Grab your badge, fuel up with breakfast, and get ready for the day. Come early to network, check the schedule, and head into the morning feeling set.

Nonprofits are facing a pivotal moment: rising needs, shrinking resources, and rapidly shifting donor expectations are exposing the limits of traditional fundraising. In the kick-off to Collaborative 2026, GoFundMe CEO Tim Cadogan will reflect on the evolving landscape nonprofits are navigating and the opportunity it creates to grow impact in new ways. Grounded in partnership and shared learning, he’ll discuss how organizations can adapt, innovate, and engage a new generation of donors, together. This is an invitation to reimagine what’s possible, and to build a more connected, generous future in partnership with one another.

Technology is accelerating. Regulations are evolving. Expectations are rising. Nonprofit leaders continue to face unprecedented challenges. In this session, executives reflect on the pivotal decisions, missteps, and breakthroughs that defined their journey, and explore what it will take to lead in the future.

We won’t grow total giving by asking more from the same shrinking base. We must invite more people in, earlier, more often, and in more ways. In this session, we’ll explore how community fundraising can become a growth engine. You’ll learn how to lower barriers to first action, expand supporter-led fundraising beyond traditional campaigns, and engage younger donors with experiences that reflect how they connect and give today.

Discover what motivates the next generation of philanthropic supporters, and hear directly from younger donors about the moments, messages, and movements that inspire them to take action. 

In this session, we’ll explore new research from GoFundMe and GivingTuesday examining how younger audiences discover causes, what drives their first gift, and what determines whether they stay engaged. Through data-backed insights and real stories of engagement, you’ll gain a clearer understanding of what the next generation expects from nonprofits today, and how to build authentic, lasting relationships with them.

Enjoy a midday break with a hosted lunch.

GoFundMe Pro users are invited to grab lunch and connect with fellow Pro members about best practices, helpful tips, and effective fundraising strategies.

When emergency strikes, or your organization must mobilize and react immediately, speed and trust are everything. This panel explores how nonprofits design and activate fundraising systems that engage donors quickly, communicate with clarity, and deploy funds where they’re needed most. Hear practical insights on infrastructure, partnerships, storytelling, and data strategies that power fast, effective, and accountable response.

Fragmented platforms and competing attribution models leave most nonprofits debating numbers instead of making strategic decisions. Join Luke Horgan of Community Boost to learn about the Nonprofit Performance Index (NPI)—a patented framework that transforms fragmented marketing data into a clear, actionable view of what drives fundraising performance.

Designed for GoFundMe Pro customers, this hands-on workshop will walk you through how to use Campaign Studio to build direct giving pages that are on-brand and optimized to perform. You’ll learn how to apply all the newly released features proven to help you raise more, all while making it easier to design and scale. 

Join Double the Donation for an interactive session on how workplace giving can strengthen donor connections and drive additional revenue. Learn how to educate supporters about employer-sponsored programs like matching gifts and integrate these opportunities into your donor journey to maximize impact and grow support for your mission.

Move beyond mass messaging and start creating meaningful, personalized moments for your supporters. In this session, you’ll learn how AI can help you better understand your donors, spark real conversations, and guide each person toward the action that matters most to them. Whether it’s donating, fundraising, volunteering, or advocating, you’ll see how to connect each supporter to the right next step. You’ll walk away with a new approach to donor engagement—one that’s more personal, more effective, and built for lasting impact.

Recurring donors are one of the most powerful drivers of long-term sustainability, yet building a thriving sustainer program rarely happens without experimentation, risk, and a few hard lessons along the way. In this session, you’ll hear from nonprofits that tested bold ideas, faced setbacks, and refined their approach based on what the data, and their donors, taught them.

In a crowded and constantly shifting landscape, strong nonprofit brands aren’t just recognizable, they’re resonant.

This session explores how to sharpen your mission through intentional storytelling, align your brand with the communities you serve, and stay culturally and digitally relevant without losing your core identity. Walk away with practical frameworks to clarify your narrative, unify internal teams around a cohesive voice, and tell a story that inspires action and drives measurable impact.

For the first time, we’ve brought GoFundMe’s proven peer-to-peer fundraising technologies to GoFundMe Pro nonprofit customers! In this user workshop, we’ll show you how to build this campaign step by step, perfect for DIY peer-to-peer and challenge-style fundraising. We’ll show the full supporter experience and share strategic tips for success. 

