If you couldn’t make it to Brooklyn this month for our annual Donor Experience Summit, or you were there and missed a session or two, this recap is for you. Across two days of sessions in Brooklyn, our panelists and speakers helped us all see what’s possible in the future of fundraising.
Here are the full recordings from day one of our time together.
Let’s bounce: Play as the precursor to possibility
Carly Ciarrocchi, Emmy-nominated host, performer and creative practitioner
Carly opened DXS with a case for play as a leadership skill, not a break from real work. Structured, outcome-driven teams tend to lose the curiosity and experimentation that new ideas need. Drawing on the LEGO Foundation’s framework, she described five traits of transformative play: joyful, iterative, socially interactive, engaging and meaningful. They give leaders a practical lens for designing workshops and brainstorms where people feel free to explore.
From contemporary clown theatre, she borrowed a lesson about mistakes. Clowns don’t hide them; they share them with the audience. Teams offer bolder ideas when leaders model the same honesty and make experimenting feel safe. She also stressed presence: real attention to colleagues, donors and partners builds connection that agendas can’t. Her closing invitation was to reconnect with the curiosity we had as children, and to use it to question assumptions that established processes leave untouched.
What makes a great story? With BBC StoryWorks
Dionne Farley, Creative Producer
Annavittoria Leteo Cameli, Global Series Lead, BBC StoryWorks
Great storytelling isn’t about telling people everything your organization does. It’s about making them care enough to remember and act. Dionne and Annavittoria built their session on three elements: people, place and possibility.
Start with the right voice. Your CEO may not be the best storyteller; people with something personally at stake often connect more deeply, and one well-explored character can outperform six experts. Urgency has limits too. BBC research found 61% of audiences want solutions, not just problems, so name the challenge, then show progress. Imperfect success stories are often more credible than polished ones, and the unscripted moments, like a glance or a daily routine, can say more than a rehearsed interview. Finally, credibility grows when you aren’t the only voice: 75% of audiences want to see organizations collaborating around a cause. Showing partners and communities makes impact more believable.
We asked for flying cars. We got AI instead. Now what?
Cheryl Contee, bestselling author of ‘AI for Nonprofits’
Cheryl argued that AI has moved past automating tasks. It’s beginning to automate parts of cognition itself, including planning, reasoning and decision-making. For nonprofits, the bigger risk isn’t moving too fast. It’s letting technology companies decide the future for them.
Opting out is no longer realistic, since AI is already built into the tools nonprofits use. The real questions are how, when and why it’s deployed, and whose values govern it. That makes governance more than a legal disclaimer: Cheryl urged leaders to co-create AI policies with staff, defining what’s encouraged, what needs oversight and what’s off-limits. She suggested using AI to remove administrative work rather than send more messages, freeing time for real two-way donor relationships. And when boards push for AI for its own sake, start by defining what must never change about your organization. Mission-aligned principles come first; the technology follows.
Power, bias and the algorithm
Bo Young Lee, AI ethicist and CEO, AI4ALL
Brandon Nott, Fundraise Up
Bo’s session asked who holds the power when algorithms shape what we see. Through what she called unconscious hyper-nudging, algorithms influence choices by controlling ranking and recommendations, and may create preferences rather than just learn them.
Her examples were personal. She and her husband asked their AI accounts the same question about gender and got strikingly different answers based on their histories. A YouTube profile she set up for a teenage boy kept recommending male-oriented influencers despite viewing habits that pointed elsewhere. AI can show each of us a tailored version of reality and reinforce stereotypes before we’ve expressed a preference. She also asked who teaches AI right from wrong. When the engineers and evaluators shaping models share similar languages and worldviews, the communities nonprofits serve may be left out. Her last point: a human in the loop only helps if that person is willing to question the machine.
Financing the future of nonprofits
Moderator: Ilana Esterrich, former CFO, Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Panelists: Maggie Louie, Planned Parenthood Federation of America Val Gonzalez, The Climate Reality Project Kristine McCarty Shumack, USO Janice Stucke, Council for Professional Recognition
Four CFOs explained why revenue and financial health aren’t the same thing. Val described a prestigious funder whose renewals kept shrinking while delivery commitments stayed fixed, leaving the organization to subsidize the program. A famous logo in your portfolio doesn’t guarantee a healthy relationship.
Even big wins can create chaos. Val learned of a $100 million commitment at the same moment as the public announcement, in the middle of an accounting-system migration. As Maggie noted, CFOs brought in late are more likely to say no. Janice pointed to a hidden cost of growth: existing staff absorb the work of launching programs, so a "fully funded" program may really be funded by people’s time. The panel urged leaders to ask what happens when a grant ends, and to remember that indirect-cost allowances often fall short. And a persuasive business case, Maggie warned, isn’t proof an organization can deliver it.
Better together: Building partnerships that matter
Moderator: Dana Snyder, monthly giving strategist
Panelists: Thaddaeus Nichols, charity: water Brianna Cayo Cotter, former SVP of Social Impact, Paramount Jennifer Frees, TIFF
The best partnerships are worth more than the check. charity: water saw United Airlines not as a mid-tier sponsor but as access to millions of travelers, bringing its immersive water experience into airport terminals. Brianna urged teams to look for partners whose audiences, platforms and cultural reach open doors they couldn’t open alone.
The panel questioned rigid sponsorship tiers. They protect staff capacity but can push organizations to turn down creative campaigns with major brands; a lifetime-value lens works better. Speed matters too. Thaddaeus described an NFL Network opportunity with just 10 days to produce a holiday PSA. The nonprofit delivered, and the partnership ran for years. Jennifer’s rule at TIFF: don’t approach a partner until you understand what it wants to achieve. Aligning Share Her Journey with Chanel’s commitment to women in the arts helped TIFF reach 37% women directors or co-directors in 2026, ahead of its 2028 target.
Brady is a writer and editor who lives in the Washington, D.C. area. He spent a decade serving local, national, and global nonprofit organizations before joining the Biden-Harris White House correspondence team. Brady has raised millions of dollars for nonprofit organizations and cares deeply for teams that are raising funds to transform the world.