2027 Agenda Coming Soon | Get notified when it goes live.
What if you could pressure-test your next fundraising appeal, donation page, or campaign before it goes live — not just with experts, but with a room full of experienced fundraisers facing the same challenges you are?
In this highly interactive, half-day workshop, the NextAfter team will work directly with participants to evaluate and optimize real fundraising assets, including websites, donation forms, emails, value propositions, ad copy, and campaigns. Attendees are encouraged to bring live projects and current challenges to the session.
More than a traditional critique, this workshop is designed as a collaborative learning experience. Guided by the NextAfter team, participants will gain insight not only from proven optimization principles but also from the collective experience of fellow nonprofit marketers and fundraisers.
Over the course of four hours, attendees will learn how to identify friction points, uncover opportunities for improvement, prioritize testing ideas, and develop a practical optimization roadmap they can apply immediately.
Whether you’re looking to improve conversion rates, sharpen messaging, or strengthen donor response, this workshop will equip you with actionable feedback and fresh perspective to take back to your organization.
Skip the badge pick-up lines at the Opening Party and on Day 1 of NIO Summit. Stop by the registration desk early on Tuesday to grab your badge, swag tokens, and exclusive NIO Summit 2026 collector’s pin ahead of time—then stroll straight into the Opening Party like an SNL cast member heading backstage.
Second Rodeo Brewing – Ft Worth Stockyards
122 E Exchange Ave, Ft Worth, TX 76164
Grab your boots and get ready for a night of live music, great food, and fundraising friends—because the Opening Party is where NIO Summit Live officially takes the stage.
Before the fundraising mic drops begin, join fellow attendees for a night of live music, and Texas-sized hospitality. Heavy appetizers and beverages are included, so you can grab a drink, swap stories, and settle in for some good music.
This is also your chance to pick up your name badge, swag tokens, and exclusive NIO Summit collector’s pin before the crowds roll in on Day 1.
Every great live show starts with a talented cast, a lively audience, and plenty of caffeine. Get a little pre-show buzz with strong coffee and a light breakfast while you scope out the exhibit booths and swag store. Join other nonprofit leaders before the cameras roll for Day 1 of NIO Summit Live.
You work hard to grow your email list, and you spend a lot of money in the process. But does all that work really pay off? We tracked 17 million email addresses over the course of 3 years to answer one question: what is an acquired email address actually worth? Ben Smithee will share the newest research study from NextAfter to show how email subscribers become donors, how long it takes to make their first gift, and the long-term revenue impact they have on your organization.
These sponsor-led presentations highlight innovative ideas, emerging strategies, and practical tools shaping the future of fundraising. Each showcase delivers actionable insights you can take back to your organization right away.
Innovation Showcase #1: 9:50 AM – 10:10 AM – Neon One: Low Friction, High Reward: Testing AI-Personalized Donation Amounts
Innovation Showcase #2: 10:20 AM – 10:40 AM – VWO: Optimize Every Donation: AI-Driven Experimentation for Nonprofits
Sponsor Exhibits:
Explore products, services, and solutions designed to help strengthen your fundraising program. Connect with industry partners, discover new tools, and gather fresh ideas throughout the day.
Hint: This is also where you’ll find snacks, beverages, and plenty of opportunities to recharge between sessions.
Innovation Showcase: Studio 8H
These sponsor-led presentations highlight innovative ideas, emerging strategies, and practical tools shaping the future of fundraising. Each showcase delivers actionable insights you can take back to your organization right away.
• Innovation Showcase #1: 9:50 AM – 10:10 AM – Neon One: Testing AI-Personalized Donation Amounts
• Innovation Showcase #2: 10:20 AM – 10:40 AM – VWO: Optimize Every Donation
Optimization Station:
Bring your donation pages, emails, campaigns, website copy, or fundraising challenges and get live feedback from the experts. Whether you need a quick tweak or a fresh perspective, the Optimization Station is your place for practical, actionable guidance.
Birds of a Feather Discussions:
Connect with peers who share your role, nonprofit sector, or fundraising focus area for informal, topic-driven conversations. These collaborative discussions are designed to help you exchange ideas, tackle common challenges, and learn from others navigating similar opportunities.