Note: You’ll need to claim your Nonprofit Page in GoFundMe Pro settings to unlock this feature.

Discover what makes a giving day succeed, from urgency to donor retention. After reviewing standout examples, participants will join one of two tracks: creating a new giving day or strengthening an existing one.

This interactive session emphasizes collaboration, practical ideas, and takeaways you can immediately apply.

Closing keynote by Elatia Abate, futurist and consultant who focuses on the future of work, AI, leadership, and strategy.

Explore what it takes to lead when conditions keep shifting, and to earn trust when certainty is limited. Drawing from the front lines of marketing and innovation, learn candid lessons on resilience, inclusive leadership, and staying relevant as technology reshapes entire industries. In a digital landscape that can unite or isolate, discover how to harness new tools to deepen generosity and belonging. The opportunity isn’t just to keep up, but to move the sector forward.

Brought to you by RKD Group. 

End Day 1 on a high note with light bites, drinks, music, and great conversation.

Pick up your breakfast and ease into the day with casual networking.

Kick off the day with one of Chicago’s most iconic “did we really just do that?” moments at The Ledge. As you step out onto the glass and take in the incredible views, the experience is designed to spark conversation and connection. Everyone will walk away with a printed photo to remember the moment. It’s a memorable way to bring your team together and spend time with GoFundMe’s leadership in a setting that’s both inspiring and fun.

Please note: This experience is only available for teams of 3 or more. Pre-registration is required.

Attendees are invited to grab breakfast and connect with professionals in direct services and crisis response to discuss real-time challenges, best practices, and responsive fundraising strategies.

Who should attend? Organizations focused on emergency response, basic needs, safety, and rapid service delivery.

Attendees are invited to grab breakfast and connect with peers in education and community development to exchange ideas, best practices, and community-driven fundraising strategies.

Who should attend? Organizations working to improve educational outcomes, youth development, civic engagement, and community conditions.

Attendees are invited to grab breakfast and connect with peers in healthcare and medical research to exchange best practices and innovative fundraising strategies.

Who should attend? Organizations focused on physical and mental health, medical access, disease-specific work, and healthcare systems.

Attendees are invited to grab breakfast and connect with peers in hunger relief and food access to share insights, best practices, and effective fundraising strategies.

Who should attend? Organizations whose primary mission is to ensure individuals and families have reliable access to nutritious food.

Opening keynote by Hamza Khan, future of work and people-first leadership expert and bestselling author. 

Many nonprofit leaders are exhausted. The challenges are compounding. The wins feel smaller. The pressure feels constant. It’s not that leaders don’t care, it’s that they’re tired of being told to “just stay hopeful.” This session acknowledges the paralysis that can set in when everything feels uphill. It explores what it looks like to push forward without false optimism, to act without guarantees, and to build momentum even when the broader environment feels stuck. Because in this moment, hope isn’t a feeling. It’s a decision to act.

Innovation doesn't happen in isolation - it happens in partnership. GoFundMe's product leaders take the stage to share an exciting look at the product roadmap: the features, enhancements, and strategic innovations on the horizon. Grounded in your feedback and fueled by collaboration, this session offers a candid look at how we're investing in the tools and capabilities that matter most - and where we go from here.

Innovation in the nonprofit sector isn’t defined by budget size. It’s driven by how you rethink programs, fundraising, partnerships, and operations to unlock greater impact.

In this results-focused session, nonprofit leaders will share real examples of ideas they’ve tested, what delivered results, and what they learned along the way. You’ll hear how organizations are unlocking new revenue streams, expanding their reach, and turning ideas into scalable action.

Aligned with GoFundMe’s commitment to help nonprofits raise more, reach more, and do it with greater ease, this session will give you practical approaches you can apply right away, along with the inspiration to keep moving forward.

Artificial intelligence is no longer just for tech companies, it’s a practical tool nonprofits can use today to save time, strengthen fundraising, and increase impact. In this session, we’ll explore real-world examples of how organizations are using AI for grant writing, donor engagement, communications, data analysis, and administrative efficiency, all on nonprofit budgets.

Take a midday break to recharge and connect. Enjoy lunch with fellow attendees and keep conversations going between sessions.

