Rashad Robinson and Nyasha Gwatidzo to headline IFC 2026
Howard Lake | 13 October 2026 | News
The International Fundraising Congress (IFC) returns to the Netherlands later this month, with both keynote speeches and a programme of live sessions available free to anyone online.
Hosted by The Resource Alliance, IFC 2026 takes place from 20 to 23 October in Noordwijkerhout. More than 90 speakers will lead 11 masterclasses, 46 workshops, Innovation Hub sessions, Big Topic debates and open discussions. The theme is “Unstoppable”.
Two keynotes
Social entrepreneur Nyasha Gwatidzo, co-founder of Lucy Gwatidzo Foundation Schools, opens the congress on Wednesday 21 October with “To Be Unstoppable”.
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A social worker and psychiatrist by training, she has spent four decades working with children and communities affected by trauma, abuse and systemic inequality. She has founded social enterprises in Zimbabwe and the UK, including Banya Family Placement Agency and Vana Trust, and the organisations she has helped build since 1987 have generated more than £130 million in impact and income. Her talk will address how to keep building when systems fail, and she will speak as openly about failure as about success.
Rashad Robinson, author and CEO of Rashad Robinson Advisors, closes the congress on Friday 23 October with “The Next Story We Tell”.
He led the US racial justice organisation Color of Change for 13 years and co-led a $7 billion advertising boycott of Facebook and Instagram. He will discuss rebuilding trust and belonging in polarised societies, why the sector needs movements and not just organisations, and how narrative and power drive systems change.
His first book, From Presence to Power, was published by Penguin this year and will be on sale at IFC. (You can buy it via UK Fundraising too of course).
Free online programme
IFC Online is free to join. Alongside the keynotes, eight sessions run live from 21 to 23 October, with time for questions. All times are Central European Summer Time, which is UK time plus one hour.
- Wednesday 21 October: What You Can Learn From the Radical Right (Ali Walker Davies and Cristina Praz)
- Thursday 22 October: The $8 Trillion Islamic Finance Opportunity (Perihan Abou El Ela);
- Dignity-Led Fundraising Narratives (Tehzeeb Lalani and Madan Padaki);
- Your Digital Engine Room (Sarah Crowhurst, JoAnne O’Donovan and Joshua Leigh);
- Acquisition Innovation (Nathalie Ormrod and Arantza Espinosa);
- Fix Your Broken Funding Model (Rebecca Davies and Cameron Becker)
- Friday 23 October: Designing Digital Experiences That Convert (Danielle Rice)
Last year IFC reached 3,953 participants in 125 countries, and 3,271 of them joined online.
On the in-person programme
Among the debates at the venue, “Can Civil Society Fund Itself?” features Ingrid Srinath, chair of The Resource Alliance, alongside Glen Galaich of the Stupski Foundation, Robert Osborne of The Osborne Group, Sharon Afandi of the Segal Family Foundation and Zviko Tsiga of Revolutionise.
A second Big Topic debate, “Competing for Attention with the Radical Right”, brings together speakers from Amnesty International, Glocalities, Rally and Donio. Loretta J. Ross of Smith College leads an open discussion on whether we can disagree without disconnecting.
A hard year for the sector
Willeke van Rijn, CEO of The Resource Alliance, acknowledged the pressures facing fundraisers: cuts, AI moving faster than organisations’ policies, and trust that is harder to win back than to lose.
She said: “It isn’t the whole story.” She pointed to Hamdan Mohammed, who leads fundraising for SOS Children’s Villages Palestine, whose team plans for four scenarios because conditions can change by the hour, and whose fundraising has grown from around half a million dollars to between five and six million dollars a year.
The Resource Alliance cites delegate surveys from 2024 and 2025: 83% put new approaches into practice within weeks of IFC 2024, 82% felt confident applying what they learned, 81% of returning attendees reported increased income, and nine in ten said they made valuable connections.
IFC 2026 sponsors include Upsall International, Dataro, Mindwize, Giveclarity, Formunauts and Innovairre.
Registration for in-person and free online places at IFC is still open.
- Resource Alliance invites speaker proposals for IFC 2026 (17 December 2025)
- Loretta J Ross to open the International Fundraising Congress 2025 (1 September 2025)
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.