Hello, you're listening to the Philanthropisms Podcast. This is the podcast where we try to put philanthropy in context. I'm your host, Rodri Davis. And this is going to be our last episode of 2025, and as is traditional, I'm going to offer up a few thoughts on trends and predictions and things to look out for in the coming year ahead. I wasn't sure whether I was going to get around to doing one of these this year, frankly, because I have just had far too much stuff on. And also another little peek behind the curtain, I've been slightly suffering with an annoying thing called laryngopharyngeal reflux, or LPR, which is an irritating thing, one of the consequences of which is that it makes your voice box quite sore. And so talking for long periods of time has occasionally been a bit of an issue. So that's something fun that I'm going to have to deal with next year. But on the basis that one of the trends I'll be talking about in the course of this podcast is about the growing desire that people have for authenticity from content producers and companies and others, I thought I'd share that with you and that that would be appropriate. But what I'm going to do is just offer some thoughts, as I say, on kind of key things to look out for next year, a few ideas of what might be coming down the track. I will kind of keep it relatively short this year. In previous years, this thing has sort of sprawled and ballooned into occasionally even a two-part podcast where I've gone off on one and had to split it into two separate episodes. I think both for your sake and for the sake of my voice this year, I should keep it a bit shorter. Regular listeners might be chuckling already because the number of times that I say I'm going to keep this shorter, uh, and then an hour and 20 minutes later, it turns out I'm still there two-thirds of the way through my notes. That might well happen again. Let's see. But I'm just going to split this into this year into three sections. So I'm going to talk first about some trends that are specific to philanthropy and to nonprofits. Then we're going to talk a little bit about some interesting, kind of wider societal and social trends that might have some relevance. And then talk a little bit about some tech trends and again kind of how those might have relevance for philanthropy and nonprofits. So let's get going. So first off, I want to talk uh about specific trends and predictions. Well, I should say, again, my usual kind of caveat here. These aren't really predictions. I think making actual straightforward predictions about anything, particularly given the way the last few years have gone is an absolute mugs game. These are really more ideas based on trends that we're already seeing and kind of weak signals about where things might go in future, sort of possible futures over the coming year and things that are already happening that we might see more of. So with that little uh excuse out of the way, I I guess, you know, every time I've done this for the last few years, I feel like I've said, oh, it's very difficult to predict things given how uncertain uh the world is at the moment. I think 2025 really raised the bar on that uncertainty, particularly when it comes to philanthropy and non-profits. I think even though we knew at the start of this year that there would be a second Trump administration, I think very few people foresaw quite how radical that would end up being for the world of philanthropy and non-profits, and you know, not really mostly in a good way. But as I've said, we've said before on the podcast, whereas in the f under the first Trump administration, philanthropy and non-profits were kind of tangential victims or kind of you know caught in in some of the crossfire of some of the issues that the the um and the policies that the administration were trying to put forward, this time round it seems as though they are kind of firmly in the firing lines, particularly sort of progressive foundations and non-profits. And I think, you know, the first prediction or idea for next year is we will unfortunately see plenty more of us. I think there will be ongoing challenges in the US. Um, I think further attacks on the fundamental legitimacy of foundations in particular, but also of philanthropy. And I think also the further erosion of some of the norms, I think some of the kind of guardrails and safeguards and checks and balances that we might have thought were there, perhaps no longer hold true. Um case in point is that up till now a lot of the attacks on the tax exempt status of non-profits and foundations have been slightly held in check, I think, by the idea that the IRS, the Inland Revenue Service in the US, is fundamentally independent, and no previous US president, despite occasionally trying, has managed to subvert that independence and use the the IRS um for their own ends. But I think if anything, Trump has demonstrated that he's not particularly interested in sticking to precedents or received norms, and so I would suspect that efforts to politicise the IRS will continue and that that uh the IRS then uh investigations particularly will be weaponized as uh further attacks on non-profits. I guess more positively, another prediction or thing that I think we'll see is more and more kind of concerted and organized resistance to Trump. I think we started to see that uh quite a bit this year, particularly in the wake of the attacks that the administration launched on open society foundations. I thought that some of the rhetoric that came out from other funders in particular in support of OSF um was interesting because it's kind of up till that point there had been some resistance and some uh sort of challenging rhetoric, but it there was also a sense that people were sort of slightly keeping their heads down or not uh rocking the boat too much because they were wondering whether it was still better to kind of try and work with the administration. And I think perhaps some non-profits and funders have realized that there's no realistic chance of that happening, so they're not really going to lose anything. I think the other thing that will be interesting to see is whether more conservatives in the US decide that the attacks on nonprofits and and uh foundations are going too far. Um, it was one of the interesting things I think we saw this year was um the CEO of uh Donors Choose, a DAF organization, Lawson Bader, came out and wrote an article saying actually he was quite concerned about the the administration's attacks on philanthropy. I think both for principled reasons, um, sort of saying actually, you know, fundamentally attacking the plurality and the legitimacy of philanthropy was a bad thing, but also for kind of more calculated political reasons, essentially the argument being if we do this now, what then happens if progressives come into power in future and decide to get retribution on conservative non-profits? So, you know, either way you you slice that. Um, there's definitely an argument uh that conservatives should be concerned as well as progressives who are the targets of these attacks. Um, in terms of other things that we might see um in the US and have seen, so I guess this year we've seen an enormous number of very big gifts, um, probably some of which you haven't even heard of. There have been quite a few kind of billion dollar donations and new foundations springing up that often by design have very little public image or kind of public awareness and are just quietly kind of getting on with giving very large amounts of money. Um, but there have also been some very sort of eye-catching public ones, particularly towards the end of the year. Um, just in this last couple of weeks, there was the news of the Dells, Michael and Susan Dell, um giving potentially 6.25 billion um into these newly created uh Trump accounts, which are kind of savings accounts for children uh in the US, and they're using these as a vehicle to to give a certain amount of money to kind of partly to make up for for the limitations of of government policy, it has to be said, and it's maybe something that we'll cover in more detail on this podcast or certainly in the newsletter in in future. But um, it's a really interesting uh example. It raises all sorts of questions, but fundamentally, if that money gets drawn down, it's an extraordinarily large gift. Um and then after that, we had Mackenzie Scott um giving one of her annual updates on her giving, which you know, at this point we know she gives a lot of money, but actually the increase in the amount of money she's given this year was pretty startling. So she uh announced around seven billion dollars of gifts just this year in 2025, which is a remarkable amount of money, you know, however you look at it. Um and I think we'll see plenty more of this uh in 2026, more big gifts, including from Mackenzie Scott, no doubt. Um, I think what we'll also see is more billionaires uh signalling their intent to do philanthropy in a serious way, um, particularly through things like the Giving Pledge. Now, I I slightly thought this year that the giving pledge might have been in trouble or in sort of slight decline, because there was uh a reasonable amount of kind of critical coverage of it, and whether it had actually resulted in the policy aims that it had originally been set up to achieve, and whether there were sufficient accountability mechanisms and all that sort of thing. And then towards the end, we had a number of big new signatories. So we had Sam Altman, the OpenAI CEO, signing up, which um surprised me, it has to be said, and we'll come on to that in a moment. Uh, and then also Craig Newmark, uh, who originally set up Craigslist, who which also surprised me, um, more because I was surprised that he wasn't already on the giving list, to be honest. I'd kind of slightly missed that, and he struck me as the sort of person who had probably, if you asked me, I would have said he'd been on it for years. But I think over the course of 2026, we'll see some more uh big donors coming to public attention as well, more donors signing up to the giving