The Status of UK Fundraising

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Introduction

Now in its ninth year, the annual Status of UK Fundraising Report explores the evolving dynamics of nonprofit fundraising. These year-over-year insights show emerging trends, persistent challenges, and new opportunities, helping organisations to understand and benchmark their performance and make more informed strategic decisions.

This year’s research reflects the perspectives of hundreds of professionals across the UK from diverse backgrounds, organisations, and career paths who participated in the research and shared their unique insights into the factors shaping the UK social impact community in 2026.

Each year, the research focuses on key trends or changes impacting the sector—alongside evaluating sector performance, opportunities for growth, and, more recently, organisations’ digital transformation. In 2026, we continue the AI deep dive to understand attitudes towards AI, levels of adoption, concerns and challenges, and the cultures organisations are building around AI use.

The Status of UK Fundraising report is part of Blackbaud’s global Status of Fundraising research series, surveying audiences in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia and New Zealand. Before diving into the results, we also want to say a massive thank you to our data analyst and market researcher, Susie Mullen, whose help has been invaluable.

Sector Performance: Finding Purpose and Driving Impact

Survey participants were asked to share their organisations’ recent performance in order to benchmark how the UK nonprofit sector’s performance is trending year-over-year. Importantly, we also wanted to find out what are the biggest motivators for those working in the sector.

Nonprofit professionals want to be part of a positive impact.

Participants were asked to share, in their own words, what they enjoy most about working in the nonprofit sector to identify their core values, motivations, and sources of fulfilment that drive professionals, even as the sector changes.

Making a difference or positive impact is the biggest motivator for those working in the sector, and 70% of all respondents talk about the positive impact of their work. Helping others is also a key motivator, and many discuss the sense of purpose and fulfilment they get from their work.

Most nonprofits meet or exceed their fundraising targets.

The picture for fundraising targets in 2026 is very similar to the year before. At 63%, nearly two-thirds of UK nonprofits reported they achieved their targets, with 32% exceeding and 31% just meeting them. Just under a third failed to reach their goals, and 8% did not set a target at all—just like last year.

While the data does not delve into how targets are set or their level of ambition, it offers a valuable directional trend when viewed in combination with findings on positive income performance.

Which best describes your organisation’s fundraising performance over the last full financial year?

Thinking about the last full financial year, how did your organisation’s voluntary income change, compared with the year before?

Exceptional gifts are the main drivers of growth.

When drilling deeper into those 45% of organisations whose income increased in the last full financial year, we can identify drivers behind income growth. For the fourth year in a row, exceptional gifts rank highest. When asked what the main drivers of their organisation’s income growth were—selecting all drivers that apply—nearly half selected exceptional gifts at 49%.

Exceptional gifts as drivers of growth are followed by greater focus on supporter experience at 36%, new or different activity at 31%, and investment in fundraising at 30%. Supporter experience is a much bigger driver of growth this year—only 26% attributed their growth to this in 2025. Investment in fundraising is also seen as a bigger driver of growth in 2026 in comparison to 2025, when 27% said the same.

In turn, in 2025, higher giving values were an important driver of growth, dropping from 36% in 2025 to 22% this year. Fewer participants also attributed their growth to an increased number of donors, with 27% saying this in comparison to 32% last year. These findings suggest that these successful organisations are not necessarily focusing on encouraging more people to give, or existing donors to give more, but improving their supporter experience and investing in the fundraising tools and strategies that enable more meaningful connections and deeper engagement.

What do you think were the main drivers of your organisation’s income growth?