If you’re like me, you’re fascinated by how quickly technology (AI obviously) is changing how we reach, attract and convert donors. You may have seen the recent article from US fundraising agency M+R detailing how the rules of digital advertising have changed—and how, for nonprofits, the implications are profound. They posit that for years, fundraising success depended on reaching the right audience through segmented data, propensity models, and careful targeting. But that today, those duties are increasingly being handled by AI. Platforms like Meta, Google, and TikTok now automate targeting, placement, and optimization, using your creative as the primary signal to decide who sees your message. This shift puts creative at the centre of fundraising performance. And yet, it’s becoming increasingly clear that charities who are slow to recognize this shift will sacrifice a donation driven by unignorable creative for brand safety. That perspective is becoming a liability. In an AI-driven system, safe, generalized creative doesn’t scale—it stalls. Algorithms reward content that stands out, resonates emotionally, and engages specific audiences. When all your ads look and feel similar (to each other or to other charities), performance declines. When your messaging is overly constrained by brand rules, you limit the system’s ability to find what actually works. At the same time, donor expectations are evolving. Supporters increasingly respond to personalized, relevant messaging rather than mass communications. This creates a gap: charities are being asked to communicate with greater nuance and specificity, while many are still producing a small set of highly controlled, uniform assets. Remember the Spielberg/Tom Cruise movie Minority Report? Long before AI, Spielberg spoke to trend predictors who said that advertisers would be able to target ads directly to individuals out in the wild, by name, desire, need, behaviours, attitudes and emotions. The future is here and that means the creative you’re putting out in the world needs to catch up to generate a donation. That means nonprofits need to rethink the role of creative—not as an extension of brand governance, but as a core driver of impact.

You’re probably thinking, how?

• Prioritize ideas over consistency. Brand is of course important, but effectiveness matters more. Strong campaigns often stretch or reinterpret brand guidelines in service of a more compelling idea. And that’s okay. If you’re already an established brand, you can test stretching it by starting small knowing that it can scale. Stretching the brand won’t break it. It just might expand what the brand can mean.
• Develop distinct creative territories. It’s not enough to produce variations of the same concept. As the M+R article recommended, you need fundamentally different approaches—different emotional angles, stories, and ways into your cause—so AI systems can learn what resonates most with donors. Creative people often come up with more ideas during a brainstorm than they present to their clients. It doesn’t have to cost more to take those ideas to market, again, by starting small but knowing a resonant idea can scale.
• Embrace calculated risk. In a world where algorithms reward novelty, playing it safe is often the riskiest strategy. Breakthrough work doesn’t come from consensus—it comes from testing bold, specific ideas. And testing before year-end means by the time the best fundraising period of the year rolls around, you know what’s going to work. Today is the best day to get started.
• Build for volume and learning. Tools like dynamic creative optimization allow you to test multiple messages and formats at scale, helping you identify what drives engagement and donations more efficiently.

The organizations that succeed will be those that shift their mindset: from protecting the brand to activating it. From controlling every detail to allowing room for experimentation. From producing campaigns to building creative systems that learn and evolve. Because in this new landscape, your media dollars no longer determine success—the strength, diversity, and bravery of your ideas do. For nonprofits, this isn’t just a marketing adjustment. It’s a strategic opportunity: to connect with people more meaningfully, tell richer stories, and ultimately drive greater impact. If you’re interested in testing unignorable creative that finds the right donor and inspires them to give, I’d love to have a chat about that. You can reach me at BryanT@stephenthomas.ca

How a Mission-Driven Website Redesign Earned Southlake Health Foundation a 2026 AVA Platinum Award

When Southlake Health Foundation's new website was recognized with a 2026 AVA Platinum Award, it was an exciting milestone for everyone at STella!. But the award represents something bigger than a beautiful website. It recognizes what happens when digital strategy, purposeful storytelling, and genuine collaboration come together around a mission that matters. The AVA Digital Awards recognize excellence in digital communication, which spans across the planning, concept, direction, design, and production of digital work. Earning Platinum, the program's highest distinction, reflects the depth of strategy and craft that went into every layer of this project. And we feel that this is a story worth telling.

