How to Plan Your 2026 ERG Program Around What's Actually Coming
A planning guide for ERG program managers heading into 2026 — what's changing, what to stop doing, and what to build now so your program isn't caught flat-footed.
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Most ERG programs will plan 2026 the same way they planned 2025 — and get blindsided by the same problems. This post is the direct answer to how to plan around what's actually coming, pulled from the video above.
The 5 shifts to plan around
1. AI lands inside the ERG workflow, not next to it
By mid-2026, AI won't be a separate "tool we should try." It will be baked into the calendars, recap docs, and survey summaries your ERG leaders already use. The programs that win are the ones that have already defined what to automate before adding AI — because AI only repeats what your system already defines.
2. DEI rollback keeps reshaping the budget conversation
ERGs are increasingly the only DEI-adjacent line item left standing. That's an opportunity, but only if you can show business value in plain language. Lean on your 3Ps — especially Purpose — to translate ERG work into terms a CFO actually responds to.
3. Budgets get leaner, expectations get higher
Plan for flat or reduced budgets with higher visibility. That means cutting low-leverage programming and doubling down on the few things that move the needle. If you don't have a blueprint yet, build one — it's the fastest way to defend the spend you have.
4. ERG leader burnout becomes the #1 retention risk
Volunteer ERG leaders are quitting faster than they're being replaced. The fix isn't more recognition — it's turning leadership roles into repeatable processes so the job is doable in the hours people actually have.
5. Cross-functional ERG work becomes the default
In 2026, the highest-impact ERG work won't happen inside a single ERG — it'll happen between ERGs and with business units. Plan for at least one cross-ERG initiative per quarter and one business-unit partnership per ERG.
What to stop doing in 2026
- Stop running ERGs without a defined operating system.
- Stop measuring success by event attendance alone.
- Stop relying on heroic individual ERG leaders to hold the program together — that's the bottleneck problem.
- Stop asking middle managers for support without giving them a script.