Reimagining the future of the charity sector in a time of structural change.

The sector is not simply facing a difficult period; it is moving through a structural shift. Funding models are evolving. Public trust and scrutiny are intensifying. Demand continues to rise. Some established ways of working are unlikely to return.

This opening keynote takes a wide lens on what is really changing and what it means for the future of the charity sector. It explores how leaders can move beyond short-term firefighting and instead shape the next chapter: strengthening financial models, deepening cross-sector partnerships, embracing innovation with purpose and rethinking how impact is delivered at scale.

A clear view of the road ahead and what it takes to lead with confidence through change, with ambition and integrity.

Some causes are increasingly politicised, misrepresented or deliberately targeted. In a fast-moving and often polarised media landscape, charities can find themselves defending their legitimacy as much as delivering their mission.

This opening panel brings together sector leaders who have navigated public scrutiny, misinformation or organised backlash. How do you hold firm to your organisation’s purpose without inflaming the situation? When is it right to respond and when is silence more powerful? And how can confident storytelling strengthen supporter loyalty rather than undermine it?

Panellists will explore the intersection between communications, leadership and fundraising, and share candid reflections on what worked, what didn’t, and what they would do differently.

What the Charity Sector Needs Now

As pressure mounts across funding, delivery and public trust, civil society is being asked to do more with less. This keynote will explore the immediate priorities for the sector, the risks of fragmentation, and the role of collective leadership in shaping what comes next. 

NSPCC's digital team had no shortage of data, but getting to clear insights and next steps was proving challenging. The team had to pull data manually from multiple platforms every time they needed to report on performance across digital, content, social, and campaigns. Decision making was siloed as a result. In this session, Jaron Ghani, Innovation Director at Numiko and Bethany Brown from NSPCC share how a single hack day turned that frustration into a working dashboard and a fresh perspective on what automated, shareable reporting could look like for a large charity.

Key takeaways:

• Make space to experiment. Stepping away from the backlog for just one day gave NSPCC's team room to challenge their own assumptions, rethink what they actually needed, and arrive at something more useful than any brief written at a desk would have produced.

• Automation starts with clarity. Building the dashboard forced the team to agree on which metrics genuinely matter, and how insights should flow across teams rather than sitting with one person.

You don't need a big project to unlock real value. One focused day produced a working prototype and a clear picture of what better reporting looks like, proof that small, sharp investments can shift how a team thinks about its data.

How charity leaders use AI to gain capacity, and lead with confidence in a world of increasingly sophisticated technology

This panel focuses on how senior leaders are making AI work in practice. 

It explores how charities are using AI to save time, sharpen decision-making and do more with limited resource, while putting clear guardrails in place around data, ethics and accountability. 

And it will ask: what does leadership require as systems begin to act with greater autonomy?

Key discussion points

• Where AI delivers genuine capacity gains — and where leaders need to slow it down
• Setting proportionate guardrails without stifling progress or innovation
• What leaders must understand as AI moves from assistance to autonomy?
• What models of leadership are necessary to ensure that the responsibility for AI development does not fall on the individual?
• How can charities work together to manage the acceleration of and response to the tech?

Protecting Income When Your Cause Becomes Political

Political shifts and culture-war dynamics are beginning to shape funding decisions. Corporate sponsors are reassessing visible partnerships. Tech platforms are changing grant policies. Some causes are finding themselves less attractive than they were a year ago.

When income streams cool because your issue area becomes politically sensitive, what are your options?

This panel will explore how fundraising leaders assess whether a withdrawal is temporary or structural, how they model risk when corporate appetite shifts, and how they decide whether to defend, reframe or step away from a partnership.

Panellists will share practical experience on:

• Reading early warning signs in corporate and philanthropic behaviour
• Stress-testing income concentration risk
• Communicating funding changes to boards and stakeholders
• Protecting reputation while safeguarding financial stability
• Making principled decisions about alignment versus survival

What actually works for small and medium sized charities

Grant funding has become harder to access, harder to predict and harder to resource. Oversubscribed funds, shifting priorities and heavier requirements mean many small and medium charities are trying to secure income alongside everything else, without the time, teams or specialist support larger organisations rely on.

This interactive panel focuses on the practical decisions that make the difference. Drawing on funder insight and real charity experience, it explores how small organisations achieve cut-through with grant makers, make smarter choices about where to focus limited effort, and build fundraising capacity without burning out their people. Live polling will surface the funding challenges in the room and shape the discussion in real time.

The discussion will centre on:

• Achieving cut-through with grant makers in crowded funding rounds
• Making strategic funding choices when capacity and time are limited
• Building sustainable fundraising capacity when fundraising isn’t a dedicated role

Why all leaders should be placing equity at the heart of their work 

A challenging session that asks leaders to consider whether their organisations have maintained their commitment to anti racism at a time when it could be deprioritised. Practical advice for how to meaningfully place anti racism at the heart of your day to day work and your wider strategy. A call to action not to lose focus.

Growing Commercial Income Without Losing Your Purpose

A session for organisations considering commercial routes to scale, and for leaders who want a more business-minded lens on sustainable income.

As funding models shift, earned income is becoming a deliberate part of growth strategy rather than a side activity. This case study offers a candid look at what it takes to generate commercial revenue inside a purpose-led organisation.

How do you decide which opportunities are worth pursuing? How do you test demand before committing significant resource? And how do you balance commercial discipline with charitable credibility?

What could the largest players in the sector learn from the radical work of small charities? 

The vast majority of the charity sector is made up of small, grassroots organisations – but both narratives and models of working remain dominated by the largest household name organisations. 

This panel will challenge the ‘corporate’ models of large charities by exploring the ways that grassroots organisations connect with their communities and deliver radical change. 

It will ask what super-major charities could learn from the imaginative work of their smaller peers – and how the charity sector as a whole could evolve by being a bit more small and radical. 

Traditional funding models are under strain. Individual giving is harder. Grants are tightening. Corporate appetite is more cautious. Regulation is increasing.

At the same time, new capital is emerging - impact investment, pooled funds, philanthropic collaboratives, venture-style funding, social enterprise hybrids.

This panel brings together leaders shaping the next era of capital in the sector. How are they thinking about risk? Scale? Accountability? Power?

Discussion will focus on:

• Whether unrestricted funding will grow or shrink
• The rise of collaborative and blended finance
• What makes organisations “investable” in 2026
• How power dynamics between funders and charities are shifting

A forward-looking conversation about who will fund the next decade and what that means for how charities are structured and led.