pledge, um including I think and I hope some big uh female donors uh potentially. I think you know we hear a lot about the rise of women in philanthropy, particularly um with regard to this kind of uh massive generational wealth transfer that is about to happen or is already happening. Um, and so I think we will see some more big high uh high high-profile big name female donors emerging. I think a couple of other things that we might see around that we've seen signs of this year, yes, there's more philanthropy, but I think one of the interesting questions is how much of that philanthropy is deliberately aligning itself now with the Trump agenda, or um either because the people uh involved genuinely believe and support that agenda, or because they feel that that is the way that you can get things done in Donald Trump's America. Um, so one of the questions, for instance, about the the Dell's big um donation is you know, why were they doing this through a new policy announcement um about the launch of savings accounts that bear Trump's name? Admittedly, actually a policy idea that has pretty broad bipartisan support, but whether actually philanthropy of that size aligned with a particular administration is a slightly risky thing to do, or whether they felt that actually that was both in practical terms the way to get it done because they had a distribution mechanism, but also in political terms it was the way to kind of make sure that everybody was on board. Um, and then there are also examples uh of donors who are not so closely aligned with the agenda, but clearly kind of doing their philanthropy with a view to what they know would be likely to go down less well with the the administration. I mean, a case in point here, I think, is Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, and so CZI, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, um, that they set up uh a number of years back. At the start of the year was adamant that it was going to retain its focus on social justice issues alongside its focus on scientific research. And then over the course of this year it has just dropped that uh and announced that it is not doing any work around issues of social justice and equity and that kind of thing anymore. And again, the you know, there's a question here about whether the decision to do that on Mark Zuckerberg's part reflects the fact that he never really believed in that stuff anyway, and is glad to be able to kind of jettison it, or whether it's more of a kind of rail politique if you want to be generous or moral cowardice if you don't, uh, and that actually what he's doing is um essentially just kind of going with the flow um so that he can uh continue to do uh work. I don't know. I can't look into Mark Zuckerberg's mind or soul and tell you the answer to that, but I I think it does reflect a sort of wider trend in which organizations may be, you know, either, as I say, because they genuinely believe it, or in other cases because they think that it's the only way to get things done, aligning themselves with um the agenda of the administration. The other trend that I think is really interesting, and I think we will see a lot more of in the coming year, is around the way in which donors, elite donors, particularly from the tech world, are seemingly kind of rejecting traditional philanthropy and and the narratives about it. So this is something we've seen for a few years now, but it's really come to more mainstream attention this year. The idea that for some tech donors, what they do in their companies is essentially so beneficial to humanity that they don't really need to do any other kind of old-fashioned philanthropy. So, you know, the poster child for this sort of idea is uh probably Elon Musk, um, who has consistently said that all of his companies are philanthropy, so SpaceX and Tesla and Neuralink and all these others. And you know, he hasn't demonstrated uh any particularly uh strong intent to do more traditional philanthropy in a kind of meaningful or consistent way. Um and I think there are other donors, so uh Larry Page has said this before, um one of the Google founders who's giving quite significantly now, uh, and there are plenty of others as well. Um so again, you know, one of my predictions uh is that we will see more of this kind of deliberate blurring of the lines uh around uh philanthropy and technology over 2026. Another prediction that I'll throw in for free is that Elon Musk will get richer, but he won't give much more. So there you go. Um and I'm basing that on a good few years of of evidence now. Other things that we'll see uh, I think in in the US, we'll see a further growth in donor-advised funds. Um I think this holds true in in other places as well, certainly in the UK. I think the growth of DAFs over the last few years has been a real trend within philanthropy, and I think it kind of raises some interesting questions and challenges. I mean, there's a practical question about whether non-profits and fundraisers are currently geared up to fundraise effectively from DAFs. Um, it's not actually beyond the wit of man uh to do that, but I think you do need a certain knowledge base and set of skills, and perhaps this kind of shift has caught some organisations slightly unaware. Um I think there are also sort of wider concerns about the the massively reduced transparency that there is with DAFs and uh concerns then about what people are then doing under the cover of anonymity. I just this last week I've seen some research suggesting that uh donations to organizations that are political in nature out of DAFs are significantly higher than they would be out of any other type of vehicle or any other type of giving. Um, and particularly when you look at relatively sort of extreme organizations um that kind of challenge democratic norms, actually donations to those are significantly higher out of DAFs than they are out of um any other form of giving. So not that all DAFs are by any means kind of um tools or vehicles to fund extremism or sort of problematic political causes, but that those sort of political causes are more likely to be funded out of vehicles like DAFs. Um so I think you know there are interesting kind of questions to be asked there. And then taking us further into the wider world outside of the US, but at the moment still linked to it, I think one thing that we will really see over the course of 2026 is a sort of new normal emerging in global civil society post the dismantling of uh USAID this year. So obviously that's had an enormous direct knock-on impact on lots of organizations around the world that received funding, but also on uh other donors who've had to step in to cover that and on governments around the world. I think obviously in there's no denying the fact that it's done a huge amount of damage and will certainly cost lives. I think what has been interesting over the course of 2025 is also people sort of asking whether, given there have been long-term challenges around aid and long-term sort of calls to radically reform the system of international aid and development, even if you wouldn't have chosen to go about it in this way, unless you're an absolute um nutcase like Elon Musk, that actually it's still an opportunity and that this, you know, you shouldn't let a good crisis go to waste. And I think people are starting to think about what can be done in the context of the opportunity that the disappearance of USAID presents, and whether that is sort of an opportunity to do things in radically different ways or an opportunity for um countries to develop their own sort of domestic cultures of of philanthropy and for other uh other parts of the world to step up in terms of of philanthropy. Um and I do think that is one trend that we have already started to see, certainly when it comes to Asia. So I think one of the most fascinating things in philanthropy over the last few years has been the continued growth and rise of Asian philanthropy. Um, and certainly in the last few years, I think the the figures on the increase in the number of family offices, for instance, being set up in Singapore and Hong Kong, um, with a specific aim of kind of becoming centres of wealth holding, but also philanthropy for the region, have have been enormous. So you know, figures are quite um eye-popping. And I think we've seen you know things like the Hong Kong Jockey Club launching the big new institute for philanthropy a few years ago with very large sums of money. And just this year they've announced um a partnership with the LSC Marshall School um uh in London. And so I d I do think kind of the understanding of Asian philanthropy and what is distinctive about it will continue to develop, and at the same time, just in practical terms, that philanthropy itself will continue to grow and develop. So I think it's a really interesting area to watch right now. And also, I guess the other thing there is as well as the um the reduction of direct funding in the form of USAID, I do wonder whether there'll be a sort of slightly more of a decline in terms of US philanthropic soft power uh as a result, and therefore there's actually more space opening up for uh organizations from other parts of the world to to step in and kind of take a lead on on philanthropy. The other thing I think thinking globally that we will sadly continue to see um on the other side is continued examples of the the closing space for civil society. So the sort of phenomenon whereby governments around the world are increasingly kind of curbing the freedoms that are essential for civil society to exist, so freedoms of speech and association and protest and and the like. And particularly I would say one of the key tools in the sort of authoritarian crackdown uh toolbox on civil society is to question the legitimacy of funding that comes from foreign sources um and to kind of uh portray it and demonize it as uh as a kind of an attempt to uh uh illegitimately influence the um the politics of your own country. Um and this is something we've certainly seen in places like Victor Orban's Hungary and in