Four Lessons from AFP Icon 2025

Welcome sign when you arrived at AFP ICON.

I recently had the pleasure of attending one day of AFP ICON 2025, the large fundraising conference hosted annually by the Association of Fundraising Professionals Global.

I attended four education sessions throughout the day. Here is one important lesson I took away from each one.

1. Internal Communication is Key for Campaign Success

The first session was led by Caroline Bott and Virginia Thumm of Virginia Fundraising Consultants. Titled “The Campaign Doctor - How to Treat an Ailing Campaign”, this session focused on how to get struggling (capital) campaigns back on track to reach their goals. We were divided into breakout groups and given a scenario to work through, where a rich discussion took place about how to engage senior leaders who don’t seem bought into the campaign. The common theme that emerged in our group discussion was to talk and listen first, and that internal communication across the organization is a critical first step before a campaign is even launched. Specifically:

• Senior leaders, particularly CEOs/Executive Directors, may have demands on their time that make it difficult to find time for donor meetings or calls. The entire leadership of the organization needs to be engaged to ensure sufficient time can be created in their schedule to meet campaign commitments, often through other leaders taking on some meetings and commitments to relieve the CEO/ED (this is also where, as one attendee put it, the Executive Assistant can be a fundraiser’s best friend in terms of making sure their schedule is freed up for campaign commitments).

• Starting with a conversation is the best approach. Fundraisers can make assumptions about how prepared a leader - be it a CEO/ED or board/campaign cabinet member - feels, and what level of information they need. Their apprehension could come from feeling unprepared, and be easily solved by a conversation to identify what’s missing.

• The value a leader brings to the meeting, be it through their role or a personal connection, to a donor is often assumed and not articulated. Making it clear why a person’s presence specifically at a meeting may make a difference, as opposed to another leader, is important context. It could be that a donor has expressed interest in meeting the CEO, or asked about board involvement, or it could be a personal connection that makes it likely they’ll feel a kinship with a board/cabinet member or the CEO will increase their likelihood of making a gift. Information and communication can never be assumed or taken for granted.

2. Middle Donors are an Overlooked Audience.

A breakdown of mid-level donors from Sea Change Strategies’ Missing Middle Donor Report.

This session, led by Sea Change Strategies, focus on an often overlooked segment - mid-level donors. Depending on the organization, this captures annual donors who give anywhere from $500 to $9,999 - most of the donors were into four figures.

This slide in particular stood out to me for how it breaks down the interests, and preferred approach, of different mid-level donors.

The Engagement Seekers present the biggest opportunity. While we often think of hands-on donors as the best bets (most of us have not only seen but used Rosso’s Model in our work), their research shows that “engagement seekers”, donors who open your email newsletters, follow you on social media and engage with your content, or otherwise seek out and share information about your work, represent the most undertapped market for mid-level donors. This speaks to the need to integrate the work (in practice, if not on an org chart) of fundraising, marketing, and other engagement functions to ensure you know who your biggest advocates are in different spaces.

3. People Engaged in Community and the News Are Your Best Audience

Giving Tuesday’s GivingPulse initiative tracks generosity actions across the United States weekly. One figure that stood out to me was how both positive and negative news strongly correlates with generosity.

As their takeways section notes:

“People who are aware of coverage of nonprofits are more likely to be generous, regardless of whether the news was positive or negative.”

While the report notes that further investigation is needed, my inference and takeaway is that people who are engaged in the news and their community are more likely to also engage with your non-profit through actions of generosity, be it donating or volunteering. The chart below shows the numbers by different action.

While the media landscape continues to become more fragmented, not just traditional media but new media sources such as social media and podcasts, it speaks to the importance of getting your message out through whichever means you can. People who follow news are interested in what’s happening in their community, and more likely to engage with your work in the community because of that. It’s a challenge and one many organizations struggle to find the resources for, but it’s nevertheless an important investment and effort. Figure out who your target audience is, and try to get in front of whatever media they consume.

Source: Giving Pulse 2024 Q4 Takeaways.

4. The Emerging Generations Will Shake Up Corporate Philanthropy

In one sense, this is an evergreen tale. Each new generation and cohort makes their mark on the work place and changes expectations and outcomes. Why this is timely now is that Gen-Z, with its oldest members turning 28 this year, now represents a critical mass in the work place (two years ago, Forbes estimated they’d make up 27% of the work force this year). The oldest members of Gen Alpha, born in the early 2010s, are reaching their teenage years, when people start to influence culture.

Presenter Pinky Vincent highlight the importance both generations put on the environment, and how they will push corporations - as employees and consumers - on this issue. While social issues have come to the fore for Gen Alpha recently, these causes still resonate for both, and will be an expectation of corporations as their influence - as consumers and employees - grow.

Your author at the conference.

Thanks to all the presenters for these valuable lessons, and to AFP Global for organization a great conference! I hope to be back for the full session next year.