Swag Store:
The only currency accepted at the Swag Store is Swag Tokens, and earning them is half the fun. Visit sponsor booths, attend parties, engage throughout NIO, participate on social media to collect tokens and redeem exclusive NIO Summit gear and prizes.
Fundraising Jeopardy:
Test your knowledge in this experiential activity inspired by the classic game show and the SNL skit, with a fundraising twist of course. Compete to win real cash prizes against fellow attendees in fast-paced trivia rounds covering pop culture, nonprofit trends, fundraising knowledge, and a few unexpected surprises along the way. SPONSORED BY: iDonate & Powered by Text
AI has flooded the internet with more content than any organization can compete with. For associations and nonprofits, the answer isn’t producing more content. It’s building more trust.
In this session, Joe Pulizzi introduces the Trust Portfolio, a simple framework for growing donor loyalty by activating multiple trusted voices across your organization. Instead of relying on one brand voice, associations can leverage leaders, practitioners, beneficiaries, and advocates to create powerful, repeatable trust signals that attract and retain supporters.
Attendees will learn how to identify their organization’s natural trust assets, build a three-voice starter Trust Portfolio, and turn donors into long-term fans in an AI-saturated world.
It can often feel like we’re waiting for donors to arrive on our main donation page when they’re ready to give. But right now, subscribers and potential donors are already engaging with your organization, and many of those interactions end before they become an opportunity to give.
If you offer downloadable resources, maintain a blog, or send subscriber surveys, then Instant Donation Pages provide a practical way to turn those touchpoints into donor conversations.
In this session, you’ll learn how to identify these opportunities and turn existing engagement into stronger donor relationships and additional revenue—without creating new content or launching another fundraising appeal.
Takeaways:
Where hidden opportunities to give already exist across your website, content, and subscriber journeys.
How to turn existing engagement into natural opportunities to give that feel like the next step instead of an interruption.
Real examples of organizations creating new donor conversations and revenue from the content they already have.
Lunch: Enjoy a lunch break and network with fellow attendees. Share insights, and recharge for the afternoon sessions. This break provides a perfect blend of nourishment and opportunity to foster new professional connections.
Sponsor Exhibits:
Explore products, services, and solutions designed to help strengthen your fundraising program. Connect with industry partners, discover new tools, and gather fresh ideas throughout the day.
Hint: This is also where you’ll find snacks, beverages, and plenty of opportunities to recharge between sessions.
Optimization Station:
Bring your donation pages, emails, campaigns, website copy, or fundraising challenges and get live feedback from the experts. Whether you need a quick tweak or a fresh perspective, the Optimization Station is your place for practical, actionable guidance.
Swag Store:
The only currency accepted at the Swag Store is Swag Tokens, and earning them is half the fun. Visit sponsor booths, attend parties, engage throughout NIO, participate on social media to collect tokens and redeem exclusive NIO Summit gear and prizes.
Fundraising Jeopardy:
Test your knowledge in this experiential activity inspired by the classic game show and the SNL skit, with a fundraising twist of course. Compete to win real cash prizes against fellow attendees in fast-paced trivia rounds covering pop culture, nonprofit trends, fundraising knowledge, and a few unexpected surprises along the way.
SPONSORED BY: iDonate & Powered by Text
Learn how to build an Experimentation Culture and find more wins? Let me share how I increased the win-rate of 7 large Experimentation Programs.
What’s the value of the last video you posted? How do you know if it really worked or not? Videos are more than just brand awareness tools. They can effectively convert viewers into donors when you discover the right style and placement.
In this session, I’ll share a case study on how one organization set out to find the answers on how video content works best in direct response fundraising. You’ll walk away with a testing framework you can use to unlock the true power of video to generate more subscribers, donors, and revenue for your organization.