Georgia and and in lots of other countries, um, India very noticeably, where they had the uh the introduction of the FCRA rule in 2020. And I think we will see more examples of other countries introducing rules to restrict um or limit uh the ability of nonprofits in their country to receive funding from elsewhere. So, in in some ways, doing cross-border philanthropy, um, particularly where it's focused on rights-based issues and things that challenge governments will become more and more difficult, at least in the short term. I want to move now to the UK and just uh some specific thoughts about philanthropy here. So I think it's quite an interesting time for philanthropy in the UK. Um, I think there's there are lots of challenges we'll talk about in a moment, but I think there are lots of opportunities as well. I think you know, figures suggest that actually philanthropy is one of the few sources of income for the voluntary sector that's actually on the rise rather than the decline. Um, certainly kind of mass market giving seems to be declining, or at least certainly participation in it uh seems to be declining. So there's a kind of hollowing out effect where at a mass market level, increasingly charities are more reliant on a smaller uh group of donors who are giving larger average amounts. But when you restrict That to sort of high net worth giving, it's very difficult to get generally agreed figures that everybody will sort of say are definitely true. But certainly from the available figures, it looks as though individual giving is quite healthy and potentially even on the rise. And that is in the context where we know perfectly well that there's still an enormous amount of capacity to get more because there are still plenty of wealthy people who don't really give that significantly in the UK. There's also at the moment, I think, signs of quite a bit of political support for philanthropy. So we've just had the uh establishment of a new office for the impact economy here, and this sort of follows on a few years where the charity sector seems to have had a more concerted voice around philanthropy and on a policy level in terms of what is required and the kind of policy asks that are being made of government. It still remains to be seen kind of what that actually means in practice, and certainly with my particular philanthropy hat on, where philanthropy fits within this wider impact economy narrative, because there will be opportunities, most certainly, but I think also there is a challenge implicit in that reframing, which is there's a danger potentially that in kind of reframing things around this wider idea of the impact economy, philanthropy and charitable giving ends up being seen as the kind of boring, stuffy, old-fashioned bit, um, and getting slightly sidelined in favour of looking at impact investing and social finance or other kind of newer models or kind of social business and that sort of thing. That being said, I do think the impact economy framing is potentially really interesting. I think it does sort of tap into some sense that we're at a point where some of the traditional divisions between sectors that we've kind of relied on and drawn no longer make sense, uh either to people in the sector already and certainly not to the public uh who you know don't tend to think in terms of sectors or those sorts of divisions. So actually, this focus on impact, regardless of the particular legal or operational form uh that it happens to be delivered in, I think is potentially a really sort of powerful idea. I g the other aspect of uh philanthropy in the UK that I think is really interesting is what is happening in terms of wealthy people and their giving and who is coming in and who's going out. So one of the things that we've seen this year is a lot of debate, um politically motivated debate has to be said about the fact that large numbers of wealthy British people are leaving the UK. Um, you know, this is sort of prior to any of the announcements in the budget, so it certainly wasn't particularly to do with policies that have been implemented by the Labour government. Um it will be interesting to see sort of subsequent to that whether there is any more meaningful movement. I think up to now the uh most of the data suggests that actually there isn't really much going on. Yes, there are some wealthy people leaving, but there are also plenty coming in again, and actually the UK as a whole tends to have a fairly mobile population of high net worth individuals, so it's nothing particularly out of the ordinary. What does seem different perhaps is going the other way that in the latter half of the year, I mean, I've heard lots of stories anecdotally and subsequently kind of um more figures to back those up, that there's large uh numbers of US donors and wealthy individuals moving their assets into the UK, um, and also sort of US foundations setting up um outposts or offshoots in the UK as well to do at least part of their giving. Um so I think that will be really interesting to see if that trend continues, because from what I understand, you know, it's quite significant already. And some of these donors, whether individual or institutional, are sort of seeking, I think, a safe haven from some of the uncertainty and political turmoil that's going on in the US. How long that continues to go on, I don't know, and what it means in terms of the impact that those donors have on the UK, both in terms of their donations to UK institutions and charities, and whether it has a knock-on effect on the sort of wider culture of philanthropy in the UK, I think will be really interesting to keep a watch on. Um the other potentially kind of interesting thing from the point of view of positive news for philanthropy in the UK is that uh it's just recently announced that there's a new chair of the Charity Commission for England and Wales, the regulator that we have in England and Wales for charities, as the name would suggest. Uh, and that is Dame Julia Unwin, um, who I've met a number of times before and I've always uh got on enormously with and I have a huge amount of uh time for. But it's really interesting because she is somebody I think who is deeply rooted in the charity sector and also has a sort of deep understanding of philanthropy, having worked at the Joseph Browntree Foundation in the past, um also chaired the Civil Society Futures Commission uh a number of years back. So I think it will be really interesting to see what impact that has on narrative and messaging about uh the charity sector, but also about philanthropy in the UK, because the the chair of the charity commission, it always strikes me, seems to have quite an important role, perhaps more so than many chairs, in terms of representing the organization as a figurehead and particularly in sort of setting a tone about what the government thinks about um the charity sector and and civil society. And I think that will be really important because it also comes at a time when there are undoubted challenges for organisations in the UK. Uh, so one that that is very apparent is the rise of populism and far-right ideology and the impact that that's having. Initially, obviously, on organisations that work on issues around things like um migrant rights and refugee uh rights, and many of those organizations uh sadly I know have seen an enormous upsurge in terms of uh threatening behavior, phone calls, uh kind of in some cases attacks on their offices or on their staff, and have had to take measures such as instituting safe rooms, uh kind of moving uh headquarters, and also the charity commission has been brought in to remove, in some cases, the names of trustees from the online information that's available about certain organizations so that those people can't then be uh targeted. I think also what we've seen the sort of very early signs of are funders being drawn into some of these uh attacks as well. So there have been uh a number of kind of examples where foundations and trusts that are funding uh work, particularly around refugees and migrants, again, they have been singled out as kind of part of the problem. And lots of the the kind of rhetoric that you see in populist right-wing attacks in the US and in other places have been brought to bear in terms of calling these people, you know, traitors and sort of undermining the will of the people in order to fund open borders and all this sort of thing. And I think given that issues around um migration and refugees are unlikely to uh settle down over the next uh year or so, I suspect that we'll see a lot more of this in the UK charity sector. And so the regulator is going to have uh a real role to play in kind of helping the sector to manage that. This also touches on something else that I think we need to um keep a watch on, which is the cultural influence of the US. I think in terms of the rise of populism and the far right, it's obviously not being driven by the US. We're perfectly capable of having our own far right uh in the UK, and we have done for a long time. Thank you very much. But it it is being kind of supercharged to some extent by that, both in terms of funding. I mean, there is uh a reasonable amount of evidence that funding from the US has come in to fund various kind of uh populist organizations in the UK, and increasingly in terms of the sort of narrative and political rhetoric, politicians in the US increasingly seem to be kind of interested in what's happening in the UK and Europe, and uh mostly in a very critical way, and they are uh sort of aligned with the narrative of parties like reform, but also kind of more far-right organizations in the UK. And I think also sort of going beyond that, the the question of the influence of US policies and the kind of policy creep um is also really interesting. We've seen examples this year where corporate organizations and and other funders have perhaps changed the language they use or sort of rowed back on commitments to issues that are clearly identifiable as kind of diversity, equity and inclusion issues or social justice issues. And in some