Top Waves of 2024
Happy New Year!
It’s common for authors to make predictions about the year to come at the beginning of each year. I’ve been known to take it a step further and write multiple articles on trends to pay attention to – waves to watch in the new year. (see what I did there? 👀🌊).
Sure enough, I’ve been working on a list of trends that I believe you should look to leverage in this new year. I've also been working on a big announcement – stay tuned for both of these very soon.
This week, though, to kick off the new year, we’re going to highlight the most popular Wave Report articles from the past 12 months.
There is a good chance that many of you haven’t seen some of these since more than half of my readers are new in the last year.
In January 2024, I set an ambitious goal to double the readership of The Wave Report. Last week, we finished the year at 2.5X growth. That’s 142% more readers than started the year with us. 😳🙌
Thank you. I love what I get to do – to help leaders grow themselves and their organizations… to glimpse a future that will be but does not yet exist.
So thank you. Keep reading, keep replying, and keep sharing!
Without further ado, let’s dive in…
Top 10 Wave Reports of 2024
1. 12 Ways to Leverage AI in 2024
This two-part post condensed dozens of hours of research, distilling twelve practical ways readers can use AI tools in 2024. These posts were so popular that we turned these posts into a PDF Guide to 12 Ways to Leverage AI, which you can download here.
💡 Takeaway: AI is simply a collection of tools that can help you get work done. The best way to learn is to pick a specific task or AI tool that interests you and start playing with it. This guide gives 12 potential jumping-off points.
2. Growing “Subscription” Giving in 2024
Easily the most viral post of 2024, this article laid out three steps to growing recurring “subscription” giving in 2024. And if you like this one, I’ve got a lot more coming soon with my looming book launch.
💡 Takeaway: The subscription economy has led to the rise of a new kind of recurring giving, more accessible to more charities than ever before. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for an announcement on this topic!
3. 8 Trends to LEVERAGE in 2024
I don’t make New Year’s predictions like others. I’m more interested in trends you can leverage in any given year, to grow yourself and your organization. January 2024’s edition of Trends to Leverage turned out to be pretty popular.
💡 Takeaway: All years have ups and downs. The key as a leader is to spot the waves that are coming and which ones might be worth catching and leveraging for you and your organization. I try to point those out each year in my “Trends to Leverage” post, which I’m currently working on for 2025.
4. The Role of Sustainer Giving in the Generosity Crisis
Another popular Wave Report on the topic of recurring giving featured our podcast interview with Nathan Chappell, co-author of The Generosity Crisis, and my view on why sustainable giving is a key part of the solution.
💡 Takeaway: There is a generosity crisis in North America – fewer individuals are giving to charities than before. But amidst these dark clouds, there are bright spots, and recurring sustainable giving is one of them. Sustainable giving is a key lever to reversing the generosity crisis.
5. 👁 Learning How to Cultivate an Outside Mindset
The problem with expertise is that the more expert we become, the narrower our point of view tends to be. We become more confident in our expertise, which is natural, but can become a barrier to breakthrough innovation. This article unpacks the antidote to the problem of expertise – cultivating an outside mindset.
💡 Takeaway: Expertise is wonderful, but conventional expertise can become a barrier when breakthrough innovation is needed. The solution is to cultivate an outside mindset.
6. 🐄 Chick-fil-A and Lessons on Innovation from an Unexpected Place
In one of the most fun Wave Reports I wrote in 2024, I shared about my trip to Hatch, the innovation lab at Chick-fil-A HQ in Atlanta, Georgia. I was surprised at how much innovation is required to deliver on the promises that Chick-fil-A has been making to customers for decades – and the lessons we can learn and apply from it.
💡 Takeaway: Who knew that a chicken sandwich chain could teach nonprofit leaders so much about innovation? A powerful piece, this Wave Report covered everything from culture to focusing on the right things as much as doing things right, making progress over perfection, and preserving the core while innovating everything else.
7. Subscription Philanthropy 📈Three Types of Recurring Giving
My readers know that one of the key waves I’ve been tracking and discussing for years is recurring giving. This simple post breaks down the three types of recurring giving historically and how philanthropy has been shifting, leading to the emergence of a new third type of subscription giving.
💡 Takeaway: Recurring giving has existed for millennia, and there are three basic types. However, the subscription economy has led to the emergence of a new type of sustainable giving, more accessible to charities than ever before.
8. The Problem with Retention
I have a problem with retention. As a metric, it’s been the bedrock of fundraising, but the problem is that it “buries the lede,” as we say in copywriting—it hides the main problem, which is donor churn. The average charity loses, or churns, 58% of its donors every year. That’s alarming and much more motivating than saying, “We retain 42% of our donors annually.”
💡 Takeaway: The inverse of retention is churn, and churn is a metric that motivates action because it points to a problem, a pain point that we need to address. More charities need to report churn metrics as one of their key measurements of success.
9. The Intersection of Gratitude and Generosity
This Wave Report shows how gratitude and generosity loop back on each other. When you practice one, you get the other, and vice versa. In the article, I share six insights at the intersection of gratitude and generosity.
💡 Takeaway: Gratitude and generosity form a virtuous loop, with one feeding back on the other. It doesn’t matter where you start – practice gratitude or practice generosity, and you’ll find yourself becoming more generous and grateful.
10. The way we talk about AI is all wrong
With all the talk of AI, I found myself realizing that we talk about it in a way that confuses people, and gets in the way of understanding and using AI tools.
💡 Takeaway: Artificial intelligence is not a single tool or application, yet we talk about it as if it were. “Do you use AI?” Instead, we should start talking about AI as a set of tools. “Which AI tool do you use for [fill in the topic]?”
Honorable Mention: Joie de Vivre
This Wave Report was a personal one, as I reflected on five lessons on life, leadership, and innovation from our Joie de Vivre summer en France.
Honorable Mention: Lessons from One Million Miles
I journaled 10 lessons I’ve learned on travel from a flight from Baltimore to Seattle, after officially crossing one million miles flown.
2024 was an incredible year of growth and health. It’s a privilege to get to research, write, and share these insights each week.
🙏 THANK YOU, for reading and for sharing with others that you think this content might bless in 2025.
Until next week… Surfs Up! 🌊
- Dave
About the Author | Dave Raley
Consultant, speaker, and writer Dave Raley is the founder of Imago Consulting, a firm that helps non-profits and businesses create profitable growth through sustainable innovation. He’s the author of a weekly trendspotting report called The Wave Report, and the co-founder of the Purpose & Profit Podcast — a show about the ideas at the intersection of nonprofit causes and for-profit brands. Connect with Dave on LinkedIn.
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