Three Takeaways:
Learn to use the video content you already have at your fingertips to generate donations
Discover what kinds of videos are most engaging for your audience
Unlock the full potential of your video content by optimizing where and when donors see it
For many nonprofits, Google is the center of their digital marketing universe. It’s familiar, measurable, and often effective. But relying too heavily on a single channel creates risk and limits growth. This session explores why channel diversification has become essential for nonprofit marketing teams and how to approach it without overwhelming limited resources. Drawing on real-world experience and proven success, the talk looks at what happens when organizations expand beyond Google thoughtfully, not reactively. Through case studies and practical strategy, attendees will learn how to evaluate new channels, connect them to existing efforts, and build a more resilient marketing mix that supports long-term goals.
These sponsor-led presentations highlight innovative ideas, emerging strategies, and practical tools shaping the future of fundraising. Each showcase delivers actionable insights you can take back to your organization right away.
Innovation Showcase: 3:15 PM – 3:35 PM – Fundraise Up: You look mahvelous – but does AI know it?
Sponsor Exhibits:
Explore products, services, and solutions designed to help strengthen your fundraising program. Connect with industry partners, discover new tools, and gather fresh ideas throughout the day.
Hint: This is also where you’ll find snacks, beverages, and plenty of opportunities to recharge between sessions.
Innovation Showcase:
These sponsor-led presentations highlight innovative ideas, emerging strategies, and practical tools shaping the future of fundraising. Each showcase delivers actionable insights you can take back to your organization right away.
• Innovation Showcase: 3:15 PM – 3:35 PM – Fundraise Up: You look mahvelous – but does AI know it?
Optimization Station:
Bring your donation pages, emails, campaigns, website copy, or fundraising challenges and get live feedback from the experts. Whether you need a quick tweak or a fresh perspective, the Optimization Station is your place for practical, actionable guidance.
Birds of a Feather Discussions:
Connect with peers who share your role, nonprofit sector, or fundraising focus area for informal, topic-driven conversations. These collaborative discussions are designed to help you exchange ideas, tackle common challenges, and learn from others navigating similar opportunities.
Swag Store:
The only currency accepted at the Swag Store is Swag Tokens, and earning them is half the fun. Visit sponsor booths, attend parties, engage throughout NIO, participate on social media to collect tokens and redeem exclusive NIO Summit gear and prizes.
Fundraising Jeopardy:
Test your knowledge in this experiential activity inspired by the classic game show and the SNL skit, with a fundraising twist of course. Compete to win real cash prizes against fellow attendees in fast-paced trivia rounds covering pop culture, nonprofit trends, fundraising knowledge, and a few unexpected surprises along the way.
SPONSORED BY: iDonate & Powered by Text
When problems arise in your fundraising program, the easy answer is often to ask for more budget or add more staff. While those solutions can be necessary, they can also mask operational inefficiencies or missed opportunities. What if you could get the same, or even better, results without changing your financial investment?
In this session, I’ll share three easy wins that will grow your names, donors, and dollars, all without costing you additional budget.
Three Easy Wins:
Are you utilizing your homepage traffic?
Do you have an email cadence outside of fundraising campaigns?
Are you showing higher gift arrays to your higher capacity broad-based donors?
Your donors may care. They may click. They may even start the form. Then something happens.
They hesitate. They get distracted. They wonder if their gift will matter. They tell themselves they will come back later. And later is where generosity often disappears.
In this entertaining and tactical session, Cherian Koshy, author of Neurogiving: The Science of Donor Decision-Making, reveals what is happening in the donor’s mind in the moments that matter most. Using neuroscience, behavioral science, and real fundraising examples, this session will help attendees understand why some optimized experiences move donors to action while others quietly leak generosity.
Attendees will learn how identity, emotion, trust, memory, and friction shape giving decisions across appeals, donation pages, stewardship, monthly giving, and retention. They will leave with a practical framework for making donor experiences easier to act on, easier to trust, and easier to remember.
Head back to your room, freshen up and grab a quick bite to eat. But don’t stray too far…you won’t want to miss the Official NIO Summit Party that starts at 8:00 PM at the iconic Billy Bob’s Texas!
Head back to your room, freshen up, and grab a quick bite to eat. But don’t stray too far because the night is just getting started. At 8:00 PM, we’re taking over the world-famous Billy Bob’s Texas for the official NIO Summit Party.