The Challenge: Building a Digital Platform for a Healthcare Foundation

Why Healthcare Foundation Websites Face a Unique Audience Challenge

Southlake Health Foundation had an extraordinary story to tell. As the fundraising arm of one of Canada's leading community hospitals, the Foundation plays a vital role in powering leading-edge care, close to home — funding advanced equipment, innovative technology, expanded programs, and the kind of compassionate patient care that government funding doesn't fully cover. What they needed was a digital platform equal to that story. Healthcare foundation websites face a unique challenge. They must serve multiple audiences simultaneously: donors, patients, families, volunteers, corporate partners, and community members, while also striking a delicate balance between emotional resonance and practical clarity. A potential donor landing on the site for the first time needs to feel something and understand the mission almost immediately. When a user visits your website they form their first design impression within seconds — and that window is unforgiving. Research from the Nielsen Norman Group has confirmed this through their various studies. For a healthcare foundation, this means that a donor is forming an opinion, building trust, having an emotional response, and determining your credibility all before they have even read a single sentence. Digital fundraising grew 11% year-over-year according to the Blackbaud Institute's 2025 Trends in Giving report — outpacing overall giving by a wide margin. Therefore, nonprofits cannot continue to treat their website as a secondary channel. A streamlined digital experience isn't just a convenience for modern donors; it is the primary driver of engagement and growth across the entire nonprofit sector.

44 Years of Community Impact: What STella! Needed to Understand First

$213 Million Raised for Southlake Regional Health Centre Since 1980

Before STella! touched a wireframe, the team needed to understand what Southlake Health Foundation does and what it means to the people it serves. Since 1980, the Foundation has raised more than $213 million in support of Southlake Regional Health Centre, funding everything from critical medical equipment and infrastructure upgrades to patient programs and staff education. That's more than four decades of community generosity translated into real, measurable care. Healthcare giving is deeply personal. People donate because they've sat in a waiting room, held someone's hand through a difficult diagnosis, or benefited from care that changed their life. The new website needed to bring those stories forward, while also making the Foundation's impact feel human, urgent, and tangible. The challenge was clear but not easy: turning community impact into a compelling digital story. Working with a foundation ready to tell its story at that scale? Let's talk.

STella!'s Strategy for Nonprofit Website Redesign: Where We Started

How STella! Mapped Audience Needs Before Touching a Wireframe

A successful website build starts long before wireframes and designs. At STella!, we start by understanding the organization, who their audience is, what their current ecosystem looks like, and ultimately, what the website's main purposes are. To accomplish this we had deep partner conversations, mapped clear audience needs, and had honest assessments of where their current friction points existed. Only once this was discussed did STella! start focusing on designs.

Mobile Devices Now Drive 28% of Online Donations — What That Means for Design

Once STella! understood the landscape, the team's focus was to simplify the navigation and reduce the number of steps to meaningful action. Visitors don't think in organizational departments — they think in questions, needs, and goals. Therefore, the site's architecture was built around that reality. Donation paths were made clear and natural, with multiple entry points for people at different stages of their donor journey. The Blackbaud Institute has stated that mobile devices now account for roughly 28% of all online donations. For a community-facing healthcare foundation, whose donors are vast in scale, failing to deliver a frictionless mobile experience isn't just a design gap — it is also a fundraising gap.

Content Strategy and Storytelling

Nonprofits have always known the importance of storytelling, and research from the Stanford Graduate School of Business found that stories are up to 22 times more memorable than facts and figures alone. That fact shaped how STella! approached every content decision on the Southlake Health Foundation website — leading with real patient impact, donor stories, and community moments, while letting the statistics serve as proof.

Accessibility and Performance

Accessibility wasn't treated as a compliance checkbox — it was built into the design foundation from day one. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 1 in 6 people worldwide live with a significant disability. On a healthcare foundation website — where visitors may include elderly donors, patients navigating care decisions, and families in high-stress moments — accessibility is not a compliance requirement. It is a baseline condition for serving the people whose support the Foundation depends on. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) were applied throughout the build, alongside fast load times, responsive layouts, and a clear content hierarchy that works for every user, on every device.

