At the beginning of the year, I and many others look back at last year’s expectations and surprises, and forward to this year’s possibilities. But in doing so we are often prisoners of our biases. We indulge in linear thinking and assume that the past will foretell the future. When I look back on my early January 2025 blog expressing wishes and worries for the coming year in philanthropy, I certainly did not anticipate the geopolitical and economic developments of 2025. Many of our assumptions about our relations with the United States and the rest of the world have been overturned. What could this mean for Canadian philanthropy in 2026? How might we think about what is to come?
We could start with thinking about thinking itself. In a recent article in The Financial Times by Gillian Tett, she quotes from a Swiss Federal Intelligence Service manual on “cognitive biases that hamper our thinking, such as “group think” (adhering to the cozy assumptions of our tribe), “anchoring” (relying exclusively on whatever information we see first, say on social media), “confirmation bias” (only seeing data that reinforces pre-existing views), “mirror imaging” (assuming others think like us), the “absence of evidence” bias (failing to think about the data we lack) and “survivorship bias” (judging data only with success stories, not failures)”.
That’s a daunting list of biases. How to counter them? The FIS manual, according to Tett, offers some useful advice: “Stress test your beliefs; think statistically; ask yourself what you know and what you don’t; periodically think the opposite of your assumptions”.
So with this advice in mind, I asked myself how to think more creatively about the opportunities for philanthropy in 2026. The landscape trends that I identified in early 2025 are still very relevant (for the list see here). But what is new? We now see even more clearly that Canada is facing both significant external threats and internal economic and social challenges of affordability, regional disparity and fraying civic engagement. What can philanthropy do?
If I look at the context for Canadian philanthropy and the nonprofit sector with fresh eyes, I see a contradictory picture that is both very dynamic and surprisingly static at the same time. On the dynamic side, I see accelerating digital disruption: new technologies forcing new ways of working, rising expectations of speed and customization, increasing pressure through cybersecurity threats. I also see more dynamism in applying technologies to solving economic and social issues whether in developing new energy sources, protecting water resources and innovating in sustainable agriculture, developing new approaches to maintaining a heathy aging population, or to designing liveable and affordable housing. The opportunities are great.
But I also see surprising stagnation: in organizational models, in governance practices, in the growth of networks and in regulatory frameworks. Shouldn’t the charitable sector be evolving more dynamically in response to the undoubted pressures that face it? Should we be seeing more alliances, more mergers, more shared platforms, more shared governance, more intermediaries? Admittedly, some of the rigidity in charitable organizational models and behaviours is because of the rules imposed by government funding requirements and regulations. And some of it is imposed by the zero-sum approach to competitive fundraising. A lot of it may be a function simply of lack of resources, and a need to survive that doesn’t allow time for creativity in organizing and rethinking structure and governance.
So what is philanthropy’s role in the face of these contradictions and pressures? In February 2025, I set out some thoughts about philanthropy and its contribution to the strengthening of Canada. I quoted Vinod Rajasekeran on the opportunity for philanthropy to help build our collective future. He argued that while philanthropy may need to rescue organizations under pressure, this rescue should not be simply to maintain a status quo but to help it evolve. I agreed then and I agree even more now. Philanthropy can use its resources for innovation. It can also use those resources for repair. In both cases, the effort should be to inject more dynamism into our sector.
Philanthropy can innovate by helping create networks, by building intermediaries, by supporting creators and entrepreneurs, by creating spaces for civic convening, by funding local voices, narratives and public journalism. Philanthropy can repair by strengthening organizational capacity, by providing resources to train leaders, by investing in needed technologies, by funding exploration of alliances and collaborations.
And philanthropy can raise its own voice to influence policy change, to advocate for more flexibility in regulation, and more streamlined government partnerships.
There are great opportunities for funders in our current environment. What do we need? We need more data and evidence (to know what we don’t know). Can we do that for ourselves as a sector and not wait for government to step up? CanadaHelps and MakeWay and Daro and others are building the technologies and platforms that will help us see patterns more quickly (perhaps with AI help?). We need more models and standards for dynamic managers and governors. We have thinkers in our sector who are doing that. Can we help them do more? We need new ways of supporting collaborative efforts across our sector. Funders are already stepping up creatively to support intermediary networks across Canada through the Charitable and Nonprofit Sector Infrastructure Collaborative Fund. There are many possibilities for more and better future building. With fresh eyes, I hope that in 2026 we will see more dynamism right across our sector, seeded with a focused boost from philanthropy.