10 Predictions for 2026

It's foolish to make predictions. Perhaps now is the worst time to look even a few months ahead with any certainty.

But don't let reality challenge a bit of hope. I've been following community, content, nonprofit tech changes for 25 years. The patterns and systems that define the landscape have changed little.

So I offer up a five pairs of predictions for what we may see and learn in the year ahead. These feel most relevant to folks working in and around nonprofits, news, and creative projects aimed at supporting a kinder, more equitable world.

Artificial Intelligence.

1. We will continue to talk about how AI creates efficiencies and improves organizational capacity, particularly in the back office where mundane data crunching and reporting consume staff time.
   
   This talk will continue to avoid the hard realities that we're funding our increased dependence on companies committed to colonialism, disinformation, environmental degradation, and the centralization of money and power into the hands of a few people.
   
2. There will a continued, if slow, rise of specific and targeted AI projects that build on closed, secure, and equitable principles.
   
   These projects won’t do much to displace large and destructive AI companies built on colonialism and centralization. But they will offer some benefits of AI in sustainable ways to organizations and movements–and may even challenge dominant AI powers.

Audiences and lists and the people we serve.

1. Too many organizations will continue spending money on email address acquisition without investing in the listening, problem solving, and community-centered content that acknowledges the interests and meets the needs of the people behind those email addresses.
   
2. Organizations, particularly in local news and community service, will continue experimenting and investing in user needs content and in person events. This slow audience growth will often complement, not replace, other acquisition efforts. But it will prove to be sustainable, profitable, and help create innovative new community service projects.

Climate and community.

1. We’ll continue to see more, not less, community breakdown as the result of extreme weather. This will manifest as floods, wildfires, and prolonged dry/wet periods that may not create high numbers of casualties but have extraordinary costs to property, infrastructure, and agricultural production.
   
   Impacts will be widespread but affect low and middle income communities the most, particularly as homeowners insurance becomes increasingly inaccessible and the federal government continues to scale back or refuse to provide aid.
   
2. Local mutual aid projects - and city/state supported safety nets - will become a focus of news, nonprofits, community organizing, individual fundraising and philanthropy.
   
   But that means acknowledging the needs of communities whose people are less visible to journalists and storytellers - the quiet majority who do the work, grow the food, clean the buildings, and care for children, sick, and elderly neighbors.
   
   News and nonprofits will seek to solve the problems of community members, not the problems of corporations and politicians.

Fundraising.

1. A cycle of disconnection will grow. Many if not most nonprofits, particularly large or national groups, will continue to see fewer individual donors and supporters.
   
   As a result, programs and staffing will further emphasize large donors, Donor Advised Funds, and philanthropy.
   
   Communications, branding, and direct engagement will become more disconnected from the interests and needs of individuals in the community. This will lead fewer individual donors and supporters to get involved.
   
2. Organizations focused on user needs, relationship building, and direct action will find themselves running events and programs that meet people’s desire for community care and tangible solutions.
   
   Problem solving - and involving the community in telling the story of the problem and solution - creates trust. People support people they trust.

Storytelling and content strategy. Newsletters and socials.

1. Mass media content and social platforms will become increasingly hostile to nonprofits and community values. This will manifest in continued platforming of AI slop, far right influencers, advertising for ICE, and government-sponsored disinformation and election interference.
   
   This will make it increasingly difficult to continue investing in advertising and community growth on many of the biggest and commonly used platforms.
   
2. We will see new (and more investment in) local and place-based communications and narrative infrastructure. This will include resources to find, support, and advance the careers of independent media, news, and storytelling creators.
   
   This won’t happen just because creators and place-based content is demanded and trusted. It will come as the result of dispersed and diverse leaders recognizing that community-centered creators, news organizations, and nonprofits exist in collaborative networks and not as isolated or competitive individuals.

Politics and community.

Here's a single extra prediction. Or just call it a hope to put into circulation. A rising tide of community-centered news, place-based storytelling, and local face to face mutual aid will increase trust. That trust will allow us to collaboratively support community leaders and institutions. This gives people a place - and a path - to build something tangible together. And that takes energy away from a national politics of otherness, even hate.