Harry Truman once said, "Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours." I’ve been thinking about that line a lot lately, because I think it describes how technology changes our lives, too:
A trend is when my neighbor starts using the new technology. A revolution is when I do.
I got my first iPhone seven years late
The iPhone came out in June 2007. I got my first one in 2014.
For those seven years, I was the proud owner of an LG Cosmos, a phone that slid open to reveal a full keyboard. I didn’t think I needed all the bells and whistles of an iPhone, and at the time, I could survive just fine without one.
Now I can’t imagine life without it. Try going to a ballgame, boarding a plane, or finding your way around a new city without your phone. My tickets, my boarding pass, and my entire sense of direction live in my pocket now. The LG Cosmos could not have handled any of that, no matter how satisfying the keyboard felt when it slid open.
By the time I finally switched, the iPhone had stopped being new technology and become just my phone. That’s when the revolution actually happens: when the technology gets boring and the holdout in the family finally gives in. For seven years, the iPhone was my neighbor’s trend, and in 2014 it became mine.
Where agentic giving is today: the neighbor stage
Right now, giving through an AI assistant is a neighbor’s trend. Blue State’s 2025 research found that AI-referred traffic to nonprofit websites grew roughly 1,000% year over year, and donors referred by AI give larger average gifts ($240 vs. $210). That’s a big growth rate on a small base.
Most of your donors are still finding you the old way. The agents are arriving faster than the donors, though.
Since we released Agentic Giving on September 1, agent traffic to Fundraise Up checkouts has seen tremendous growth. Some of that is our release. A lot of it is a new wave of AI agents, like Meta’s Muse and OpenAI’s Dots, that launch in the same window and can browse, fill out forms, and act on a person’s behalf.
Here are my guesses for where Agentic Giving will take us.
What I think comes next
Discovery comes before transactions. For the next year or two, the biggest impact will come from donors asking an assistant, "which animal shelters in New York do good work?" and then going to whichever nonprofit the assistant names. Most agent-started gifts will still finish on a nonprofit’s own donation page. The goal for a nonprofit is to be the name the assistant mentions.
People will trust agents with small money first. Donors are already letting assistants book restaurant reservations and manage subscriptions. A $25 gift to a cause you already care about is a pretty low-risk thing to hand off. Once wallets and approvals feel normal, giving will follow close behind travel and shopping.
Giving shifts toward delegation. Today, a donor navigates: Google, website, donate button, form. Tomorrow, a donor delegates: "Give $500 this year to fight food insecurity in my county, and tell me where it went." The assistant does the research, suggests the split, and asks for one approval. Year-end giving, tribute gifts, and donor-advised funds feel especially ripe for this.
Every nonprofit website will have two audiences. One for humans, built on stories and photos. One for agents, built on clear, structured facts: mission, programs, impact, active campaigns. Today that second audience feels like an IT project. In five years it will feel as basic as having a mobile-friendly site.
Stewardship gets harder and more important. If an assistant can help a donor start a gift, it can eventually help them review their giving, too. That means donor retention will depend more than ever on showing impact in a way both a person and a machine can understand. Vague annual reports won’t survive a donor asking their assistant, "Is this organization still the best use of my $50 a month?" We’ve already seen an assistant suggest a new hunger charity to a donor on its own, timed to that charity’s giving day, without being asked. Whether that nudge says "give again" or "maybe give elsewhere" depends on what the nonprofit gave the agent to work with.
What won’t change
People will still give to people, and a human will still have to say yes. The technology only changes how a donor gets from "I care about this" to "I gave."
So when does it become your revolution?
You don’t have to be first. I wasn’t first with the iPhone, and I turned out fine (mostly). When I waited, though, I was the only one who paid for it (and my friend’s who had to deal with green group texts). A nonprofit that waits too long on how donors find causes pays for it in missed revenue.
Some donors are already asking AI where to give, and more will follow. I’d like your organization to be ready by the time they stop thinking of it as new.
I’ll check back on these predictions in seven years. Probably from whatever replaces my iPhone.
Curious whether AI assistants can find and describe your organization today? Start with the free AI Visibility Assessment.