Alex Stepien
CEO · AwardSpring
Live Webinar · Tuesday, September 15, 2026
The 2026 Donor Stewardship Benchmark: The Deep Dive
All seven findings, the data behind them, and what the strongest programs do differently.
Tuesday, September 15, 2026 · 2:00 PM ET / 1:00 PM CT · 45 minutes, heavy on Q&A
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Alex Stepien
CEO, AwardSpring
About this webinar
Early this year we asked 125 scholarship foundations how donor stewardship actually gets done. The findings became the 2026 Donor Stewardship Benchmark: 46% of the foundations we surveyed run the whole operation on one FTE or less, 71% had a fund go unawarded last year, and 45% can’t tell whether a donor ever opened the report they were sent.
This session goes inside that data. In 45 minutes we’ll walk all seven findings across the three pillars, the Capacity-Quality Trap, the Measurement Blind Spot, and the AI Inflection Point, with the numbers behind each and what the strongest programs do differently. Bring your questions and your own numbers. You’ll leave knowing where you stand against the field, and the one move to make first.
What you’ll learn
The data behind all seven findings, cut by foundation type
What the strongest of the 125 foundations we surveyed do differently, finding by finding
How to score your own program against the field with our benchmarking tool
Where AI fits today, and the one place we'd start
Who should attend
Advancement, foundation, and financial aid leaders who want to know how their stewardship operation compares to the field, and what to fix first. If you downloaded the report, this is the session that makes it yours.
Can’t make it live?
Register anyway. Everyone who signs up gets the recording.
Speakers
The 2026 Donor Stewardship Benchmark: The Deep Dive.
Register anyway. Everyone who signs up gets the recording.