cases, you know, the suspicion is that this is partly because they want to uh remain able to do business in the US, and increasingly it's sort of difficult to do that if you are seen to be uh kind of espousing DI or doing things that run counter to the Trump administration's views on that or on climate issues, indeed. And I think we will see more of that over the coming year, particularly I think where corporates are involved because there's an obvious kind of business motive for uh you know going with the grain uh there, and that then may have a knock-on effect for uh foundations that are aligned or associated with those corporates. Um, and it may also be that individual philanthropists in some cases decide to temper what they're doing because they don't want to imperil their their business interest, and so again, decide to sort of um you know not not kick up a fuss or do anything that's likely to draw unwanted attention towards them. The other challenge for uh the UK charity sector, I think, is unfortunately one that comes from the government itself. I'd say despite what I've already said about the current enthusiasm for the uh amongst the government for the impact economy and and philanthropy, I think at the same time uh there are challenges in terms of civil society freedoms in the UK. I mean, granted, not as bad as they are in some other places, but still not great. I think increasingly the Labour government seems to take a fairly kind of authoritarian view of issues like freedom of association and the right to protest. Um, the prescribing of Palestine action earlier this year caused um sort of great amount of debate, and we're still seeing kind of protests being organized in support of Palestine action and and the sort of fundamental principle of you know it being a very dangerous, slippery slope for the government to outlaw organisations that many people feel are engaging in kind of legitimate forms of protest, albeit at you know the kind of the relatively extreme end of the spectrum, uh, because you know, where does that then stop? I think the other things that we'll see in terms of philanthropy um and civil society in the UK. Um, so one is I think there'll be more pressure on foundations or on charitable trusts. Um, I think both in terms of scrutiny, but also I think, you know, a sense that there's definitely a narrative that has developed over the last year or 18 months about the challenge with foundations uh either deciding to kind of pause their grant making or to stop for a period of time, um, or that they're not giving enough full stop because they're not paying out a sort of high enough percentage of their assets on an annual basis. And I think at a time, as we've already said, when other sources of funding are increasingly difficult to come by and the challenges facing many charities in terms of the demands on their services are becoming more acute. Um, I think if there are organizations whose sort of sole reason to exist is to fund charities and the perception is that they're not doing it enough, um, then I think there will be a kind of an increasingly critical view of that. Um, on the flip side, obviously, for those funding organizations, I know very well that many of them, you know, the reality is that they are massively overwhelmed by the volume of um uh uh requests for funding that they're getting, and whether that is just a reflection of the fact that um, you know, increasingly other sources of funding are declining. So be you know, charities are turning towards grantmakers like uh foundations and trusts, or whether there are other aspects to it. For instance, I know quite a few people I've spoken to have suggested that ChatGPT and other AI tools have played a part here because they've made it much easier for organizations to produce grant making or uh grant applications at scale very easily. And so suddenly the volume of grant applications that lots of trust and foundations are being faced with has gone up, you know, if not exponentially, they're not far off. Um, and they haven't yet worked out how to deal with that or what the response should be. At the same time, I think you know, there's pressure on foundations, there's definitely pressure on the charities, so let's you know not pretend that it's it's an either-or thing. And I think one of the things that unfortunately we will see over the course of this year is more evidence of that pressure, um, both at organizational level in terms of more charities being forced to close or to merge with other organizations, and also at an individual level, I think, in terms of you know the levels of burnout that we're seeing, particularly amongst people in sort of leadership positions in charities, which is very difficult at the moment. I think being a charity chief executive or or sort of um you know senior leader in the charity sector is extraordinarily hard at this point in time, because as I say, the demands on many organizations are uh enormous, and at the same time, the um the funding landscape uh is extremely difficult. So um many of them are finding themselves being sort of pulled in multiple different directions in ways that are frankly unsustainable. Just a couple of other things for my thoughts on what we might see in UK philanthropy. So one is the link to what I've already said about sort of renewed government enthusiasm for philanthropy. I think one of the interesting aspects of that is that whenever a government comes in, the question of whether or not they're enthusiastic about philanthropy has to be filtered through the particular sort of political ideology and political views of that government. And a Labour government can definitely be enthusiastic about philanthropy, but I think is always going to take a different view of it or put a different spin on it than a Conservative government might, for instance. And I think we're still figuring out what that spin might be exactly, but one aspect of it that seems pretty clear is that there's going to be a very clear sort of place-based angle. There's a lot of enthusiasm for the idea of place-based giving and sort of place-based philanthropy coming out of government at the moment. So I think there will be a lot more focus on that. The other thing that I think we'll see increasingly is a focus on the value, the role that civil society plays as kind of the infrastructure for associational life. I think increasingly, as we're aware of you know, this crisis of loneliness and issues around sort of polarization and division in society, the idea that charities and voluntary organizations and associations of various kinds can be the place in which people can come together in a meaningful way, sometimes kind of across seeming political divides, is gaining in currency. And I think this will start to be part of the narrative, if not the sort of policy drive that government puts forward about the charity sector. And in practical terms, I think the really interesting question there is, you know, what does that mean in terms of actual physical spaces? Because again, you know, it's easy to talk in abstract terms about associational life and social capital and blah, blah, blah. But what it generally means is actually having a sort of bricks and mortar place for people to come together. And obviously, you know, un unless you have uh faith involved and there's a religious element and people are kind of congregating in a in a um a temple or a church, that then requires some other form of community building. And and many of those sort of community buildings and community spaces have gone by the wayside over the recent decades, which is why I think it's really interesting that I noticed just in the last week or so the UK government has uh announced a big new commitment to fund youth centres uh in the UK, which I think is fascinating because in a way it's part I think it's an example of a wider trend maybe that we'll see, which is things that might have been seen as, in a way, a little bit old-fashioned or not kind of, you know, cutting-edge strategic philanthropy, like funding youth centres, but but still important, and things that you know some philanthropists and donors and organizations might well have thought was just worth doing for its own sake, actually can be reframed as the most cutting edge of all philanthropy if what you're interested in is kind of addressing the underlying causes of division and polarization in society, and addressing the rise of the far right and doing things about young people's kind of health and mental well-being and all this sort of stuff. Um, so actually, I wonder if there'll be other ways in which people kind of rediscover things that we used to take for granted or to know perfectly well were worth funding, but actually we'll have found a kind of new narrative that that allows that to be squared with the desire to be a kind of strategic, forward-looking philanthropist. And then the other final thing that I think is potentially interesting uh in terms of philanthropy trends is one thing I've noticed this year is a growing amount of interest in the lines between corporate world and the private sector and the non-profit sector, particularly around instances where you have non-profit ownership of companies. So I think this kind of came to light over the last few years because of the big story about Patagonia and Yvonne Schuinard's uh handing over ownership of Patagonia into a newly created non-profit um last year, I think it was. And Michael Bloomberg's made a similar announcement about his intentions to do something like that. There's obviously been the whole kind of saga about OpenAI and it, you know, its non-profit ownership structure, and Sam Altman's attempts to overthrow that, which he's finally kind of admitted defeat in. Um but as a result, I think people have become aware that there are lots of examples of this kind of structure happening in other places around the world, particularly in parts of Europe. Um I think the idea of sort of enterprise foundations has really is quite a sort of hot area of um of research and interest at the moment. I think