Reaching new audiences doesn’t happen by accident. In this session, nonprofits and the creators they partnered with reveal how they turned collaboration into high-impact fundraising campaigns that reached new audiences and drove real results. From identifying the right partners to aligning on messaging and mobilizing communities, you’ll walk away with a blueprint for cultivating creator collaborations that convert.

This workshop for GoFundMe Pro customers is designed to help you activate our latest recurring features and strengthen your overall recurring giving strategy. Learn how to leverage tools like recurring nudges and Intelligent Ask Amounts to drive monthly giving, boost conversion rates, increase donor lifetime value, and turn one-time donors into long-term supporters.

In an era of economic uncertainty, nonprofits are being called to plan with greater flexibility and foresight. 

Today’s K-shaped economy is driving divergent financial realities across households, with wealth growing for some while many middle-income households face increasing financial pressures. This shifts donor behavior, organizational stability, and community need. In this session, we’ll explore the macroeconomic forces behind this divide, from inflation and interest rates to changes in philanthropy and government spending. Through timely data and real-world examples, we’ll explore what this means for your revenue strategy, financial planning, and long-term resilience.

As the P2P landscape evolves, organizations that diversify their communication channels are seeing meaningful lifts in both fundraising and engagement. Join us for a conversation on how to incorporate text messaging into your outreach in a way that’s scalable, compliant, and rooted in the human connection your audience is looking for.

Building a communications strategy that includes texting might feel complex, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ll walk through how to make it practical, effective, and aligned with your supporters’ expectations.

For many nonprofits, 2026 is the year of the Salesforce transition from NPSP to Agentforce Nonprofit (Nonprofit Cloud). This session brings together GoFundMe Pro, Salesforce, and Cloud for Good for an open conversation about what this shift means for your fundraising stack.

Rather than a product demo, we’ll explore how organizations can approach the transition strategically, what’s changing in the ecosystem, and how to ensure fundraising performance remains strong throughout. Attendees will have the opportunity to share questions, learn from peers, and help shape the future of how fundraising platforms and CRM systems work together.

Search is no longer just about rankings. It’s about visibility wherever answers are delivered. As AI-powered engines reshape how people discover information, organizations must rethink traditional SEO. This session explores how SEO and AEO are converging, what that means for your digital strategy, and how to strengthen brand authority, protect acquisition channels, and drive sustainable growth in the AI era.

See what’s possible with GoFundMe Pro. This workshop explores how leading organizations are using the platform’s full capabilities to drive stronger results, with real customer examples that show how teams are optimizing campaigns and engaging supporters more effectively. You'll walk away with clear inspiration for putting more of GoFundMe Pro to work for you.

As technology accelerates and attention fragments, the future of generosity depends on nonprofits’ ability to build trust at scale—something only possible by cultivating genuine human connection in a noisy digital world.

Join Nathan Chappell, a global expert on AI and generosity, as he explores Radical Connection: a framework for moving beyond transactional fundraising toward long-term, trust-based engagement. Nathan will offer practical insights on leveraging technology, rethinking organizational priorities, and building a community that donors are proud to support.

Walk away with practical insights on building communities of support that grow generosity for the entire sector.

Donor-advised funds are reshaping modern philanthropy, but nonprofits still have questions around payout timing, transparency, and engagement. 

This candid discussion brings together nonprofit leaders, policy voices, and DAF experts to unpack how the system works today, what challenges are structural, and where real opportunities for influence exist. Walk away with a clearer understanding of the evolving DAF landscape and a practical playbook for turning complexity into strategy.

Couldn’t make this session on Day 1, no problem- we’re running it back. Designed for GoFundMe Pro customers, this hands-on workshop will walk you through how to use Campaign Studio to build direct giving pages that are on-brand and optimized to perform. You’ll learn how to apply all the newly released features proven to help you raise more, all while making it easier to design and scale. 

To close out Collaborative 2026, GoFundMe Chief Customer Growth Officer Steve Froehlich invites nonprofit leaders to reflect on the long-term impact of their work in a moment of rapid change. Introducing the idea of “cathedral thinking,” he’ll explore how faith, hope, and collective action can power ambitious, enduring solutions to society’s biggest challenges and highlight how organizations can work together to expand philanthropy, inspire new donors, and build lasting change. This is a call to carry the momentum forward – building boldly, collaborating deeply, and shaping a future that extends far beyond our own time.