Key takeaways
The people leading purpose programs aren't peripheral. They are the ones companies are counting on to retain talent, rebuild trust, and develop human-centric skills that are invaluable in today’s workforce.
AI isn't coming for the work that matters; it's coming for the administrative burden that gets in the way of it.
Corporate giving programs are the infrastructure that turns the impulse to do good into sustained, lasting impact and connection.
It's been a few days since the lights came down at Benevity Live! 2026. The inspiring conversations are continuing, the ideas are flowing and we still get goosebumps thinking about our favourite moments.
This year felt different — intense in some ways, energized in others. Because the world isn't getting simpler, and neither is the work we do inside it. But what two days in Scottsdale made clear is this: the people leading purpose programs right now are among the most important people in their organizations.
Below are the sessions and moments worth revisiting.
1. Soraya Alexander set the tone — and raised the stakes
Soraya Alexander, Benevity CEO, opened with a story about a 78-year-old DoorDash driver in Tennessee named Richard Pulley. A neighbor noticed him on her doorstep, started a GoFundMe to help him retire, and within two weeks, 33,000 donors had raised nearly 1 million dollars.
The point wasn't the money. It was what those 33,000 people were doing: coming together for a shared belief that had no obvious home— until it did.
"Their ideals and their generosity had always been there," Soraya said. "What the campaign did was give them somewhere to land."
That framing carried through everything that followed. The companies doing this work are where people's generosity lands — at scale, with trust, with staying power.
Soraya grounded the keynote in hard data. Nearly $3 billion and almost 24 million volunteer hours moved through the Benevity platform in the past year alone.
"People show up because you choose to invest in supporting the full social sector," she said.
Soraya also introduced Trusted Impact — the new north star metric at Benevity, combining dollars disbursed, the monetary value of volunteer hours and the value of time invested in Challenges and employee group activities. A single number to hold Benevity accountable to the thing that actually matters: making your programs more effective.
All else being equal — your same team, your same budget, your same programs — your Trusted Impact will be higher because you work with Benevity.
2. Mick Ebeling showed us what was possible when we remove impossible from the equation
A conference hall full of watery-eyed social impact professionals were glued to Mick Ebeling's every word. Even online viewers shared their eyes were welled up and inner fires were stoked.
The founder of Not Impossible Labs has spent two decades proving that the biggest barrier to impact isn't resources or technology — it's the willingness to commit before you have all the answers.
He built a communication device from sunglasses and a duct-taped webcam that let a paralyzed graffiti artist draw again for the first time in seven years. He set up a prosthetics lab in war-torn Sudan. He created wearable technology so deaf fans could feel live music.
None of it started with a plan. All of it started with a commitment.
"The mission started before the solution existed," Ebeling said from the main stage.
That's the methodology. And for an industry full of humans navigating an increasingly uncertain environment for corporate purpose, it landed. Attendees can watch the recording of Mick’s keynote by logging into the conference platform. Be sure to have a box of tissues nearby.
3. Benevity unveils its AI-native CSR platform
In the “Product roadmap session: AI, velocity and what's coming fast” Chief Product Officer, Candace Worley, gave attendees a detailed look at where the Benevity platform is heading — and the pace of development is notable.
The session covered the Benevity AI-powered development approach: how the team is using artificial intelligence (AI) throughout its engineering lifecycle to ship innovation faster without compromising quality. New launches on the near-term horizon include AI match assurance, AI grant application scoring, a Microsoft Teams integration demo (coming soon), a Community Reinvestment Act solution, faster nonprofit disbursements and native integrations with Goodera and Visit.org.
The session also addressed how Benevity plans to develop alongside its clients: betas, joint learning and direct client input built into the release process, not bolted on after.
When we can take more of the operational burden off their plates, we are not just saving our clients time; we are giving them back the capacity to scale change in their communities at a time when purpose work is more critical than ever for talent retention, brand reputation, and risk mitigation.