both from people within the corporate world who are sort of interested in the potential benefits from a corporate point of view that you can get through having these long-term stewardship structures in place, but also from the non-profit sector in terms of, you know, what does it look like to own a company like Nova Nordisk, for instance. The Nova Nordisk Foundation is the largest foundation in the world, I think, still currently, um, because it owns an enormously successful company that produced Azempic, amongst other things, and as a result has vast amounts of uh reserves that it can deploy. And I think there are kind of lots of interesting questions being asked about whether these models could be developed further and in different contexts. Okay, so in the next section, I'm gonna come on to some broader societal trends just briefly, so stay tuned for that. Okay, so uh we're back, and yeah, I just want to talk a bit about some sort of broader societal trends that I think are worth flagging up. We're definitely uh not going to run short on this one, are we? So, you know, my apologies for up front if I promised that this was gonna be some sort of brief version of the podcast. But anyway, let's get into a couple of these. So that there are just a few things that I've been noticing, uh both in my own reading, um, but also I think in looking at kind of other predictions and trends that are put forward in in other consumer uh sectors and and in various kind of uh other publications that I've seen, and trying to kind of read across to what might be relevant for the sort of work that I'm interested in. There have been a few things that I've noticed. So, one is a real sense of a rise in individualism, um, not necessarily in a kind of everybody selfish way, or we're all kind of atomized, but more a kind of almost a positive focus on the individual. And often this takes the form of one of the things I've noticed in almost all write-ups of trends that we should be looking for next year is a real emphasis on people looking for comfort and de-stressing, um, and the sort of idea of kind of well-being selfishness that you need to kind of prioritize your own needs and look after yourself. And I think largely, you know, whilst combating the rise of anxiety in society and burnout within many different sectors and and particularly amongst younger people, you know, kind of systemic issues with mental health and well being, I think this is important to a degree. But I do think there's a really interesting question about whether even those positive Positive narratives about prioritizing your own individual needs might contribute further to the sort of erosion of associational life that we're also concerned about. And I wonder whether civil society organizations need to kind of engage in some of this narrative and if not challenge it, then sort of continue to make the case for collective forms of well-being as well as individual ones. So sort of making the point that actually, yes, focusing on yourself and your own individual needs is important, but actually it's equally important to focus on both the needs of others but also our needs as a as you know kind of social animals and as a society. And that actually, if what you're looking for is happiness and well-being, I think the idea that that can that can be found solely in kind of individual solutions may be selling people a lie to some extent, and that actually people need to realize that genuine happiness and well-being will only come through these more kind of communal forms of well-being. I think linked to this idea of well-being, there are a few other things. So one that I'm really interested in is not just sort of well-being, but kind of pure escapism. It's an idea that like the world is pretty tough at the moment. And actually, what people want is to just be able to kind of switch off and and kind of disappear and not have to think about it. And I definitely get that. I mean, I I don't watch a lot of challenging TV at the moment. I I sit down and I put on you know Netflix and I think, ooh, am I going to watch this difficult German documentary series about something awful, or you know, am I just going to watch this entirely throwaway nonsense that I know is not going to be very edifying, but probably going to wash over me in a kind of pleasant way? It tends to be the latter these days, I have to say. I think the other thing you know we've seen a lot of is a kind of rise of nostalgia as well, in a in an interesting way, often sort of nostalgia for times that you don't even remember. So certainly among younger generations, um, I mean, I know my own kids absolutely love watching Friends, and again, maybe that's sort of combining the escapism and nostalgia thing, and they obviously have no idea about it first time round, so they're not nostalgic for it in a sense that it's something that they themselves remember, but there's a kind of cultural nostalgia. Um, and I wonder whether uh sort of civil society organizations can tap into this desire for nostalgia and escapism. It's difficult in a way, particularly around escapism, because you don't want to then pretend that you know the work that you do is not important and that you people can kind of switch off from issues, but whether there are ways to kind of harness what people are looking for in terms of that desire for escapism and nostalgia in the way that you talk about the work that you do, I think that's a really interesting question. Bigger issue, I think, or theme that kind of cuts across a lot of things, um, again, that you read about a lot in terms of consumer trends at the moment is authenticity. And this links to the idea of individualism as well. I think people increasingly, we're definitely told, want companies and organizations that they interact with to be authentic. So just one example of this I pulled from a um trends report from Euromonitor about consumer trends, they say overly curated perfection and the status quo are no longer compelling. Uh instead, unapologetic assertion and genuine connection are valued, even when that comes with provocation or polarization. Authenticity has moved beyond a desirable brand trait to a social currency. And I think there's something interesting there. They also say brands that prioritize niche communities over broad appeal create stronger, lasting loyalty. Staying true to core values is crucial as people demand authenticity, even if that risks alienation. So I think in both those two, there's two really interesting things. One is this idea that actually, if you want authenticity, you maybe have to sacrifice broad appeal and sort of focus on a narrower appeal to communities, but that creates a much sort of deeper sense of connection and loyalty to what you're doing. And I think that obviously has, you know, clear relevance to the work of charities. You know, do you try to be all things to all people, or do you accept that some people are never going to like you or be interested in you, and instead kind of focus on those that uh are more already sort of part of your community, or or sort of multiple communities that you can uh bring along with you? The other bit that is really interesting to me is this idea that um that actually people prize authenticity so much that even when that means that that what is being produced is provocative or polarizing, they don't mind. And again, if that's genuinely true for consumers, I think that's a really interesting lesson uh potentially for charities. You know, I think if there had been any sense before now that actually what you needed to do was kind of tone things down and make it more palatable to a general audience, actually, if the trends are saying you need to be doing exactly the opposite and to be more authentic and to sort of speak out on things, even if that does risk kind of putting some people off, in order to appeal to those who are more minded to go along with you, then that seems like a sort of fundamental difference. And I do wonder whether it will require um civil society organizations to take a stronger line on issues. Obviously, the challenge there is what what does that mean in terms of taking a stronger line? Is that just on the issues that are their fundamental cause area, in which case that's sort of fine, that's a that's a kind of tactical or strategic choice. Or is it that increasingly supporters or potential supporters will expect organizations to take a strong line on all sorts of issues, even if that's nothing to do with the organization's cause area, and to take a position that aligns with all of that individual's views and values. And that is a difficult challenge, I think, for charities if they're increasingly sort of held accountable not just for what they do or say around their cause area, but around what they do or say when it comes to all sorts of other potential issues that people happen to have a view on. And we're definitely already seeing some of that. I think there are also other issues or interesting questions when it comes to authenticity about what that looks like in a digital environment and how that operates, because I think there are particular challenges when it comes to authenticity. Obviously, the the rise of things like deep fakes and the ability to kind of create very um credible looking but artificially generated content, either sort of benignly or with malicious intent, uh, has potentially a kind of enormous impact on public trust and the way in which authenticity operates in the in the online world. And I think we will see challenges around that over the coming year as well, when organizations may find that they are the subject of kind of deep fake uh attacks, which you know are increasingly on the rise because it's much easier to create these sorts of things. I can certainly see over the course of the coming year that there may be examples where organizations that work on kind of contentious or polarizing issues find that people sort of produce content purporting to be them, um saying things that they never said uh in order to kind of further cloud the debate. So um I think