As always, conference is a time to understand what’s shaping our field and where donor relations is headed. Many thanks to the 2026 International Conference Committee members who shared perspectives on two key trends with answers to the following prompts. Keep an eye out for additional questions and insights from the committee in the Voices of Experience section later this year.

What conversation, challenge, or issue keeps surfacing at your organization that you believe deserves more attention within the ADRP community? Think about the topics donor relations professionals are navigating behind the scenes, discussing with colleagues, or trying to solve without enough shared guidance, resources, or conversation.

- Donor relations teams are being asked to scale personalization, stewardship, collaboration, and increasingly sophisticated experiences without proportional increases in staff or resources. What should technology actually take off our plates and what work becomes more important because technology can handle the rest?

- Service function or strategic function: If donor relations influences donor experience, trust, retention, and long-term engagement across the entire philanthropic journey, why is it still sometimes positioned downstream as the team that executes requests from everyone else?

- How do we measure stewardship's contribution to fundraising outcomes? We know the work matters, yet the struggle often remains to demonstrate how it matters.

What emerging shift in donor behavior do you believe will have the greatest impact on donor relations over the next three years, and why? Consider changes in donor expectations, communication preferences, technology, trust, engagement, giving patterns, or other trends you are seeing in your work.

- Donors want agency, transparency, evidence of impact, and a sense that they are participating in something.

- Donors expect organizations to know their interests, communicate relevantly, and make engagement feel intentional.

- There is a need to use technology (AI or otherwise) to create better human relationships rather than replacing them.

- As major and principal gifts become more complex, donor relations/stewardship needs more sophistication, coordination, and resources.

Continue the conversation in Nevada with members of the 2026 ADRP International Conference Committee.