be very proud of. When you compare that to Canada and The UK, you can see that, again, it's just broadly consistent. Right? And it's it's actually it's actually quite unbelievable how consistent this data is. Like, we didn't make this data up. This is the actual data. Right? But you could see that across Canada, UK, and Australia, you know, a full 44 we should probably go into two decimal places to differentiate it a bit, but 44 45% of organizations increased, their fundraising income. Similar amounts were flat. If you if you look at Australia and New Zealand, slight doing slightly better on on increases, and, Australian charities had the lowest amount of of declines of of fundraising income, which I guess is good. UK is interesting. I think economic pressure in The UK is probably the highest among the markets that we're we surveyed, and I think the recent results, reflect that. So, again, incredibly positive, resilience, from from our sector. However, there is pressure that is building, and I think in the data, we found that there are pockets of pressure that will become more relevant for the sector over time. And how we respond to that pressure, is going to, to really, impact your organization's success in the future. And so the next bit of content here is all about talking about what that pressure is, for for the sector, and then presenting some ideas and thoughts about how you might respond to that that growing, pressure. And, of course, if you're not feeling any pressure, things are just unbelievably great in your organization and you you don't think you can do any better, maybe you can just take a couple of tips away to to, to to potentially just, take take it to the next step. But there is pressure. And one of the questions we ask to really understand what that pressure is is we ask the organizations who had falling fundraising income to share what is driving that drop in income. Right? So that's a really interesting question to ask. And the results, as expected, on the very left hand side, was economic environment. So organizations who were seeing a drop in fundraising income, universally blamed the economy as the highest factor, and that grew year on year. Fewer donors, consistent, was the case. Inadequately resourced, consistent, lower giving values, consistent again. The one area that really increased from 25 to 26 is lower investment in fundraising. And we see this all the time. There is a kinda an essential challenge, a tug of war between investment and, fundraising growth, and this report really bore that out. But what what is happening right now is that there tends to be organizations feeling like there is a much lower investment in fundraising than historically. Like, we all feel we'd like to have more money to to to raise money for our missions. But that data point is becoming, I guess, more and more critical and something we wanna drill down into as is a lower focus on support experience. So that was interesting data to share, and and useful to understand, especially considering the organizations who had a falling, income share. Now small organizations clearly were harder hit. So if you do it by income band, if you're in an organization that's under $5,000,000 in fundraising income, you are definitely suggesting at least that the economy is driving that that drop. I I I suggest there are things we can do about it. We'll talk about that in a a couple of minutes. But, certainly, from your feedback, the, the economy is really driving driving things. Karen, yes, we will be sharing this presentation afterwards. In fact, the the the deck will send and also the, the actual research report, which is a little bit more more detailed as well. So coming back to that first, the slide I shared a minute ago and the lower investment in fundraising, I wanted to take a moment to ask this audience this a similar question about, your thoughts on investment in fundraising. And so I'm gonna do a poll in a second and open up a poll, and the poll is gonna ask you a very simple question. Does your organization invest enough in fundraising? Now you will all probably want to say absolutely not. Right? That's a natural reaction. But please consider this question in a broader context. You know the challenges that you're having, you know your ROI, etcetera. So answer this question, like, maybe pretending you're the, you know, CEO of the of your organization, and let's try and get a representative sample. So I'm gonna open this up, and then I'm gonna share the results again from the survey. So I'm going to try and open it up. And, Emily, I cannot open it. Sorry. I'm just oh, I had to I think I have to close the previous one. Yep. Closing that one. Opening this one. And you should have that one open now. Alright. So under investment, sure. Give it a moment to refresh. Okay. So very, very, thoughtful group we have. So about right, 40%. Under investment, similar. Yes. There's been some cuts, and some of you are not a 100% sure. So that's, a very honest and transparent response. Okay. So let's try and remember that. About right, 40%. Under invest, about 40%. Okay? So I'm gonna close that one out, and I'm gonna come back to what the results, said in the in the data. Generally, we found that our survey respondents were a bit bit more pessimistic