Many nonprofits today are operating in survival mode, facing funding shifts, rising demand for services, and ongoing uncertainty, yet they remain the backbone of their communities, providing essential services and advancing equitable outcomes. When disruptions surface, whether through funding changes, leadership transitions, or unexpected crises, organizations are often pulled deeper into short-term response mode, making it more difficult for them to focus on the long-term health of the organization.
Recently, we asked nonprofit leaders what concerns them most as they consider their organization’s resilience. Many pointed to three major challenges simultaneously: increased demand for services, funding uncertainty, and strain on staff and infrastructure.
Together, these pressures point to a clear tension point for leaders:
How do we lead well today while building an organization that can thrive tomorrow?
Organizational resilience is the ability to withstand shocks, adapt to disruptions, and recover from crises. However, there are a few common assumptions that can unintentionally narrow how leaders think about what it takes to build resilient organizations.
Three Common Myths About Organizational Resilience
Myth 1: Resilience is reactive
Nonprofits operate in environments where unexpected challenges are common, so having the ability to respond in a timely manner is necessary. But resilience is not simply about responding to crises as they arise. It is about making strategic choices about what to respond to and ensuring your organization has what it needs to weather future storms. Even a small action like developing a scenario plan can help a leader thoughtfully and strategically consider what they will do when change happens.
Myth 2: Resilience is solely about money
Financial health is crucial for any organization to thrive, but funding alone does not ensure resilience. Resilience is also shaped by how clearly leaders understand the impact they are best positioned to have, how well their teams are supported, and the internal systems and structures that support their capacity to deliver impact. These elements help guide how well an organization can continue to advance its mission amidst changes.
Myth 3: Resilience is an end point
Resilience is not a destination an organization can eventually reach. Instead, it is an ongoing mindset and discipline. It requires increasing visibility into your organization’s current reality, building greater predictability within your organization, implementing structures that enable decision-making, and making small investments now that can strengthen your ability to respond to changes in the future.
Four Disciplines That Build Organizational Resilience
Nonprofit leaders can strengthen their organization’s resilience by continually paying attention to four key areas.
1. Create visibility to understand your current reality
Resilient organizations work to build clear visibility into both their internal operations and external environments.
Many leaders make decisions without access to data that could guide them more effectively. Answering questions such as how much cash do you have on hand, whether you have the right staff and skills for what you are trying to deliver, and what other organizations might be offering similar services can offer critical insight.
2. Increasing predictability where possible
Build confidence and a sense of control by increasing predictability in key areas of your work.
This might include directly asking your funders about the likelihood of receiving a grant renewal if you aren’t sure, developing financial contingency plans, creating a leadership succession plan, or developing scenario plans for key programs that could be impacted by external shifts.
3. Create internal structures for sense-making and decision-making
Contingency plans and scenario plans are not helpful if they are created and then forgotten. Some nonprofit leaders don’t have a regular structure to intentionally pause, reflect, and make important, timely decisions.
Leaders benefit from creating regular space to review relevant data, make sense of emerging challenges, and determine the next steps. Having a regular rhythm to pause and reflect ensures that important decisions are addressed and not continually postponed.
4. Make small investments that will help build future resilience
An organization’s ability to be better prepared to respond to future crises or shifts often requires the discipline to make small incremental investments today that may not pay off until years down the road.
For example, if diversifying funding streams is a priority for your organization, small steps can help you begin moving in that direction. Let’s say you are reliant on a couple of institutional funders and realize that your best bet for revenue diversification is building an individual donor program. How can you start to set aside a couple hours a week to start down this path? Maybe the first steps are as simple as talking to other organizations about how they built their individual donor programs, brainstorming with your team about ways to pilot a fundraising ask of a small number of people who have some affinity toward your organization, etc.
Securing Your Roadmap to Resilience
Resilient organizations are not built by focusing solely on money, and it is not a destination. Resilience is developed through intentional practices that increase clarity, enhance predictability and a sense of control, strengthen decision making, and prepare organizations to be in an even stronger position next time crises or shocks hit.
We hosted a webinar where we explored key questions nonprofit leaders should be asking in this moment and offered practical guidance for moving beyond day-to-day survival toward a more proactive strengthening for the long-term. Click here to catch the recording.