Positive Equation

“AI is not optional for NGOs. It is critical. And the organizations treating it as a future consideration are already behind.”

My conversation with Christoph Hilligen, CEO of  at the  for Nonprofits Global Leaders Summit blew me away.

He is not being dramatic. He has the receipts.

- Revenue from $70M to $160M.
- An emergency donor appeal launched within hours of a natural disaster.
- Predictive tools catching at-risk F2F donors before they cancel.

Full episode is up now - Missions to Movements.

No one wakes up every morning thinking about your organization. 🙈 But it’s the truth!!

And that’s exactly why you need to email more than feels comfortable.

Giving Signals Report found that while nonprofits have ramped up communication on social, donors are still asking for more.

Specifically? More email. 🤯

They’re not ignoring you. They just have a lot of noise to cut through. Which means that message you sent last week? A lot of them didn’t see it.

So when it feels like too much, that’s usually the signal to keep going. Check your unsubscribe rate for proof!

📬 Send the email.

🎙️ From my conversation with CMO, Ann Fellman — full episode on Missions to Movements.

No keynote. No vendor hall. No lanyard.

Just a living room in Serenbe, Georgia and seven women who came and left with a plan they believe in and more confident in themselves to make it happen.

This is what The Monthly Giving Retreat looks like.

Not a conference. Not a workshop. A room where the real conversations happen, the ones you’d normally only have with your closest colleague over a glass of wine or poolside. 🍷 💦

We’re planning Spring 2027 and spots are intentionally limited.

Want to be the first to know? Comment RETREAT 👇

What if there was a tool to guide you through building your monthly giving program that was based on REAL knowledge and experience?

Oh, WAIT!! There is. 🎉

Take a peek into MGB. Your new fav strategy companion to grow recurring revenue.

Even better? It’s only $49.99/m or $499 annually!

90% of nonprofits are already using AI. Only 6-7% are seeing real returns.

That gap has consequences. For the communities nonprofits serve. For the people already on the margins who stand to fall further behind if the organizations closest to them don’t engage now.

The most important thing Justin Spelhaug said wasn’t about tools. It was about posture.

Demand for mission is up. Funding is constrained. AI won’t solve every problem — but it may be part of how the nonprofit sector finds another way, if leaders choose to engage now.

My conversation with Justin Spelhaug, President of Microsoft Elevate, is the first in a series from the Global Nonprofit Leaders Summit — where I sat down with nonprofit leaders to learn about the profound ways AI is already being used.

From accelerating ALS research to hyper-personalization for donor journeys.

I walked away in awe and so inspired about what’s possible.

“This AI revolution is about more inclusion. It is about human agency. It is about making us more human, not less human.” — Justin Spelhaug, President, Microsoft Elevate

Listen to Ep 237 of Missions to Movements.

Most nonprofits are built on a single-gift assumption.

A donor gives once. We celebrate! And monthly giving gets buried in checkout as a potential…maybe…”upgrade.”

But what if your default was monthly?

and I jump straight into this question on Missions to Movements.

Your donors already pay for 4...or 12 subscriptions without thinking twice. But, is your org still treating recurring giving like a bonus feature?

The data backs it up from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project with Data Commons: “At least half of all organizations in the panel acquired no new recurring donors at all in any given year.”

As Dave said, “Belief precedes growth.”

The leaders winning at monthly giving didn’t just run better campaigns. They made sustainers the first conversation of the year, not the last slide in the board deck.

You can’t bolt culture onto a checkout page.

So before you optimize your next sustainer ask, do you *believe* monthly giving is for your organization?

Because if you don’t believe it, no one else will.