A fundamental shift is underway and accelerating in how nonprofits think about and invest in technology. After working with over 1 million nonprofits in 2025, we've observed a clear pattern that will shape the sector in 2026: organizations are moving away from viewing technology as a series of tactical solutions and toward treating it as essential infrastructure that enables mission delivery.

This isn't a trend driven by innovation for its own sake. It's a pragmatic response to the reality that nonprofits are being asked to deliver more impact with constrained resources, and the organizations achieving sustained impact are those that have built operational foundations strong enough to support their work over time.

The trends we saw in 2025 tell a clear story about where the sector is headed in 2026, and what nonprofits need to thrive in an increasingly complex landscape.

Trend 1: Technology as mission infrastructure, not overhead

The most significant shift we observed in 2025 was how nonprofits frame technology investment. Organizations increasingly recognize that the traditional divide between “mission work” and “operational costs” creates a false choice that undermines long-term sustainability.

Technology isn’t separate from mission delivery; it’s what makes consistent mission delivery possible. When nonprofits have reliable systems in place, they can focus their energy on programs, relationships, and community impact rather than troubleshooting tools and managing workarounds. The time and capacity freed up by strong infrastructure compounds over time, strengthening an organization’s ability to pursue long-term impact.

We use Canva all the time to create flyers, brochures, programs, thank you cards, and so much more. These marketing tools help us share information and opportunities with our volunteers, donors, customers and the community at large. As a nonprofit, we’re trying to reduce the cost of our expenses as much as possible, so what funds we do have can support our mission and go towards building affordable homes.

Therrita Walsh

Habitat for Humanity of Bay County, Florida

Trend 2: Leading technology capabilities shaping modern nonprofit operations

Our work with nonprofits in 2025 revealed three specific technology capabilities that have become central to sustainable operations and are being deployed strategically to strengthen mission delivery:

1) Visual communication as a core capability

Tools like Canva and Adobe have become essential for nonprofits to communicate their work to supporters and stakeholders. The value extends beyond aesthetics: these platforms enable organizations to articulate impact clearly, build consistent brand identity, and create timely content that engages supporters and builds long-term trust. In an attention-constrained environment, visual clarity has emerged as a core organizational competency.

We applied to the Adobe Nonprofit Program because having access to Adobe tools will greatly enhance the quality of our visual communication. This includes designing educational materials, social media content, donor reports, and fundraising campaigns. With limited resources, it is often a challenge to create professional-level materials, and Adobe's support will allow us to reach more people, tell impactful stories, and strengthen our mission to transform lives.

Claudia Araujo

Fundación Fabrica de Sonrisas

2) AI as a capacity multiplier

Artificial intelligence crossed an important threshold in 2025, moving from experimental curiosity to a practical operational tool across the nonprofit sector. Organizations adopted AI platforms from OpenAI, Anthropic, and others—not for transformation theater, but to reclaim time spent on necessary but time-intensive work: drafting grant proposals, summarizing research, generating donor communications, and organizing information.

The most effective implementations focused on cognitive support rather than replacement, allowing staff to redirect their expertise toward relationship building, strategic planning, and program refinement. What distinguished sophisticated adopters was their understanding of AI as a capacity multiplier, not a substitute for human judgment and the community relationships that drive impact.

OpenAI’s tools can help us craft compelling proposals, reports, and impact assessments with greater efficiency, improving our ability to attract support for our initiatives... By joining OpenAI’s nonprofit program, we hope to amplify our impact, reach more people, and create AI-driven solutions that address real-world challenges in Africa. OpenAI’s technology will empower us to work more efficiently, innovate faster, and drive positive change at scale.

Jimale Abdi

African Digital Technologies Organization

3) Collaboration platforms as operational infrastructure

Microsoft and Google’s productivity suites continued to serve as operational bedrock for distributed teams. Secure document collaboration tools, communication systems, and cloud storage solutions have shifted from convenience to necessity as teams work across geographies in an increasingly remote world.

These platforms provide the connective tissue that enables coordination while protecting sensitive information. As nonprofits increasingly manage donor data, client information, and program details digitally, enterprise-grade security and compliance features have become non-negotiable—not just for protecting organizational assets, but for maintaining the trust of the communities they serve.

For managing our daily tasks, writing articles, and handling layout work, Google Docs is essential to us. Likewise, for our day-to-day communications, having free access to Gmail would greatly streamline our exchanges. Access to a substantial storage space for backing up our organization’s files would also represent valuable support, given our limited budget. Google Workspace is currently a tool that we urgently and fundamentally need.

Lucas Dubois

Gardien de la Nature

Trend 3: Global demand signals an access gap

A defining pattern in 2025 was the surge in technology access requests from nonprofits in regions outside traditional funding and technology hubs. Based on Goodstack platform data, nonprofit funding in 2025 doubled in the U.S., while growth outside the U.S. outpaced this increase, tripling year over year.

