A couple of weeks before the 2025 ADRP International Conference in Montreal, I did something I'd been avoiding for years: I turned on the evening news. Within minutes, I was in a funk. The constant cycle of bad news made me question the state of things.
I was about to hop on a plane to spend a few days with a conference full of donor relations and advancement professionals in Montreal. That would provide some much needed inspiration.
But this was going to be more than just another ADRP conference. I opened the second day of the conference with the story of Prometheus—the Greek god who gave humanity fire and in so doing inspired humans to create the word philanthropy from the word "filos" (love) and "antropia" (those below). That origin story for the word "philanthropy"—the love of humankind—reminded everyone in the room what this work is actually about: the belief that our neighbors should live their best possible lives, and the commitment to making that happen through the institutions we support.
"Share the Love" became our working title for this mission.
I remember the day I wrote that out on a whiteboard during a hackathon a few months before. I asked our Head of Product, Robb Hoffheins, “Could we pull this idea off?”
This ADRP conference was going to answer that question quickly. We had it printed on bags. We had it on our booth backdrop. We even had it printed on big hearts for a selfie station at our annual user dinner at the conference.
The energy from that morning carried into everything that followed. The theme didn't need explaining. It just resonated.
Throughout 2026, Share the Love will show up in how we recognize the work this community does, the innovations happening across our user base, and the donor relationships that make it all meaningful.
In a world that can feel overwhelming, this donor relations community gathers to celebrate something fundamentally good: human generosity, institutional impact, and the professionals who connect the two. Your work exists at the intersection of human generosity and institutional impact. It requires both precision and heart—tracking philanthropic levels and engagement metrics while never losing sight of the relationships that make it all meaningful. Somewhere in the professionalization of the field, it's easy for "philanthropy" to become more about gift agreements than what the word actually means: love for humanity.
I'm grateful to be part of Sharing the Love alongside you.