Why the Client Partnership Was Critical to This Project's Success

Projects like this don't succeed on design skill alone. They succeed when both teams are pulling in the same direction. The Southlake Health Foundation team brought deep knowledge of their donors, their community, and their mission. They were clear about what mattered, open to strategic challenge, and focused throughout the entire process. That kind of client partnership is rare. When it happens, you feel it in the work. The AVA Platinum Award belongs to both teams.

What the Southlake Health Foundation Website Delivers Now

There are several outcomes worth highlighting: A clearer story of impact. Visitors can quickly understand why donor support matters, where it goes, and how it connects to care close to home. Stronger donor pathways. Whether someone is ready to give, explore a campaign, register for an event, or simply learn more, the next step is always obvious. A flexible, future-ready platform. The site is built to grow and support new campaigns, stories, fundraising priorities, and community initiatives without friction. Emotion and usability in balance. The experience is designed to move people while making action easy.

What Makes a Good Nonprofit Website Today?

The Seven Qualities of a High-Performing Nonprofit Website

This is a question worth answering directly, as it applies far beyond Southlake Health Foundation.

• It's built around the user, not the org chart. Navigation and content should reflect how visitors think, not how the organization is structured internally.
• It makes action easy. Donation buttons, event registrations, volunteer sign-ups — the path to any meaningful action should be obvious and frictionless.
• It builds trust quickly. Clear messaging, strong design, social proof, and transparency all contribute to a first impression that earns confidence.
• It tells a compelling story. Data earns credibility. Stories earn commitment. The best foundation websites do both.
• It performs on every device. Mobile experience, load speed, and accessibility aren't technical add-ons — they were a part of the site from the beginning.
• It's easy for internal teams to manage. A website should empower staff to publish stories and update content without needing a developer for every change.
• It's built to evolve. Launch is a milestone, not a finish line. Great websites grow through analytics, feedback, and ongoing optimization.

Want to know how your nonprofit's site measures up? Reach out to STella! today.

The Real Measure of This Project's Success

An AVA Platinum Award is the highest distinction in digital communication — but it is not the metric that matters most to us. What matters is whether Southlake Health Foundation's donors land on the site and immediately understand why their support is essential. Whether a first-time visitor feels the weight of 44 years of community impact before they scroll past the fold. Whether the path from interest to action is clear enough that someone who arrived curious leaves as a donor. That is the standard we build to. Every nonprofit we work with faces a version of the same challenge: a mission that deserves more than a functional website, and an audience that will give more when the digital experience earns their trust. The Southlake Health Foundation project is proof that when strategy, storytelling, and genuine collaboration come together around a mission that matters, the work reflects it. If your organization is ready to build a digital experience that does the same — one your donors trust, your team can manage, and your mission can grow into — we'd like to hear about it

My most favourite benchmark report was published at the end of April—and as always, there is an abundance of data which leads me to some good, actionable insights. The 2026 M+R Benchmarks Study paints a clear picture of a sector shaped by crisis, resilience, and rapid adaptation. Across channels, supporters (especially in the US) showed up in significant ways in 2025—often in response to funding cuts and threats to the causes they care about. For fundraisers planning the rest of 2026, the report offers several concrete signals about where to double down, where to recalibrate, and where emerging opportunities are taking shape. Below are the key trends from the report and what they suggest for fundraising strategy in the months ahead.

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1. Online Revenue Growth Was Broad—and Crisis-Driven

Average online revenue increased by 15% in 2025, with nearly every sector seeing double-digit growth. Two sectors stood out in particular:

• Public Media nonprofits saw average online revenue increase by 37%
• Hunger/Poverty nonprofits also saw 37% average growth

The report connects this surge directly to external pressures. Among nonprofits that receive federal funding, two-thirds reported a decrease in that funding in 2025, prompting supporters to respond with increased individual giving. What this means for 2026: Crisis-driven generosity is real, but it is not something you can bank on. Teams should spend time looking at their emergency response donors and strategize how to convert these donors into repeat, committed donors.