it'll be really interesting to keep an eye on that as well. Another interesting thing, I think, linked to this question of authenticity, is around who is saying things. So I think one of the things that it's been identified as a trend in lots of what I read is the rise of individuals rather than organizations as a source of authority. Um so in in one of these consumer reports, for instance, it says, you know, partnering with authentic, relatable micro influencers builds trust. And I think we're just starting to see the early signs of what that means for charities. Um I think traditionally, charities would have thought that they, as organizations and their brands, were the things that carried authority and authenticity. But actually, what if that's no longer the case and you need to recognize the role of individuals who can sort of bring them whole their whole selves to bear, and that they are the ones that develop those kind of authentic um relationships with uh with an audience and that you need to work with them or work through them. Um case in point, I think, was the somewhat surprising announcement in the last month or so that the Rockefeller Foundation is teaming up with Mr. Beast, the YouTube influence, who I've talked about on the podcast and written lots and lots of things about in the past. Um, and this was really interesting because obviously both sides in this arrangement felt as though they had something to gain. So Mr. Beast felt as though he had something to gain from working with the Rockefeller Foundation and getting the advantage of its years of knowledge and its infrastructure when it comes to kind of doing philanthropic work and delivering programs. But clearly the Rockefeller Foundation felt like it's getting something out of Mr. Beast as well, which is access to an audience, yes, but also I think it is to some extent the recognition that reaching that audience is only possible through uh an influencer who kind of already has that individual relationship with with uh the people that they're speaking to. And I do one of the things I think we'll see more examples of in 2026 is philanthropic organizations working with influencers of one kind or another to try and tap into to some of that for themselves. I think the other thing that will be interesting here is that um this rise of individual authority is not necessarily just about YouTubers and kind of working with them or with Twitch streamers. I think it's also uh potentially within uh organizations within the non-profit sector as well. So I think um there was an interesting blog I read the other day from Joe Saxton, who's the chair of the Association of Chairs here in the UK, and he was highlighting, you know, in his view, one of the challenges with the UK sector at the moment, charity sector, is a sort of a lack of personalities in a way, and that as a result, it's sort of there's less for people to latch onto, and that as a result, the the sector gets less of a voice, certainly with the kind of mainstream public and potentially with politicians. And I think there's something in this because I think increasingly it's obvious from the way that the world is going, and certainly the way that politics is going, that personalities and individuals, you know, do uh kind of rule the day. And I think there's potentially an interesting tension there with the desire to kind of de-center the individual within civil society and for people to sort of not put themselves at the centre of the story. Actually, I wonder if there does need to be more of an emphasis on personal brand building or kind of you know identity as the way of um driving messages uh forward as well and kind of reaching an audience. I also wonder if if that happens within the charity sector, whether there'll be interesting other knock-on effect. So if there are more kind of strong characters within organizations whose personal brand is not necessarily entirely tied to the organization they work for, will that allow more space for collaboration as well? Because it's actually people are less wedded to you know the badge that's on the particular door on their business card, and they're more kind of just working with other individuals through networks. And does that mean that we'll get more sort of collabs and remixes to use the uh you know the the way that the youth speak these days? God, sorry, my children would be absolutely mortified if they heard me saying that. But do you think we'll get more sort of collabs and remixes in the the charity sector world as well? And then I guess finally on the influencer point, yeah, I've already said you know, influencers don't have to be YouTubers. They, you know, they can be people who work within charities, but they can also, I think, when charities or philanthropic funders are thinking about how to tap into this idea of individual influence, think about who they are funding. So I think you know, community leaders, for instance, can also be influencers. There's really interesting reports on the future or like trends in journalism over 2026 from Neiman Labs. And one of the things that struck me in that, which I thought was relevant to this, they say if you want a glimpse of the future of news, don't look at dashboards or innovation labs. Look at the barbershop, the church hall, the group chat, the neighbor who becomes a newsroom by necessity. That's where the future is already taking shape. In 2026, the rest of the industry will finally notice. So they're sort of saying actually the place in which news gets disseminated often now is at the level of kind of people who already have a measure of influence within their community. And you know, I wonder if sort of latching onto that or kind of tapping into that kind of insight could be important for charities as well. Another thing just linked to both both the question of influences and sort of individuals, I think there will be more debate about the impact of the attention economy and this idea that actually increasingly the sort of scarce resource in society is our attention. I think on the one hand, there will be further concerns about the impact of social media on young people and on all of us and on our mental health. And I think, as I've said in previous years, challenges for charities, therefore, when it comes to thinking about how they use these tools and whether it's sort of problematic to continue to use them if we know that they have these harmful effects. I think also the other thing is I've seen some interesting pushback um recently on the idea that you know the direction of travel is to ever shorter forms of content and the people don't have any attention anymore. And actually, one of the things that's been interesting this year is the rise of kind of long-form video and YouTube essays and things like that. So actually, and podcasts as well. I mean, you know, this one's definitely long-form, I think we can all agree. But increasingly, I think, you know, younger people in particular do have an appetite for longer form content. And I wonder if charities and civil society organizations who feel sort of frustrated by the idea that they have to constantly turn everything they say into a 30-second soundbite or a 20-second TikTok video might actually, you know, that stuff probably is going to be important, but to balance it out with trying to kind of engage more with longer forms of content that allow a bit more space for the discussion of issues as well. Just sort of sticking with social media for one more second, the uh one of the other things that I think is really interesting has been the lots of people have noticed there increasingly seems to be this desire for real life participation and engagement and sort of offline experiences. Um, so there are people talking about ideas like sort of hacking the algorithm, where younger people particularly are sort of looking for ways to you know not just have anything algorithmically fed to them on a spoon, and also at the same time a desire for a sense of genuine participation and belonging. Um so seeing the things like the rise of quiet these quiet vacations, which is where people essentially go on holiday in order to kind of switch off all of their devices and just have a bit of time kind of being more present in the moment, but also in terms of people choosing sort of offline experiences that that allow them to interact with other people and sort of you know, actually that sense of wanting to participate and have a sense of community is really important. And obviously, for civil society organizations, this is you know their absolute bread and butter. And so I think you know they're pushing at an open door in a way when you're trying to kind of promote the the value of things like volunteering and getting involved with uh charities and community groups, if there is a real kind of you know unmet appetite out there, particularly amongst a younger generation, you just have to make sure I think that you're offering those opportunities in a way that appeals to those groups. And then the other thing I think in terms of um societal trends, which is doesn't really bear any relation to the things that I've already said, but is I think really important um and is something I've talked about previously on the podcast and I've written about at length and I've mentioned, I think, in previous prediction podcasts, is around all the issues around population and increasingly the acknowledgement that there is a sort of massive population decline in many parts of the world, certainly in the US and the UK. I think this has been going on for a few years now, and I think when I previously spoke about it, I said, you know, actually it could be portrayed as an issue more, you know, of the right wing kind of associated with people who are interested in ideas of sort of pronatalism, and people like Elon Musk are, you know, very interested in this sort of stuff, and it turns into all kinds of dis you know unpleasant views around things like eugenics. But I think what's been interesting this year is an increasing sense that this is not an issue that is right