than than than you guys. Investment in fundraising was the biggest mover in our survey. In other words, nearly 38% of organizations felt they were underinvesting in fundraising. Remember, that's that's significantly lower than than than what this this poll group, the the group on the webinar, had had shared. So under investment in fundraising tends to be, and maybe there wasn't enough context around the question in the in the actual report. And and the way I asked, it might have provided a different outcome. But underinvestment in fundraising is becoming a significant challenge, across the sector, especially according to the report, it it itself. And when you drill down into that, right, you found that 22% of organizations that grew had the right level of fundraising investment. Right? So if you were a growing organization, 22% of you felt you were investing for that growth correctly, and 15 of you felt that you grew adequately and you had the resources to do so. Right? So you had the resources and the right investment to grow. And then on the flip side, the organizations that didn't grow, 44% of them felt that they were not adequately re resourced. So when you look at the data this way, and just stick with me for a second, when you look at this the data this way, you think, well, that that's quite quite interesting. Right? That makes kind of useful sense. But when you flip it the other way around, the results are really, really fascinating and kind of bring us to the core of this, of this research. Right? So when you flip things around, the data is suggesting that 78% of organizations that grew did not feel they had the correct level of fundraising investment. Right? So even though they were growing, they felt they did not have the correct level of fundraising investment. Right? So that's really interesting. And even more so, 85% of the organizations that we surveyed that grew felt they did not have adequate resources to grow. So not enough money, not enough resources, yet they still grew. Right? So something's going on with that cohort, and we'll talk about that in a minute. And then on the other side, 55% of the organizations that declined in in income felt that they were adequately adequately resourced. So it's not necessarily the resourcing or the the funding that's driving improved outcomes in the sector. I don't know if you're feeling that that's a reasonable thing to say, or you're just wondering what the data is gonna say as a result of that. But I found that really fascinating. And, essentially, it's not about the money or the resources that's driving growth. Like, in general, money and resources help, but there's something else that's going on in the sector. There are other things happening that are driving organizations to improve outcomes, in terms of their fundraising activities. Right? So let's think about what that might be. And the data is showing that innovation, maybe not innovation, might not be the right word, but but innovation and trying new things is essentially driving improvement in fundraising outcomes. Right? It was an unbelievably strong correlation between organizations that were testing and doing new and different things and the results that were they were getting. And one of the the really important things one of the data points I wanna get across to all of you today is that, testing and innovation independently of funding and resources is critically important to drive outcomes and improve success for you. And I'm gonna prove that to you with some of the data from the report. Alright. So let's get ready for that. So this is one of the most exciting and interesting slides from the report. We ask this every year. We ask what is driving income growth in in our market. And we've done that a little bit of a comparison year on year. Right? So in 2025, we found that exceptional gifts really had a massive impact on growth, in our sector. So I don't know if that aligns with you. Last year, large major gift requests except exceptional gifts were driving growth. This year, that dropped significantly. That's a 30 drop in terms of percentage drop. That's a material drop. Right? So across the sector, exceptional large gifts are not the biggest driver of income growth. This year, in fact, we had another area of of activity that was equally important to the sector in terms of driving income growth, and that is new and different activity. And that is one of the standout components of this research. Alright? It more than doubled in terms of its impact on income growth, new and different activities. Most of the other things pretty consistent. Right? Focus on support experience, sure. Right level investment in fundraising, some organizations, you know, improved in that area. Focus on the support experience, donor numbers. Yep. There's been, consistency there. But the things that really stand out are the drop in exceptional gifts and the almost equal dramatic increase in new activity. So you're probably all wondering, well, what is all this new activity that is going on in the sector? And, you know, am I am I doing it, or am I not doing it? So while I talk about the next few slides, I want you to think about over the last twelve months, how many new and different things have you done in your organization? Have