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2. Year-End Giving Continues to Dominate the Calendar

Timing remains one of the most important strategic variables. In 2025:

• 37% of all online revenue was raised in December
• The last week of the year accounted for 10% of annual online revenue
• The final day alone accounted for 4% of the year's total

This concentration was even more pronounced in some sectors. For example, Hunger/Poverty nonprofits raised 46% of their online revenue in December. What this means for 2026: December is STILL so stressful for fundraisers! End-of-year fundraising remains the single most important revenue moment. Planning for Q4 should start early, with clear investment in list growth, creative testing, and infrastructure readiness well before Giving Season begins. We actively work with our clients to try and find other revenue opportunities throughout the year to take some of the pressure off the end of the year and organizations aren't so heavily reliant on November/December.

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3. Email Remains a Growth Channel—Even at Scale

Now this one surprised me, I must admit. But…the report found that email fundraising continued to grow in 2025, despite being a mature channel:

• Email revenue increased by 16% on average
• Email accounted for 11% of total online revenue
• Nonprofits raised an average of $2.40 per email subscriber, up from $1.87 the previous year

What this means for 2026: Email is still doing real work, but growth is coming from engagement quality, not just volume. Programs that integrate advocacy, storytelling, and fundraising—rather than relying solely on one-off donation asks—are better positioned to sustain revenue gains. This means that charities need to think LONG and HARD about segmentation. The old "spray and pray" method will not continue to work and will drastically affect your ability to get into donor's inboxes.

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4. Monthly and One-Time Giving Both Grew, but Retention Still Matters

In 2025:

• Revenue from one-time online gifts increased by 17%
• Monthly giving revenue increased by 12%
• Monthly giving made up 27% of total online revenue

The report also notes that donors often move between giving types. One-time donors gave an average of 1.3 gifts per year, while monthly donors frequently made additional one-time gifts beyond their sustaining commitments. What this means for 2026: Growth depends on managing the full donor lifecycle. Monthly programs remain critical, but they work best when integrated into a broader experience that encourages repeat engagement and supplemental giving. This means that we need to NOT be scared of our monthly donors – if you have a special match, let your monthly donors know! As we have seen in our two years of the JAM Collective, when you ask a monthly donor for an OTG, they will likely give. If you don't, they won't!

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5. Direct Mail Is Still Pulling Its Weight

Despite digital growth, direct mail remained a major revenue contributor:

• Direct mail revenue increased by 9%
• For every $1 raised online, nonprofits raised an average of $0.66 through direct mail
• Mailings to active donors delivered an average ROI of $4.51

Public Media nonprofits again stood out, with 43% year-over-year growth in direct mail revenue. What this means for 2026: Integrated fundraising matters. Digital and mail are not competing channels; they reinforce one another. Programs that coordinate messaging, timing, and audience strategy across both are better positioned for stability.

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6. Investment in Digital Advertising Is Increasing

Nonprofits reinvested aggressively in digital advertising in 2025:

• Digital ad spend increased by 18% on average
• Organizations invested $0.10 in ads for every dollar raised online
• 58% of ad spend went directly to fundraising, with the remainder focused on brand and lead generation

Search and multi-channel ad formats were described as particularly resilient amid industry changes driven by AI and platform shifts. What this means for 2026: Sustaining growth will require continued investment in acquisition and brand. Fundraisers should expect paid media to remain a necessary cost of doing business, not a short-term lever.

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Looking Ahead

The 2026 M+R Benchmarks Study shows a sector responding forcefully to crisis—but also facing real questions about sustainability. Supporters stepped up in 2025. The challenge for 2026 is turning urgency into durability: stronger retention, deeper engagement, and systems that can weather uncertainty. For fundraising leaders, the takeaway is not to chase every spike—but to build programs that can last once the spikes subside. If you'd like a deeper dive into what these trends mean for your organization—or want help strengthening your fundraising strategy—reach out to me, Jessica Tiberio (JTiberio@StellaFundraising.com). I'd be happy to connect and explore how to turn these insights into action.