This global demand highlights a structural challenge: nonprofit impact exists everywhere, but access to foundational infrastructure does not. Organizations worldwide are working to digitize operations, expand online engagement, and collaborate across borders, but uneven access to technology creates an uneven sector where geography determines operational capacity.

Because we are a low-budget environmental protection NGO in Romania, we focus on environmental education of local communities. Since we need to create many publications, raise awareness on social media, and we have no specialised teams in this topic, it has helped us a lot to have the Canva subscription for free. We could save money and time, and could provide professional, creative works that help our good reputation among our target groups. Also, it facilitates our work of promoting nature conservation.

Abigel Szodoray-Paradi

E-Consult Association

Addressing this gap matters not just for individual organizations, but for the health of the entire ecosystem. When we expand infrastructure access globally, we strengthen the network of organizations solving problems in their communities and enable more equitable participation in the sector.

What the data reveals

The trends observed in 2025 are already shaping how nonprofits prepare for 2026, particularly in how they access technology and funding. Goodstack data reflects this change. In 2025, we facilitated over $5 billion in donations to more than 1 million mission-driven organizations worldwide and saw a 285% year-over-year increase in nonprofit verifications as organizations sought access to essential technology and funding.

This surge reflects a sector-wide recognition that sustainable operations require investment in foundational systems. As nonprofits face continued resource constraints, they’re actively seeking ways to stretch limited budgets by accessing technology that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive.

The implication is clear: when barriers to technology access are reduced, organizations can redirect resources away from overhead and toward mission-critical work. This compounds over time, strengthening their capacity for long-term impact.

The ecosystem challenge: Rethinking how we fund infrastructure

The sector faces a structural tension that became more visible in 2025. Nonprofits are expected to demonstrate sophisticated impact measurement, maintain secure systems, and operate with professional-grade efficiency, yet operational investments remain difficult to fund. Many funders still treat technology as overhead rather than essential infrastructure.

This creates an unsustainable dynamic where organizations are asked to deliver ambitious outcomes while operating on systems held together by workarounds and volunteer effort. The nonprofits that were most impactful this year were those that successfully made the case—to boards, funders, and stakeholders—that infrastructure investment isn’t a distraction from mission. It’s what makes sustainable mission delivery possible.

The implications extend beyond individual organizations. When we under-invest in nonprofit infrastructure, we constrain the entire sector’s capacity to address complex social challenges effectively.

Goodstack's role in the ecosystem

At Goodstack, we work at the intersection of nonprofits, technology providers, and corporate partners to make it easier for essential resources to reach the organizations that need them. Our role is infrastructure development: building the systems and connections that help technology, funding, and expertise flow more efficiently through the sector.

Goodstack introduced me to crucial technology, software, and subscriptions for our nonprofit that I didn't even know existed, much less were available to use for a deeply discounted annual fee—and in some cases, free to nonprofits!

Eric Waldman

Chroma Diverse

This year, we facilitated access to tools from leading providers, worked with innovative companies to grow their impact programs, and helped more than 1 million nonprofits access the technology and funding they need to strengthen their operations. But we see this work as part of a larger ecosystem challenge that no single organization can solve alone.

What’s needed is coordinated action: funders recognizing infrastructure as essential investment, technology companies designing for long-term accessibility and equity, and nonprofits feeling empowered to advocate for the operational resources that enable sustainable impact. Goodstack’s contribution is helping to connect these different parts of the ecosystem more effectively.

Looking ahead

The trends from 2025 point toward a 2026 sector that is becoming more intentional about operational sustainability. Nonprofits are recognizing that technology infrastructure isn’t optional. It's what enables them to deliver on their mission consistently, adapt to changing circumstances, and maintain their work over time.

For organizations evaluating their technology needs in 2026, the takeaway is straightforward: invest in systems that will support your work for years, not just solve immediate problems. Treat technology as foundational infrastructure that creates capacity for mission delivery, not as a series of tactical fixes.

For the broader ecosystem—funders, technology providers, and capacity builders—the opportunity is to support nonprofits in building this infrastructure. When we collectively recognize that operational strength enables mission impact, we create the conditions for more sustainable, effective organizations across the sector.

The nonprofits that sustained their impact in 2025 weren’t those with the most resources. They were those that built operations strong enough to sustain their mission through complexity and change. That’s the foundation the sector needs to meet the challenges ahead.

Companies deserve tools that make social impact programs easy to launch and scale, and employees and customers deserve opportunities to give back that feel effortless and authentic.

Goodstack delivers all of that, and more. We’re proud to be trusted by some of the world’s most forward-thinking brands, including Canva, TikTok, and Atlassian, and we’d love to help you write your own impact story.

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