you added an income stream, for example, not preempting what I'm gonna say in a second, but have you added a new income stream? Have you tested a new hypothesis? Have you tried something different even if it didn't work? Those are some questions you might wanna consider, in, as I present the next section. And, Alex, yes. I agree. It is very, very interesting data. Alright. So what are some of the the new and different activities? Oh, sorry. Before we do that, I just wanted to share a comparison between the the some of the other markets because, this is, back to the Canadian question. Right? So, the question about what's going on in Canada, well, Canada seems to have had over the last twelve months a massive increase in exceptional and large gifts that is driving their fundraising over performance. Right? So that's clear from this data. Right? Yeah. The Canadians are doing a few things differently. Australians tend to be doing more things differently. But exceptional gifts like last year for Australia, it seems to be this this year in in Canada, that is driving Canadian over performance. Right? Exceptional large gifts. So I think that, that's an interesting insight and and and does answer your question. And by the way, if you're really interested and a data geek, you can download the Canadian and UK reports themselves and read all three reports, over the weekend, if you'd like. They're with similar format, but, obviously, different, data elements. So what is this thing about new and different activity? What are the things that we are doing differently, that might be driving some of that growth? Well, here's what the data says, and I'll pause on this for a second. Income diversification was the number one area of innovation across, the respondents to the survey. Right? So very interesting. Right? Diversifying income streams. That was first. Second close second was support experience. I'm gonna talk about that in a second. And then, the the rest of them, while important, didn't seem to have as as big an impact. So on the income diversification, I'll talk about that in a moment. That's just adding another income stream. On the support experience and stewardship one, that one is also really important. We all know that on average, a donor will give to seven or so charities on an annual basis. We also know that they have a finite share of what they give. Right? So that the organizations that the charities that are giving them the best support experiencing so experience, the ones that are stewarding stewarding them the best will, without doubt, get a greater share of their wallet of their of their donation wallet over time. And that gets even greater when you come to major gifts and legacies and bequests. So stewardship is absolutely key, and and I'm just gonna call out one example. I do give to a number of organizations, and recently, I started giving to, an organization, in in Victoria, and supporting their Seeing Eye Dogs program as a regular giver. And, they sent my family this just unbelievable, stewardship and support experience pack as a first time donor. I mean, it was just magnificent. Right? My son was impressed. My wife was talking about it. And we got to see the dog that we were, we were sponsoring. And I can tell you as somebody who gets a lot of stewardship information from charities, good support experience and support engagement goes a very long way to driving outcomes. So please continue like the organizations that did see growth. Please continue to focus, in on that area. We also asked a more generic question. We asked the group to actually talk to some of the ideas that they were, they were, innovating in, and we grouped it into a few areas. And I'll share that with you now. So I'm not gonna go into detail and talk about everything on the slide, but but, really, of the 44% of organizations that tried something new, they grouped into four categories. They diversified. They did a pricing restructure, and we'll talk about that in a second because we all know that pricing is an underappreciated art in the not for profit sector. I'll talk about that why that is. There was some new channel stuff going on, and there was some restructuring going on. And then a couple of organize they were actually quite a few, but I've just pulled out one data point. Quite a few organizations, the thing they tried new was to stop doing something and move that, resource to other things. Right? And that's really quite challenging. Right? So a few organizations said, look, acquisition is not delivering the ROI right now, maybe because of the economy, maybe because of other things, but acquisition is not delivering the outcomes we need. So we're gonna stop, and that's quite brave. Right? Like, it's easy to stop maybe face to face program for a few months that's becoming more expensive. But to stop acquisition in general and to refocus that on stewardship and engagement, requests, staff training, support or care, That's challenging. Right? But for some organizations, and I would argue for quite a few, that might be the right thing to do for now, given, where they are, in their cycle, and what what their what the data is saying in their in their database. So, an example of doing something new but stopping, something else. So, again, back