4. Watching AI agents create volunteer opportunities in real time
“Agents are coming for the bits of your job that suck.”
Ian Goldsmith, Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer at Benevity, addressed the elephant in the room and unveiled and demoed the agent catalogue, coming in fall 2026. Essentially bringing to life a team of agents to take on the mundane tasks freeing up social impact professionals to do the vital creative and empathy-driven work that actually moves the needle. From creating volunteering opportunities during lower-engagement seasons, to writing captivating stories to increase engagement.
5. Including volunteer opportunities into daily work
The UN International Volunteer Year put corporate volunteering in a bright spotlight in 2026 — and “The volunteering session: closing the gap between intention and action” made the case for where the opportunity actually lives.
The conversation moved beyond program metrics into structural questions: how do you embed volunteer opportunities into the daily flow of work, not just a portal employees visit once a quarter? How do you close the content gap so employees can find something meaningful to do, not just something available?
The session also looked ahead to what an agentic AI future could make possible for volunteer programs — surfacing the right opportunity to the right person at the right moment, without requiring program managers to do it manually at scale.
6. Doing more with less: practical grants tools
The “AI in grantmaking: less administration, more mission” session made a sharp distinction worth holding onto: AI's greatest value in grantmaking isn't replacing human judgment. It's eliminating the administrative work that slows it down.
Automated scoring, AI-generated grant summaries and proactive workflow tools were all on the table — not as futuristic concepts, but as practical infrastructure so that teams can do more with their limited capacity.
The session also addressed the nonprofit side of the equation. Improving the grantseeker experience — clearer financial visibility, simplified onboarding — creates stronger partnerships. That's a point often missing from the conversation about grantmaking efficiency: the relationship on the other side of the transaction matters too.
7. Diving deep into trust and compliance
Behind every dollar that moves through a global giving program is a web of compliance, eligibility checks and fraud protection that most employees never see — and that program leaders lose sleep over.
This session pulled back the curtain on how Benevity manages the full lifecycle of global money movement across more than 2.5 million nonprofits in over 160 countries. New innovations covered included Global Donor Advised Funds, global money movement with faster disbursements to nonprofits, and enhanced nonprofit reconciliation tools.
For organizations scaling their programs globally, or navigating the increasing complexity of cross-border giving, this was a practical session with real operational implications.
8. Receiving early access to the year’s most powerful data
Sona Khosla, Chief Impact Officer at Benevity, gave attendees an early look at the 2026 State of Corporate Purpose report — fresh data on where the industry is heading and what the trends actually mean for program strategy in the year ahead.
If you weren't in the room, the full report will be available on July 9th. In the meantime, The State of Corporate Volunteering 2026, is an exceptional pre-read.
9. Celebrating the 2026 Goodie Award Winners
Every year, the Goodies surface the programs doing genuinely remarkable work. Behind every award is a team that kept showing up. Meet the 2026 Goodie Awards winners:
- The Bestie Award (5,000+ employees) — UPS
- The Bestie Award (under 5,000 employees) — Elastic
- The BeCause Award — Sage
- The Buzz Award — BMO
- The Community Hero Award — Enbridge
- The Moonshot Award — Micron
- The NewB Award — Lennox
- The People Power Award (under 5,000 employees) — PagerDuty
- The People Power Award (5,000+ employees) — RBC
- The Buffy Award — Cathy Scott and Nikki Clifton from UPS
Congratulations to all of this year's honorees. Learn more about their stories and how they went above and beyond.
{{divider}}
The through line
Every session this year addressed the hard truth: the work is harder, the environment is more complicated and the need is greater than it's ever been.
One in six people worldwide experience chronic loneliness.
Government funding for nonprofits is under real scrutiny.
Employees are looking to their employers for trust and belonging in ways they're not finding elsewhere.
The companies investing in social impact programs are the infrastructure that turns the impulse to do good into something that actually reaches people. That's what Benevity Live! 2026 reminded us. And that's what makes showing up for this work worth it.
About the author