or left, or particularly on any part of the political spectrum. I think it's just a sort of general acknowledgement that the data shows that there is a demographic issue in terms of declining uh fertility and birth rates in many parts of the world, not in all parts of the world, as to be said. And I guess the response to that depends on whether you think that that is a problem or not. I think for people who often do think it's a problem, it's because it's tied up with an idea that what as a result, what will happen is a sort of demographic shift where there are large kind of uh migratory movements across the world, um, and also other countries that have been traditionally sort of not had a seat at the table might increasingly become economic powerhouses because simply they have more people and their populations are growing at a at a higher rate. And I think, you know, this I think this debate around sort of population, as I say, has become more mainstream. It's not just a kind of fringe interest anymore. I think it's something that politicians and gov lots of governments around the world are starting to think about, probably too late to be honest, because I think one of the things about these kind of demographic trends is by the time you've noticed them, it's probably already too late to do very much about it. They just they have a slightly sort of inexorable force because of the time frames that we're talking about. Um, but I do think it's worth flagging up from the point of view of philanthropy, because as I say, I've written before, and I put links in the show notes to places where you can read more. There's a very long history of concerns about population being tied in with philanthropy and philanthropy having an interest either in trying to increase birth rates or to decrease them or to decrease them when it comes to certain groups in very problematic ways. Um, and I do think we will see more of that and sort of more philanthropy and uh focus on either you know trying to address these issues by promoting pronatalism or you know, it will have a knock-on effect on other issues, as I say, around kind of uh migration and other things. So I think this is something very much to be aware of. Okay, well, we're over the hour, and that's only two of the three sections. So in the final section, I'm gonna come on and just talk a little bit about a few trends in tech that I think are worth paying attention to. So stay tuned for that. Okay, so we're back for the final section, and I promise, I think, that I'm gonna keep this pretty brief, but I just want to talk about a few tech trends that I think are interesting and relevant to uh charities and philanthropy. So the first is I've talked for a number of years now about the sort of growing platformization of giving, so the idea that an increasing amount of philanthropic giving is happening through online platforms, whether they are uh special purpose non-profit platforms or increasingly sort of commercial platforms, whether those are payment platforms or social media platforms. And you know, I think this is still a trend that is we're continuing to see. The angle on it, I think, that has more come into my mind this year links to Corey Doctorow's idea around end shittification, which if you don't know is the he's identified this process where pro uh platforms in particular over time seem to go through this process where at first they kind of treat their users wonderfully and and kind of lock them in and make the platform somewhere that they absolutely need to be. Then they start um taking advantage of their commercial uh their sort of individual users by selling advertising and things to business users, and the experience becomes much worse for the individual user. Then they start screwing over the business user and and it becomes much less use for the business user, and then at the end of it the platform has turned into a pile of crap. Um and this is, you know, I think anyone who has bought things on Amazon in recent years would recognise this. And similarly, I mean, I think I mean it's a more extreme version with what happened to Twitter or X, but it's certainly part of this kind of general arc. And I wonder whether we need to be wary of the end shittification of giving, particularly as an increasing amount of giving is happening through sort of commercial platforms. This process whereby those platforms offer something that looks really, really great for free to start with, and then once users, whether they're donors or charities are locked into that, start then sort of taking advantage uh of them uh to sell things to the commercial customers and then over time you know start to offer a less good deal for those commercial customers, and it ends up being something that's of no use to anybody, I think is um is a really interesting question. I wouldn't say this is necessarily an example, but I was thinking of this already, and then the story about um GoFundMe creating uh fundraising pages for all the nonprofits in uh 501c3 nonprofits in in the US that were on there. sort of without asking them, that really struck me because there was a real blowback to this story, because essentially they'd created these pages, which firstly I think people the people involved with those nonprofits didn't like because they hadn't been asked. Secondly they didn't like because they were worried that then in terms of uh search um that those GoFundMe pages would turn up before the nonprofits pages, which initially didn't seem like much of an issue, but then it turned out that GoFundMe had paid for some optimization that meant that that was going to happen. And then thirdly quite a lot of the information on those pages in some cases it turns out wasn't very accurate and it wasn't possible really for anybody to do anything about it very easily. So GoFundMe it has to be said did apologize and I think maybe they've sort of learned some lessons but it definitely feels like an example of the potential risks that come when more and more giving is happening through platforms and those platforms are constantly seeking to bring on board more users and to kind of get more value out of those users. So I think watch that space. Another angle I think there's a bunch of things I think around AI that are worth paying attention to I think one is an increasing awareness of the the rise of AI slop and I think AI slop was indeed at least one dictionary's word of the year this year. But this is in some cases fairly sort of harmless stuff. You know it's all the kind of god awful imagery that that is on LinkedIn for instance and is clearly just AI generated and it's just a sort of awful lowest common denominator style that makes you just feel icky. But it's also I think has more pernicious uh kind of aspects to it as well. I was just seeing an example in the last few days where um an organization uh involved in the Scottish Highlands, uh it was a message board I think had warned that people needed to be really careful because um increasingly what they're finding on their forums when people are asking for advice about walking is that there are just kind of AI generated bot answers essentially kind of slop being put in that sounds very credible but just gives very bad advice and tells people things about how you can safely walk on particular mountains that is just palpably not true. And I don't there wasn't any sense that this was particularly being produced maliciously for a purpose. It's just these things are out there now and they can you know they're just out out operating in in the wilds of the the digital realm and then you know they end up just doing this and producing um this content that is uh that looks sort of credible um but is you know dangerously misguided and and incorrect. I think around that as well I mean not even just the slop end of AI but just the the even the better kind of gener uh generative AI content, I think there's going to be some really interesting questions over the coming year about the ethics of using generative AI tools for nonprofits. So we've already seen a few examples over the last few years and certainly this year where nonprofits have been kind of criticized for using generative AI. In some cases that uh the famous example so far was um I think it was Amnesty Norway where a few years ago they created um an AI image to illustrate a story a report they had out about police brutality in Colombia and they used a gen AI image and people sort of said well how can we even trust that this is an issue if you can't produce a you know a real world image of it. So I think there's an issue in terms of public trust there. But I think there are also concerns that when you use these generative AI tools because of the the biases that you get in in AI and the fact that it kind of replicates what's gone before and often sort of amplifies it, it might have unintended consequences. So there was a story this year about nonprofits that have been using generative AI imagery in sort of international development causes around fundraising and that this was sort of replicating the worst kind of poverty porn that we'd been trying very hard to get away from. So I think there will be increasing questions being asked over the coming year about when we should or shouldn't use these sort of generative AI tools. The other side of generative AI that I think is going to have a big impact in all years is around the impact it's having on search. So obviously one of the big things that seems to have happened with the rise of ChatGBT and other tools in the last few years is that increasingly that's the way people are finding information, which is partly you know with because a traditional search engine like Google has now decided to kind of shove an AI summary um at the top of the search page to sort of discourage you from using the traditional search. And this does have quite a sort of potentially profound knock-on effect. So if everybody is finding information through um chat GPT or or other kind of AI interfaces, what they're not doing is coming directly to your website anymore. And so increasingly