Get ready for an unforgettable night of live music, dancing, networking, and Texas-sized fun with your fellow fundraisers. Whether you want to hit the dance floor, catch up with friends old and new, or just experience one of the most iconic venues in Fort Worth, this is your chance.
After a full day of big ideas and fundraising inspiration, the Summit Party is where everyone comes together to relax, connect, and make memories that will last.
Sponsored by: RumbleUp
Every great live show starts with a talented cast, a lively audience, and plenty of caffeine. Get a little pre-show buzz with strong coffee and a light breakfast while you scope out the exhibit booths and swag store. Join other nonprofit leaders before the cameras roll for Day 1 of NIO Summit Live.
Producing content has become easy, but holding someone’s attention can still be a challenge. Drawing on lessons from screenwriting, this talk explores why some ideas pull us forward while others leave us cold. You’ll see how writers raise stakes and make audiences care what happens next, and how the same principles can strengthen everything from presentations and fundraising appeals to campaigns and everyday communications.
Expect practical examples and a simple framework for spotting when your communication is moving people forward and when it’s merely taking up space.
These sponsor-led presentations highlight innovative ideas, emerging strategies, and practical tools shaping the future of fundraising. Each showcase delivers actionable insights you can take back to your organization right away.
Innovation Showcase #1: 10:05 AM – 10:25 AM – Horton Cloud Solutions: From Fragmented Donor Data to AI-Ready: A Practical Roadmap for Nonprofit Data
Innovation Showcase #2: 10:35 AM – 10:55 AM – emma: Live from the Donor Journey, It’s Emma
Sponsor Exhibits:
Explore products, services, and solutions designed to help strengthen your fundraising program. Connect with industry partners, discover new tools, and gather fresh ideas throughout the day.
Hint: This is also where you’ll find snacks, beverages, and plenty of opportunities to recharge between sessions.
Innovation Showcase:
These sponsor-led presentations highlight innovative ideas, emerging strategies, and practical tools shaping the future of fundraising. Each showcase delivers actionable insights you can take back to your organization right away.
• Innovation Showcase #1: 10:05 AM – 10:25 AM – Horton Cloud Solutions: From Fragmented Donor Data to AI-Ready
• Innovation Showcase #2: 10:35 AM – 10:55 AM – emma: Live from the Donor Journey, It’s Emma
Optimization Station:
Bring your donation pages, emails, campaigns, website copy, or fundraising challenges and get live feedback from the experts. Whether you need a quick tweak or a fresh perspective, the Optimization Station is your place for practical, actionable guidance.
Birds of a Feather Discussions:
Connect with peers who share your role, nonprofit sector, or fundraising focus area for informal, topic-driven conversations. These collaborative discussions are designed to help you exchange ideas, tackle common challenges, and learn from others navigating similar opportunities.
Swag Store:
The only currency accepted at the Swag Store is Swag Tokens, and earning them is half the fun. Visit sponsor booths, attend parties, engage throughout NIO, participate on social media to collect tokens and redeem exclusive NIO Summit gear and prizes.
Fundraising Jeopardy:
Test your knowledge in this experiential activity inspired by the classic game show and the SNL skit, with a fundraising twist of course. Compete to win real cash prizes against fellow attendees in fast-paced trivia rounds covering pop culture, nonprofit trends, fundraising knowledge, and a few unexpected surprises along the way.
SPONSORED BY: iDonate & Powered by Text
Of all the tools in your marketing and fundraising kit, none moves people like video — but figuring out what to make, how to make it, and how to actually get people to watch is where most organizations get stuck.
In this session, Phil Nottingham will break down the ingredients of high-performing video across both the business and nonprofit worlds, then share a tried-and-tested, data-driven approach to deciding what to create for each major platform — YouTube, your website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Rather than making one video and posting it everywhere, you’ll learn how to match the right video to the right platform and the right moment in your donor journey.
You’ll walk away with a repeatable framework you can apply to your next campaign, plus practical ways to use AI and cutting-edge tools to produce great video faster and for less.”
