ALLIANCE COMMUNITY FIELD INSIGHTS
How the Nation's Top Nonprofit Executives are Innovating Through 2026
Each year, in partnership with 180+ of the leading nonprofits in the country, we hear from the executives in our Alliance community about what they are seeing and experiencing in the field. This year, they described moments that are inspiring and difficult at the same time. The five dynamics in this year's report include two that are giving us deep inspiration, two open questions that feel very live to us in this moment, and an exciting opportunity we hope we can build toward together.
The interest in collaboration among our members is at a higher volume, and more organizations are evolving their program models quickly to meet the new and changing needs of young people in their communities. Alongside that, leaders are working through the impacts of significant downsizing across the sector, and a patchwork approach to AI adoption is widening the gap between the organizations able to invest in this work and those that are not.
And through all of it, we are hearing from a rising generation of young people who want to pursue social impact careers but do not yet have the knowledge or support to move forward, which we believe is one of the most promising untapped opportunities for the field.
I've had more collaboration conversations in the last 18 months than I've probably had in the last 18 years combined.
— Nonprofit Leader
What's Inside: The 5 Dynamics Shaping the Field
Collaboration is Not Free:
Our Collaboration Moment is Here, but it is Under-Resourced
There is deeper and more genuine interest in collaboration among nonprofits, but leaders struggle to find the time, resources, and structured supports necessary to turn that interest into tangible partnerships.
The sector no longer lacks ideas or the willingness to collaborate. It lacks the protected capacity to turn strong ideas into durable partnerships.
We don't have the luxury of multi-year pilots anymore. We're iterating in real-time because our communities are changing in real-time.
Rapid Adaptation Faces Headwinds from the Pace of Philanthropy
To meet the rising, complex, and emergent needs of young people, nonprofit leaders are quickly developing new strategies and programmatic responses. The nonprofit sector is adapting quickly, but most philanthropic funding models are not built for this rapid iteration.
The Unexpected Lessons Learned from Downsizing
An unprecedented number of nonprofit organizations have gone through one or more rounds of downsizing and layoffs, often while demand for services continues to rise.
of Alliance member organizations have reduced staff since January 2025.
AI Adoption: Opportunity and Uneven Access
AI adoption and utilization vary significantly across the field, emerging as both an opportunity and a potential new form of inequity.
Like many organizations, we have encountered understandable psychological resistance from staff who are uncertain about how AI may affect their work, job security, or the way services are delivered.
Changing Youth Perceptions of Social Impact Careers
Even amid the complexities of our current moment, young people are seeking purpose-driven careers, but financial barriers and limited access to early career exposure hinder their paths to social impact work.
6 in 10 young people are interested in social impact careers.
Alliance Community Reach
180+
Our Alliance Community includes more than 180 leading youth-supporting nonprofits
34M
Collectively, our Alliance Community serves 34 million young people annually
990
Nearly 1,000 leaders from across those organizations are active in the Alliance community
Related Content
Field Insights 2025: How the Nation's Top Nonprofit Executives are Navigating 2025
Our 2025 report captured how leaders were responding to a new administration, an unpredictable funding landscape, and rising youth mental health needs. It was the first year we reported the growing appetite for deep structural partnerships across the field, an appetite that has only grown since.
2026 State of Young People Research Report
Each year, our State of Young People research brings our Alliance community of 180+ youth-serving organizations together to co-create a research agenda that reflects some of the most pressing challenges and questions facing young people and the leaders who serve them, and then puts those questions directly to young people themselves. This year’s topics address one question: Do young people aspire to make society better, and if so, how do they imagine doing that through their careers and education?