it's sort of in the commercial world and other places they're talking about the need for people to you know Gen AI search optimization. So it's not about how do you get people to come to your website and then keep them there. It's about how do you produce information that is then going to be kind of harvested by Gen AI and presented to somebody you know through that interface and you know that you won't have any kind of direct ability to to affect that. And I think this is something that charities are starting to work out now. How do you kind of machine tool your website on the basis that you assume far fewer people are going to actually come to it and instead what they're going to see is the information that's been kind of scraped from it by an AI. And there's some interesting things I just read relatively recently for instance in the US that Candid, the data organization has announced it's got a partnership with Anthropic AI which produces the Claude um uh interface and they're basically going to provide candid data to um to Claude uh so that that can be used and hopefully then sort of provide more accurate data on on nonprofits when people are asking for information. And I think we'll see more examples both of those kinds of data partnerships but also at an individual organizational level of organizations having to think about that more. Another area I think would be really interesting is the use of AI for vibe coding. So this is basically where you use AI and GPT tools to help you write code that can then be run to sort of do something. And it's pretty incredible what can be done and it basically sort of you know democratizes code if if you know that's your view of it or it puts traditional coders and developers out of business if you're more critical of it. And there are lots of issues that have been raised about whether the um sort of code and programs that are produced using vibe coding are very secure or not. But I think it'll be really interesting to see whether this starts to have an impact in the nonprofit world as well because it opens up potentially the ability to create kind of digital tools using coding in a way that doesn't require you to have all sorts of developer skills which has always been traditionally I think quite a high bar for the nonprofit sector. More broadly in terms of the impact of AI I think the couple of things that you know sort of negative impacts that that have been highlighted this year that I think are interesting. One is around whether the phenomenon of cognitive offloading is going to become a problem. So this is essentially the idea that you know as we become more used to using these tools we're becoming lazier and lazier and basically sort of outsourcing our thinking to them. And there are definitely kind of um studies already that suggest that people get stupider when they use these kinds of tools longer term. And I think concerns about even more fundamentally what this will do to to our ability to think as we become sort of more used to using these tools. I think also not just at the level of thinking but at the level of individual relationships I think there are real sort of concerns out there now about people developing unhealthy relationships and reliances on AI interfaces and particularly on AI agents where it's very easy to sort of anthropomorphise them and you know it's known that these systems are very sycophantic. They basically sort of tell you what you want to hear but that they you know they will sometimes give advice that is you know not helpful or actively harmful or they'll kind of reinforce your views rather than challenging them where that's necessary. And you know as a result people might uh sort of develop more extreme points of view but also they might become sort of more cut off and and have fewer interactions with actual human beings. And I think this is the sort of thing where charities that work with younger people or around issues of sort of mental health and that kind of thing might find that they're increasingly being called upon to face new types of challenges. Then the final couple of things around tech that I think are worth keeping an eye on this year. So one is I think maybe we're just about reaching well I say this every year. There's a kind of sense with a few technologies that we're like we're not quite there yet but maybe this is the year and I think again maybe this is the year for a few of these things. I think we've been talking about autonomous vehicles for a long time and also about sort of smart home appliances. And they've both you know been around or about but not really taking off. I think um from what I understand this might be the year 2026 where autonomous vehicles genuinely do take off. I think they might even be on the road in a limited sense in the UK at least in sort of pilot phase. And I've seen various kinds of industry predictions suggesting this will be the year that sort of smart home appliance usage also really takes off. Probably not the time here to go into what all of the impacts of those for um uh philanthropy and charities are I think there are some interesting questions around sort of whether they make uh access to services particularly sort of transport more accessible certainly for people with you know visual impairments or other impairments when it comes to autonomous vehicles uh around smart home appliances again having things that rely on kind of conversational interfaces rather than visual ones uh could potentially have big accessibility um uh implications. Um I actually wrote um God almost 10 years ago now probably when I was doing lots of work on blockchain um uh a suggestion about how you could uh develop a sort of philanthropic washing machine uh a smart home appliance that was able to conduct microtransactions using uh its own kind of uh form of of money in order to sort of purchase maintenance and and supplies and that kind of thing and that you could factor in uh a bit a percentage of philanthropy to some of these microtransactions I'll put links in the show notes if anybody's interested to it if it turns out that that ever actually happens then I will just call myself Nostrodamus because at the time everybody looked at me very weirdly so and the other technology I think that we've been talking about over many years or certainly I have um and that maybe again we're at the point where it will actually come to fruition now is augmented reality virtual reality and and I guess things like smart glasses which again they've just never quite been out there in the wild although smart glasses are in a sort of limited way now but again the trends that I've seen and predictions for tech this year suggest that this might be the year that you kind of overcome some of the uncanny valley problems with uh VR and AR and also you overcome the problem that you look like an outside twit wearing smart glasses. So this might be the year that they kind of get much more mainstream adoption. And then the final one is a technology that maybe we're we're still a few years away from it genuinely having a an impact and certainly not an impact yet on philanthropy or on nonprofits but is quantum technology. So this is very hot right now and possibly is you know another bubble to go along with the AI bubble that we're potentially already in the middle of. But again not to go into detail about it now I'll put links in the show notes to a uh a guide from the website on what quantum technology is and some of my thoughts on how it might be applicable to philanthropy and civil society in the future. But I guess the the short version is this is the year when quantum technology has really started to be taken seriously by the private sector and there's lots of money going into sort of development of quantum computing in particular. I think what the actual applications of that are remain unclear at the moment but certainly when it comes to cybersecurity it has some pretty massive and fundamental implications both in terms of potential new forms of encryption but also the fact that lots of our existing sources of encryption will no longer be very secure anymore. So I think organizations start to have to think about how they future proof against a world in which quantum computing is widespread and that will include nonprofits and charities so that brings us to the end of some trends and predictions and thoughts about 2026 um I didn't manage to make it especially short which it should probably come to no surprise as no surprise to anyone but hopefully there were some things in there that you found interesting. I'll put links in the show notes to uh places where you can find various things that I've mentioned over the course of the podcast. If you're interested uh more broadly in philanthropy and civil society and you've got a bit of time over Christmas and new year uh do check out the website at whyphilanthropymatters dot com. Uh you can find lots of long form articles about all this kind of stuff and some guides uh to sort of issues and themes in philanthropy uh lots of back episodes of this podcast including other deep dives you can go back to previous years predictions and trends episodes and see uh how accurate I was if you really have a lot of time on your hands. Uh if you want to follow me on social media you can find me on LinkedIn and a little bit on Blue Sky. If you like the podcast uh and you think other people might like it do leave us a nice review wherever you get your podcasts and uh if you've got particular people in mind you think might like it, tell them. Going back to that uh in real life experience community building sort of thing maybe a great way to do that would be to tell somebody about your favourite nerdy philanthropy podcast and then see what kind of look you get and whether that's going to mean that that relationship is going to flourish or flounder. Other than that it just remains to say thanks ever so much for listening in 2025. I'll be back in 2026 in the age of quantum technology and smart glasses um for now just have a great festive season everybody and I will see you next time bye