Despite persistent disruption, funding instability, and unceasing demand for nonprofit services, Taproot’s 2026 Nonprofit Pulse Survey finds leader confidence is rising. What’s closing the pressure gap? Skilled human support.
The nonprofit sector is our nation’s safety net: food banks, shelters, legal aid clinics, and community organizations delivering essential services when other systems fall short. That role has never mattered more. Yet, as funding tightens, community demand for this support only climbs—and nonprofits are absorbing the shock.
Last year’s 2025 Pulse Survey told the story of a sector in crisis. Organizations faced abrupt policy shifts and funding disruption, and the data reflected it: confidence was low, and the ground beneath us kept moving.
This year’s story is different. It’s a story of real-time adaptation. Nonprofits have adjusted to a harder baseline, and they’re finding their footing. To understand where the sector stands, Taproot completed its 2026 Nonprofit Pulse Survey this spring. We heard from more than 400 nonprofit leaders and staff representing a wide range of causes, budgets, and regions.
The message this year: even as AI adoption and automation grow, nonprofits are learning firsthand that neither are a substitute for human capacity. What’s closing the gap now—and what’s always closed the gap—is something much more familiar: people.
Theme #1: A Sector Under Strain Remains Confident
Despite continued funding pressure, leader confidence is rising.
Leader confidence is up substantially this year, even as many of the same underlying pressures persist. When asked to name their single biggest challenge, funding and resource constraints dwarfed everything else:
- 63% of respondents pointed to funding in some form as their biggest challenge
- 41% cited longer-term sustainability specifically; 22% cited immediate funding needs
- 53% of executive leaders expect an increase in funding in 2026—up from 37% in 2025
Funding pressure isn’t just more intense this year; it’s showing up in different forms: where the money comes from, when it arrives, and how far it stretches. Government funding dependency and cuts were the most common theme in open-ended responses, ahead of any other topic. One respondent described “severe government funding cuts” forcing a disproportionate share of staff time into fundraising and partnership development instead of programs; another described “deeper outreach to individual donors rather than government funding” as a direct response.
Demand keeps climbing.
As resources remain strained, demand for nonprofit services continues to climb. This tension is testing the limits of nonprofit resilience:
- 89% of executive leaders expect increased demand for programs this year
- 79% expect an increase in client support requests
- Only 33% of respondents believe their organization has the resources it needs to adapt to the moment—44% disagree outright
Leader confidence is rising anyway.
Despite the pressure, nonprofit leaders report growing confidence in their own ability to deliver what’s needed:
- 64% of respondents agree or strongly agree they’re confident their organization will meet its goals this year—up 19 points from 2025
- 75% of executive leaders expect an increase in organizational performance in 2026—up from 65% last year
Nonprofits report that real, tactical wins are driving this confidence, including new donor strategies, sharper board engagement, and more intentional use of pro bono and skilled professional capacity. None are an easy fix, but they’re starting to add up. This tension is where the extraordinary part of the data lives. One respondent summed it up this way: “We will continue to do more with less funding. People need to be served and supported, so we will find a way to make it work.”
Takeaway: The nonprofit sector has adapted to operating under significant strain; it hasn’t recovered from it. Resilience isn’t the same as capacity.
Theme #2: AI Adoption is Growing, but it Can’t Solve the Skilled Capacity Gap Alone
Nonprofits are turning to AI more than ever this year, but the data tells a more layered story than rising adoption alone. Nonprofits are experimenting seriously with AI. They’re finding it helps at the margins, but it isn’t closing the skilled capacity gap that funding and demand pressures have opened up.
AI comfort is up, but confidence in AI isn’t.
Adoption is real and rising:
- 37% of respondents now describe their attitude toward AI as proactive—up from 29% in 2025
- Only 13% say they’re not using AI at all—down from 22% in 2025
Still, this growing comfort with AI hasn’t translated into a comparable increase in confidence that it solves their organization’s underlying capacity problem.
When asked what kind of support would help their organization use AI more confidently, no single option was seen as helpful by a majority of respondents: not training, not funding, not vendor guidance. In fact, only use-case-specific guidance even cleared 55%. Everything else fell short for more than half of nonprofits surveyed, suggesting the barrier isn’t just knowing how to use these tools, but whether they’re the right tool for a given problem.
The concerns about AI are shifting from access to trust.
AI is getting easier for nonprofits to access, but trust concerns are growing in their place:
- “Lack of staff training” in AI fell from 26% to 19% as the top-cited barrier to AI adoption
- Ethical and equity concerns about AI nearly doubled from 9% in 2025 to 17% this year
- Data security and privacy concerns associated with AI rose from 13% in 2025 to 17% this year
The leaders surveyed described AI outputs that “need extensive fact checking” and infrastructure that “requires a lot of capital” to implement well. These are the kinds of real costs that don’t show up in a simple adoption number.
Takeaway: AI adoption is growing, but it’s only part of the solution. The gap between what nonprofits need and what technology alone can deliver is exactly where human help still matters most.
Theme #3: As Reliance on People Grows, Pro Bono is Stepping up the Fill the Gap
While AI adoption grows and funding pressure persists, the clearest sign of nonprofit resilience is a sharp jump in demand for human capacity.
Reliance on people is climbing across the board:
- 82% of executive leaders expect pro bono support to increase this year—up from 69% in 2025
- 82% of respondents overall would be interested in receiving pro bono support in the next 6 to 12 months
- 44% of executive leaders expect to hire additional staff this year—up from 28% in 2025—and 61% expect to expand programmatic offerings—up from 42%
What nonprofits are asking for is concrete, technical expertise they’re unable to hire for through traditional FTEs (full-time equivalents). “Our main need is generally highly-skilled technical assistance (website, communications, security, etc.),” one respondent wrote. Another described exactly where the gaps sit: “(We’re) looking for skills-based volunteers in the areas of marketing & promotions, technology, fund development, event planning and partnership building.”
And for those already receiving skilled pro bono support, the value is unambiguous. “We deeply appreciate the [professionals] who provide pro bono work and Taproot for helping us find them,” one respondent wrote. “We would not be able to operate in this financial and political climate without them.”
That’s the gap pro bono professionals are uniquely positioned to fill: access to expertise nonprofits couldn’t otherwise afford or hire for.
Takeaway: Nonprofits are adopting AI where it’s useful, but what’s actually closing their capacity gap is the judgment, relationship-building, and adaptability that pro bono consultants bring.
Activating Expertise for What Comes Next
Put together, this year’s Pulse data traces a single arc: funding is strained in new and more specific ways; AI is helping at the margins without solving the underlying capacity problem; and skilled human support is moving the needle.
This is a story about nonprofits leveraging operating models that hold up under sustained pressure. Whether you’re a nonprofit leader, a professional offering pro bono services, or a funder, this is the moment to invest in skilled human capacity. The organizations who close the capacity gap this year won’t be the ones with the most AI tools. They’ll be the ones with the deepest bench of people ready to help.
