When we launched FundMiner's first benchmarking survey in 2025, we set out to answer a simple question: where does the field actually stand on fund management and stewardship? The answer was clear but incomplete — the work was hard, teams were small, and the industry was running largely on manual effort and institutional memory.
This year, with 205 respondents across 161 organizations, we have something more valuable than a data point. We have a diagnosis.
The numbers tell us that manual work has intensified as a challenge — up 25 percentage points in a single year. They tell us that an estimated $7.6 billion in philanthropic funds went unspent across just the organizations in this sample. And they tell us something quieter but perhaps more important: that 26% of organizations have figured out something the other 74% haven't yet. The difference isn't resources. It's three learnable choices.
The data you're about to explore isn't meant to be discouraging. It's meant to be actionable. The sector's challenges are real — but so are its solutions. This report exists to make both visible.
Thank you for trusting us with your time and your data. The field is better for your participation.
This interactive report lets you explore findings from 205 fund management and stewardship professionals. Here’s what you can do with it.
Insights from the 2026 Fund Management and Stewardship Benchmarking Survey — 205 respondents, 161 organizations, one industry at a crossroads.
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205 respondents from 161 email-verified organizations — education, healthcare, and community foundations across the sector. 57.1% are primary or shared fund management decision-makers.
65.3% of FM teams operate with fewer than 3 FTEs. The median 1–2 FTE team manages 2,640 funds. These are the people stewarding billions in philanthropic assets — often alone.
"The endowment and amount of funds are growing, but our processes continue to be very manual. It is beginning to be difficult to manage."
"Meeting deadlines while maintaining accuracy. True success is 6–7 hours of sleep each night during report season without looming deadlines waking me up."
71.5% of organizations remain at Stage 0–2. The hardest parts aren’t the reports themselves — it’s tracking whether donors read them, and merging the data to make them meaningful.
"Right now, we’re an afterthought. We want a robust stewardship program where we have a stronger role in fund management."
"Aligning finance — who is responsible for fund management — with development — who is responsible for compliance and donor reporting."
Automation averages 1.93/5 across all operational areas. The correlation between manual work and technology limitations is the strongest in the entire survey matrix — r = 0.555.
Book a 30-minute discovery call with a FundMiner account executive. We'll map your fund management and stewardship challenges against what we're seeing in the data — no pitch, no pressure.
Schedule a Discovery Call →Unspent funds aren’t a maturity problem — they affect organizations at every level. FM maturity shows no linear correlation with unspent rates (r=−0.013). This is a universal structural challenge.
"Just with scholarships alone, we generated about $4M last fiscal year yet only about half was awarded to students despite the money being there and students fitting the criteria."
"We have millions of dollars in unspent funds because administrators either don’t know the fund exists, the terms are too restrictive, or they can’t see the money in the fund."
Sector and org size produce meaningful differences, but not the ones you’d expect. Healthcare has the most staff and the most unspent funds. Community foundations have the farthest to go.
The 2025 findings predicted the problems we see now. What’s changed isn’t the nature of the challenge — it’s the intensity. Manual work and team size as major issues have each jumped more than 25 percentage points in one year.
| Metric | 2025 | 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sample size | 93 orgs | 205 respondents / 161 orgs | ▲ 1.7× |
| Program Maturity Score (median) | Stage 2 | Stage 2: Developing (score: 2.28) | → Flat |
| Stewardship Stage 4+ | ~2% | 11.4% | ▲ +9.4pp |
| Manual work (major challenge) | 40% | 65.1% | ▲ +25pp |
| Team size (major challenge) | 27% | 53.3% | ▲ +26pp |
| Tech Limitations tracked | Not tracked | 43.8% major — now #3 | ◆ New |
| Print delivery | 93% | 89.3% | → Stable |
| Orgs planning a campaign | 23% | 30.6% | ▲ +7.6pp |
Not necessarily bigger. Not necessarily better-resourced. L3+ organizations made three specific, learnable choices — and the data shows exactly what those choices produced.
Only 41.5% have an FM oversight committee. Those that do score 2.65 vs. 2.00 — a 33% advantage. The structure creates accountability that makes everything else possible. This is the single highest-leverage structural decision an organization can make.
KPI, Data & Analytics is the weakest FM dimension sector-wide (2.03). L3+ organizations score 3.4+ here — a deliberate investment. Only 37.4% have high or very high data confidence. The most lagging dimension sector-wide is the one high performers invest in most.
FM and stewardship maturity are strongly correlated. Organizations advanced in one tend to advance in both. Stewardship carries higher average friction (3.18) than FM (2.96) — the gap widens in silos. Treating them separately is a false economy high performers have rejected.
Orgs with an oversight committee score 33% higher on FM maturity. A quick conversation with our team can show you where you stand today — and what the path to L3+ actually looks like.
Book Your Discovery Call →Across seven open-ended questions, respondents named the same problems in strikingly similar language — regardless of organization size, sector, or maturity level.
"We estimate approximately 10–15 hours per month of senior staff time is redirected toward manual fund reconciliation and data cleanup — roughly $5,000–$8,000 annually in hidden cost."
"The manual entries into our database platform and then those numbers are entered into a spreadsheet for other calculations does not make sense!"
"Financial data is manually manipulated before it’s handed off to the stewardship team."
"I once worked 12-hour days most days and take added work home in the evenings and weekends to maintain my personally-defined minimum standards."
"There is no defined process for any part of the fund management process. Monthly fund balances are received the middle of the next month on a spreadsheet, and there is no way for fund holders to know their balance."
"Unspent funds and the manual nature of all our fund management processes."
"What keeps me up is the risk of data stagnation. Fundraising is increasingly driven by personalization and timing — if our database is messy or our insights are outdated, we’re essentially flying blind."
"Data is spread over multiple platforms and shadow databases, with little cooperation from the Budget Office."
"If I could fix one thing, it would be having a single, clear view of all funds showing balances, restrictions, spending history, and impact in one place."
"Fund holders don’t know their fund balance or how to request funds. All fund balances are shared via spreadsheets with no real-time data."
"Our biggest donor needs to ask for reports. If she does not feel properly stewarded, $500,000 in annual revenue is at risk."
"Just with scholarships alone, we generated about $4 million last fiscal year yet only about half was awarded to students — despite the money being there and seemingly having students that fit the criteria."
"Not knowing if we are spending donor dollars for the purpose for which the fund was created. Students are missing out on scholarships, and programs are missing out on funds that could help them grow."
"Fund management is currently costing our organization time and money — time because of the human resource it takes to clean up a decade’s worth of work, and money because we have unused funds sitting year over year."
"Reputational risk if unspent dollars — or not meeting donor intentions."
"The cost is in unspent funds, but also in staff time and proper donor stewardship — honoring intent, timely and impactful reporting."
"Success is building systems that reduce manual follow-up, improve accountability, and allow the team to focus on higher-value, relationship-driven work."
"Having one reliable place to see the full story of each fund. That would save time, reduce manual work, and make it easier to support better decisions."
"Data-driven automated processes for impact and financial reporting. Note: wand is already in hand 😊"
"I just started this position; prior to the role, they had nothing. Everything is everywhere."
"The implementation of a fund management platform that automated processes and allowed for more strategic conversations with service line leaders."
"True success is building a diversified revenue engine that doesn’t rely on luck or a single donor — it means having systems in place that let you forecast, steward, and deliver consistently."