to the question I asked you all earlier, what are the some of the things that you might have been doing that are new and different or stopping? If you know who wants to share, please put a couple of things in the chat. While I keep going, you can share with the audience. But I found this really fascinating. And and, again, on the pricing and and the pricing ask side of it, repricing, given where we are in the economy and, is challenging. Right? Nobody in the sector wants to wants to reprice their their their offers, their regular giving program, their, appeals, etcetera. But in general, society is is expecting prices to go up. And I would I would urge, all of you to think about how you price, your your your product and your offers and to test whether or not increased pricing can drive better outcomes. Sometimes you might get a few less donors, but certainly on the on the general sense, is that driving better outcomes? So it could be an automated uplift on your regular giving program. I know challenging, but something to test. Or it could be, you know, an appeal ask with, with a with a higher general category of of asking. So, some interesting things, from the report on that front. The other really fascinating thing from this report was diversification of income streams. Right? I'm just gonna go back to that previous slide in a second. Remember when I shared that 39% of organizations, right, saw innovation saw growth from diversified income streams. Well, the question is, you know, what are your average income streams? And we asked that question, across the various size of organizations. And it, you know, it's fairly obvious. Larger charities have more and diverse income streams. And that's a reasonable thing. And you would think that the more the income streams, the greater the impact on, growth. Right? That would be a natural assumption. But that is not correct. The data is not showing that it showing it being about the number of income streams. It's showing that it's about something else. The data actually shows something quite interesting. It's not about the number of income streams you have. It's about whether or not you added another income stream. Right? So that kind of makes sense. If you've got three income streams and you add another one, maybe, maybe we we can see some see some growth. But the correlation is incredibly, incredibly strong. Right? This is what the data shows, and stick with me on this for a second. Firstly, it says that it doesn't matter what income streams you have. You could have one to three or 10. It's not driving your growth. Right? So 44% of organizations with 10 or more income streams, grew. 43% with one to three income streams that grew. What was really driving growth was whether or not you added a new income stream, to your fundraising portfolio. The organizations that added a new income stream grew on average, 47% of them grew, And the ones that didn't, only 24% of them saw the growing incomes growing fundraising income. So that's quite interesting. And the the stream that had the biggest impact on growth was adding a major donor, program, to your income streams. So organizations that didn't have a major donor program, once they added it, they saw a material, increase. And then similarly, the organizations that did have major donor programs, those that grew those programs and invested more in those programs, even though it wasn't an additional income stream, also, saw, increased, growth. So I found that quite a fascinating result from the survey, and I hope, I hope you did as well. So pivoting now to technology and data. Clearly, we asked some questions about digital maturity and technology adoption, and I'll share some of that with you now, in terms of the results of the survey. So firstly, we ask a general question every year. Just how digitally mature are you as an organization? In terms of your digital and technical architecture, how mature is it? How well do you use it? And, again, just remembering, this is not Blackboard customers only. This is a cross section of of the not for profit, sector. But, essentially, we asked, you know, how integrated is your technology across fundraising, service delivery, support experience, and, you know, your internal processes. And the results were really interesting. On average, out of a score of one to 10, you rated yourselves a five, so most people felt they were doing okay, but not great. 34% of organizations felt they were immature, and the organizations that were not mature, that felt that they were not integrated with their technology, were really late adopters of technology. Right? And that's a problem as you grow and as you think about artificial intelligence, which we'll be talking about next. I know you're probably thinking, I'll know when we're gonna be talking about artificial intelligence, but, you know, it's something that is critical to long term success, so we will be talking about it, in in a little bit of time. But evaluating your level of digital maturity on that question or however else you wanna interpret it is really important because it does go to your readiness, to focus on and maximize the value of, technology and in particular, artificial, intelligence. So in general, the question we really ask is about digital maturity, but