Every donor is running an unspoken calculation: out of everyone asking, why you? Most nonprofits answer with urgency, emotion, or a bigger ask, then wonder why acquisition costs keep climbing. This session examines a strategy framework built for the world’s most durable companies and translates it into the language of generosity, so you leave knowing which advantages your organization actually holds, which ones you’re faking, and what to build so the answer to “Why should I give to you?” is obvious to your donors and hard for anyone else to copy.
Lunch: Enjoy a lunch break and network with fellow attendees. Share insights, and recharge for the afternoon sessions. This break provides a perfect blend of nourishment and opportunity to foster new professional connections.
Sponsor Exhibits:
Explore products, services, and solutions designed to help strengthen your fundraising program. Connect with industry partners, discover new tools, and gather fresh ideas throughout the day.
Hint: This is also where you’ll find snacks, beverages, and plenty of opportunities to recharge between sessions.
Optimization Station:
Bring your donation pages, emails, campaigns, website copy, or fundraising challenges and get live feedback from the experts. Whether you need a quick tweak or a fresh perspective, the Optimization Station is your place for practical, actionable guidance.
Swag Store:
The only currency accepted at the Swag Store is Swag Tokens, and earning them is half the fun. Visit sponsor booths, attend parties, engage throughout NIO, participate on social media to collect tokens and redeem exclusive NIO Summit gear and prizes.
Fundraising Jeopardy:
Test your knowledge in this experiential activity inspired by the classic game show and the SNL skit, with a fundraising twist of course. Compete to win real cash prizes against fellow attendees in fast-paced trivia rounds covering pop culture, nonprofit trends, fundraising knowledge, and a few unexpected surprises along the way.
SPONSORED BY: iDonate & Powered by Text
What if the next generation of donors and advocates is already paying attention to your mission, but you’re simply not engaging them in the right way?
In this session, Olivia Zhang, the founder of Cancer Kids First shares how she launched a global movement at just 14 years old from her bedroom during COVID, without fundraising experience, nonprofit connections, or a built-in audience. Through digital storytelling, peer-to-peer engagement, and youth-led leadership, Cancer Kids First grew into a network of more than 43,000 volunteers across 80 countries.
Olivia is also the author of YOUth: The Young Person’s Guide to Starting a Nonprofit, a practical resource that helps young changemakers launch, grow, and fund impactful organizations. Drawing from her experience building CKF, the book shares lessons on fundraising, leadership, volunteer recruitment, partnerships, and engaging Gen Z audiences.
You’ll learn practical strategies for moving young people from passive supporters into deeply engaged volunteers, advocates, fundraisers, and eventually lifelong donors. This session will challenge the common ways nonprofits engage youth and explore how giving Gen Z meaningful responsibility can unlock long-term mission growth.
Attendees will walk away with actionable ideas for building youth chapters, ambassador programs, advisory boards, and peer-led engagement strategies that create genuine community and belonging. You’ll also discover how to leverage Gen Z’s natural digital fluency and social networks to expand awareness, strengthen storytelling, and mobilize supporters faster than traditional institutional outreach.
What if the technology isn’t failing—but our approach to it is?
AI promised dramatic gains in productivity, profitability, and impact. Yet for many organizations, the transformation remains strangely out of reach. This session explores what’s getting lost between AI’s potential and its everyday use—and how nonprofit professionals can close that gap by applying AI to their hardest, highest-value problems.
Unlock breakthrough innovation with a proven framework born from James’s unique experience at LEGO and Amazon Alexa. This keynote reveals how to systematically identify what you can control, listen to organizational signals, explore alternatives, think diagonally across functions, and courageously delete what no longer serves you. Learn the art of strategic unlearning—breaking free from legacy processes and mental models that hold organizations back. Perfect for teams facing disruption, transformation initiatives, or those seeking to build a culture of continuous innovation. Discover how the world’s most innovative companies reset, refocus, and reinvent.
Before the lights dim on NIO Summit Live, join us for one final edition of Weekday Update featuring a few last laughs and closing announcements. Then stick around as the cast, staff who made this year unforgettable take one final bow during our closing credits. It’s the perfect finale to two days of inspiration, creativity, community, and fundraising innovation.
