Adapt or Be Left Behind: Six Leadership Shifts Transforming Advancement

Advancement leadership has changed dramatically in the past decade. With new economic realities, rising donor expectations, political headwinds and shifting workforce dynamics, today’s leaders are being tested like never before. In higher education and healthcare alike, the smartest leaders are transforming their roles to create the most impact internally and externally. I see six key shifts defining a new era of advancement leadership—and they’re reshaping the impact of advancement on their organizations, their constituents, and their teams.

1. Building Data-Driven Fundraising Teams

Data fluency is table stakes for an advancement or development leader today. They understand that technology doesn’t replace relationships—it strengthens them.

Leaders in our space are expected to interpret analytics, navigate CRMs and leverage AI-powered insights to significantly enhance results. They know where to focus, who to engage and how to request and dissect the most important data in a way that leverages new donor acquisition and impacts major donor relationships. Institutions that invest in continuous technical and analytical tools and training are seeing higher productivity and stronger pipelines.

The art of fundraising still matters deeply—but the science behind it now drives the art and the relationships forward.

2. Investing in Leadership Development at Every Level

Building leaders at every level of the organization has become the new superpower. Technical skill alone won’t sustain a team under pressure. Advancement is demanding work and leadership capacity—at all levels—is what makes great teams strong.

Forward-thinking institutions are prioritizing leadership coaching, mentorship programs, and team-based learning. They’re helping people understand their strengths, communicate clearly, and lead with emotional intelligence.

“When people are supported with the right network and the freedom to lead authentically, it transforms culture. It transforms an organization.”
— Mo Cotton Kelly, Chief People Officer and Senior Vice President for Alumni Relations

When leaders grow, teams stay. I’ve seen it again and again: people don’t leave missions they believe in—they leave when they stop feeling led and fed. Building leadership strength isn’t a perk; it’s a retention strategy.

3. Driving AI Adoption

Another characteristic that separates good leaders from great ones: curiosity. The best advancement executives aren’t delegating AI innovation—they’re leading it.

They’re asking, “How can AI make us more human, more productive, and more effective in our work?” They’re testing predictive models, exploring automation and finding smarter ways to manage time and data. They are creating AI agents to learn from them and to assist them in moving forward. 

I spoke to an advancement vice president recently who uploaded 30 years of her own campaign presentations, plans and information to her AI agent and asked it to create a campaign plan based on her current organization’s history and readiness for a campaign. The agent created a plan that is “about 70% done,” she said. Technology doesn’t intimidate great leaders today—it excites them. And that attitude cascades through the organization. Leaders who take the time to understand the tools empower their teams to innovate fearlessly.

4. Designing Culture on Purpose

Culture doesn’t happen by accident anymore. Advancement leaders are intentionally designing environments where performance and well-being coexist.

That means setting clear expectations, constantly building and extending trust and encouraging transparency. It means creating psychological safety so people can bring ideas forward and voice challenges early. These environments are not for the faint of heart. It means always having the courage to have a hard conversation, speaking up when others won’t and using your authentic voice. Respectfully. It also means that leaders reward this behavior. The goal isn’t to make work easy. It’s to make relationships stronger, so the hard work can get done better and faster. When culture is working, the bottom-line results will show it.

In a sector facing record turnover, culture has become a differentiator. Leaders who help build trust and alignment have teams who simply perform better—and stay longer.

Research from Great Place to Work® shows that organizations rooted in trust experience 85% higher innovation, 5× more revenue per employee, and less than half the turnover of typical workplaces. When leaders design cultures of trust, alignment, and accountability, they don’t just boost morale—they build resilient, high-performing teams who stay and thrive. (Sources: Great Place to Work®, “Trust vs. Engagement: Retention, Innovation, ROI”) 

The best leaders know that every retention win is also a mission win.

5. Mastering the Business of Higher Education and Healthcare

Today’s advancement leaders can no longer afford to be specialists only in the business of philanthropy—they must also be business strategists.

The most effective leaders understand complex funding models and the financial levers that sustain their institutions. They are partners at the highest level–helping shape decisions that affect affordability, sustainability and long-term growth of their organization

These leaders are trusted financial and strategic advisors to presidents, CEOs and CFOs. They align advancement strategy and institutional priorities, ensuring that generosity and stewardship drive both mission and margin. Often, advancement leaders help academic or medical leadership define their priorities in a stronger, clearer, more forward-thinking way, creating an exciting vision for a unit or an entire institution – one that energizes leadership and donors alike.

6. Leading with a Global and Institutional Lens

The world is watching healthcare and higher education with new scrutiny—and leaders who thrive are those who understand their institution’s impact in the world.

They ask big questions: How is our organization positioned regionally, nationally and globally? How do we navigate the public’s mistrust of higher education or the rising costs of healthcare? How can we leverage research, innovation and service to address the defining challenges of our time?

This global mindset reframes advancement from transactional to transformational. The best leaders are positioning their institutions not just to compete—but to contribute meaningfully to solving the world’s most pressing problems.

Redefining the Future of Advancement

These six shifts mark a vastly different era than when I started in fundraising in the late 1980s. Sophistication, strategy and simultaneously embracing technology and humanness all mark a new era of advancement leadership.

The leaders who thrive aren’t the ones chasing these trends—they’re the ones shaping them. They embrace technology to enhance relationships and results, invest in people with intention, build cultures that sustain excellence, and serve at the highest levels of business planning and strategy.

This is the new advancement playbook. It’s bold, it’s deliberate and it’s deeply human. It’s how great organizations will thrive in what’s next.