it comes down to how connected are your systems and how well do your systems talk to each other. So I'm gonna ask you to complete the last poll of this of this, webinar and just share your thoughts on, this particular topic, which is how well do your systems talk to each other. And then, again, I will, as usual, share the results, from the survey. So I'm gonna open that poll up, hopefully, and share it. So, folks, last one. Last bit of, last bit of interactive engagement. Let us know how well do your systems, talk to each other And, well, unbelievably consistent with the survey. Actually, you guys are doing a little bit worse than the survey, but, hopefully, we'll get a few more, coming in. But, yeah, in general, reasonably well, somewhat, not at all. I mean, this is this is the eternal problem in the sector. This has been consistent every time we've measured it. Integrated systems just don't seem to be something that is that is happening well in the sector. And I'm gonna talk about that, in a second. So thank you very much. Remember that 03/1978, it was 4% around 4% well integrated, 24% reasonably well in integrated. So I'm gonna come back to the slides, and you are gonna be, all absolutely amazed by what I'm about to share, in a second. So, the survey results are, quite unbelievably, very consistent with all of you. Right? 5% of you saying that you have well integrated or perfectly integrated systems, the the the survey results. The audience today was about 4%. So integration is a real challenge, and it is a challenge across The UK. Australia tends to be a consistent challenge and one of the number one frustrations, in the sector, over over time. And it's not about new tools and technology. Most of you are saying that when we drill down, it's about it's about training and and quality of support. And in fact, we ask a more broad question, in relation to this topic, which is what technology opportunities would bring the best value to your organization. Right? And that relates to integration, but it also is a much broader, concept. Right? And these are the responses. And as a technology vendor, and and really all technology vendors supporting the sector should really pay attention, to to this question. But also, as people in your organization, you should pay attention to the results of this of this data as well. Because essentially, it's saying that, training needs to improve consistently, Better data management. Yep. Consistent. But one of the things that is is being highlighted in this year's survey is that you need better support from your vendors, and I think that's especially true, from, from vendors in this in this AI, world. We talk about AI. We talk about technology, but making sure we're supporting you to maximize the value of these tools is something that needs to be improved. So with that that said, I'm gonna do a very, shameless plug for, Blackboard's conference, in, October. So any Blackboard customers, who haven't signed up, please sign up. It's gonna be a great event. For those of you who are not our customers, the first day is mostly about data integration and technology and not related specifically to Blackboard, products. So feel free to come along. It's a very low cost, high impact event. And for those of you in Sydney, could be really very, very, very useful for you to join. We'd love to have you, along. Alright. So let's talk about AI and, technology in the AI space as a possible, force multi multiplier. So we ask the question about AI use and technology, and we ask whether your organization is using AI, and whether you're using it today and whether you've used it in the past. And absolutely without question, AI is now mainstream. Right? So only 8% of organizations are not using AI. And then on the flip side, you know, 9092% of Australian organizations are using AI in some capacity, and we're ahead of The UK and and others. So so great job there. However, the question is, are you using it well? Are you using it responsibly? And, what is the future for for your AI experience? Right? So one of the ways that you can assess whether you're using AI responsibly is to ask yourself whether you have an AI policy. And this is where, we need to do some work and where where you as a individual in a charity needs to, make sure that your organization is providing you with a robust, actionable AI policy. Because as of today, only 31% of respondents had an AI policy. Right? And that needs to improve. Some of you are working on it, which is great. But, really, in today's AI world, 100% of nonprofits should have an actionable robust AI policy. And certainly by the end of this year, that should be the case. We have tools on our website that can help, in that capacity if you are interested. Oops. Sorry. We then asked where AI is impacting your organization. You might feel that this is aligned or not, but, really, AI is driving operational efficiency and and mostly in the generative AI space. Right? So you're it's helping you write content, etcetera. But efficiency is the biggest driver. Some of you are doing it to engage donors better probably in the in the in the AI space in the, content generation space as well. 60% of you said a lack of training or expertise is a limiting factor, and half of you felt that ethical