A Changing and Challenging Landscape
The global fundraising landscape has shifted dramatically in 2025, posing significant challenges for organisations seeking to build a freer, fairer, and more progressive world. Securing financial support—especially long-term, flexible funding—has become more difficult than ever. Programmatic funding has declined sharply, and multi-year operational support is becoming a rarity.
This change is hitting hard where the stakes are highest: in human rights, media freedom, civic education, election monitoring, and anti-corruption work. Organisations in these sectors have been left increasingly vulnerable, with some facing existential threats.
Governments in the US and Europe and related organisations have turned inward—prioritising defence spending and domestic concerns. There’s also a growing perception that civil society funding has failed to deliver value and impact, fuelling arguments that such investments are a poor use of taxpayer and donor money.
Traditional Fundraising No Longer Works
Many organisations are grappling with the challenge of adapting to this new challenging contest. As they continue to scramble, one thing is clear: traditional approaches to fundraising will no longer suffice. To survive, organisations must transform how they approach funding. This means diversifying income streams, telling their stories more compellingly, and embracing digital communications not as an afterthought, but as a core part of fundraising strategy.
Fundraising must be recognised for what it truly is: a strategic, relational, and values-driven act of leadership. It cannot be treated as a technical function or delegated entirely to one team. Leaders at all levels must engage with and champion fundraising.
Diversification and Communication Are Essential
Donor diversification is key. Organisations need to move beyond a narrow focus on institutional donors and start cultivating new sources of support—high-net-worth individuals, values-aligned professionals, corporate partners seeking innovative ESG solutions, and other non-traditional backers.
The Role of Storytelling in Donor Engagement
It also means reimagining communication. To engage both new and existing supporters, organisations must tell their stories with clarity, authenticity, and emotional resonance. Donor reports must evolve from dry, pro forma documents into strategic storytelling tools designed to inspire, engage, and mobilise. Fundraising communication should be continuous and campaign-driven, not reactive or sporadic. It should connect the dots between mission, results, and the broader narrative—reinforced across all platforms.
Digital Belongs at the Centre
Digital communications are central to this new era of fundraising. Yet too many organisations still treat digital as a silo away from fundraising. This must change. Digital tools offer powerful opportunities for prospecting, relationship-building, storytelling, and reporting. When used strategically, they can transform donor engagement and open entirely new funding pathways.
Fundraising is a Leadership Act
At its best, fundraising is about alignment: between purpose and message, values and strategy, organisations and their communities. Achieving this alignment requires leadership—rooted in courage, clarity, and commitment.
Organisations that fail to elevate fundraising as a leadership function risk being left behind. Those that embrace it have a chance not only to survive this moment but to reshape what sustainable, values-driven funding looks like.
Introducing the School of Leadership & Fundraising
That’s why I’m thrilled to be partnering with Anew to launch the School of Leadership & Fundraising.
This September, we’ll host the inaugural in-person workshop in Istanbul, Türkiye, designed to help leaders reimagine their role in resourcing mission-driven work.
What We’ll Explore Together
Together, we’ll explore how to:
Reconnect with a mission to communicate with conviction and clarity.
Identify and dismantle internal barriers—structural, cultural, and relational.
Discover alternative fundraising models and approaches.
Build the confidence to engage funders and supporters in ways that inspire action.
Embrace digital innovation and apply it meaningfully to fundraising.
Cultivate a community of leaders driving change through strategic resourcing.
A Central Leadership Responsibility
Fundraising is no longer a side hustle. It must become a central leadership responsibility—anchored in mission, aligned with values, and driven by a clear, strategic vision.
By Jonathan Moakes, Director at SABI Strategy Group