concerns are an issue. And those are very valid, very real, concerns. But over time, investment needs to improve in AI because the way we're using AI today is is reasonable, operational efficiency, generative AI, etcetera. But the future of AI is much, much stronger, right, especially in our sector. So I'm gonna share with you just really briefly a slide to talk about where I think AI is going for the sector. All of us are doing AI mostly in the improving workflows, generating content, maybe asking AI a question about data using Copilot or other tools. Where AI is going is building out agentic team members for your organization. AIs that can help you do your job by by assisting and growing your resource pool. Right? And that goes directly back to the resource challenge and the investment challenge we have in the sector. We're not gonna solve that challenge by adding 35 more major gift offices at, you know, a very expensive price. We're gonna have to solve these challenges with AI, and the organizations that do that are the ones that are gonna succeed in the in the future. Now we do have a report on bridging the AI effectiveness gap, really good report on how you might be able to work through the AI, challenges in your organization, including, policies. So feel free to download that report. It's a great report, and it's also linked in the docs section. Alright. So we're getting near the end, and I just wanted to do a very brief summary. And, firstly, I hope you've enjoyed, the content and, some of the insights, that I've shared. Thank you for your very engaging chat, conversation as well. I'm gonna sum up, what I believe, has generally come out of of this report and and a couple of suggestions, for all of you moving forward. So firstly, income diversification is critical. 39% of organizations felt that it was the most proactive thing that they can do. And I would suggest that over the next twelve months, add an income stream. Test a new income stream, see what it does. When you're thinking of investing, invest in stewardship. 36%, of you said support experience was the second most common thing, and it compounds. Right? Support or experience is like a equity in your home. It grows. It it stays with you. It will generate more income from those donors over time. So continue your incredibly good focus on support experience. If anyone wants to see what a good experience is like just from our most recent one, sign up, to, Vision Australia's guide dogs program and and get one of their packs. Expand your donor base. While some of you didn't really do this as much, it does protect your donor pool, and that was a little bit of a data point that came out of it. And then finally, try something new. 44% of the organizations that grew said trying something new was a key driver. So really important, four areas of focus. And then finally, I just like to leave you with kinda one data point that came out of this for making an investment case. Right? Because we all know how difficult it is to make that case for investment, to the board. Right? And and Sean, who might still be on this, on this presentation, is an expert at helping you, make that investment case. But I'm gonna share a a few key key things. Firstly, when you're making the case for investment in your organization within your team or to the board, Potentially, did with the downside. This data is showing, that underinvestment is a key factor in in poor outcomes. Ask for capability, not cash. This is really interesting. Ask for adding an income stream. Ask for testing a new offering. Don't necessarily ask for, more money without a direct specific ask of where that money is going, going to. Bring con comparisons from, commonwealth countries like, The UK and Canada. And also commit to one measurable revenue stream might be a better way to get some outcomes. Now most of you probably got the stuff nailed, and I'm just telling you what you already know. But just in case, I just thought I'd share that because the more, investment we get, the more, business cases get that could get approved for investing in our sector, the better the outcome and the the the better the, the better the delivery of your mission, quite frankly. So can't can't hurt to share some of that. And finally, where do we go from here? Well, lots of data and, reports to download for you to read, and you'll see them in our document section. Feel free, to come along to, b b con. And then finally, oh, that's Jess Gallagher, who's our keynote speaker at BBCON. She was in the, Paralympics, in Glasgow, won a silver medal silver medal. Just super excited, to have her, share her incredible experience at our conference. And then finally, for those of you who may not, have a Blackboard solution and would like to like to, join our community, our team is on standby to have a conversation with you, and we have a great offer, for for, Raiser's Edge in particular, over the next few months where we'll be giving the first year of Raiser's Edge subscription, at a significant discount to our customers. So to our to our new customers. So thank you so much for joining today. Really, really appreciate the time you spent with me. I've loved presenting to you all. Love the engagement, and have a wonderful, Wednesday afternoon. Take care, everybody.