Nonprofits Continue to Document Their Sad State
Meanwhile, Major Nazi Seeks Presidency – Not Afraid of Seeking Power
I have been writing, lecturing, and training around nonprofit leaders need to be leaders in public life since 1991. Over the bast 15 or so years I have tried to challenge our sector – especially the arts and creative industries – to answer the challenge of the Far Right and to organize for power – especially running for local office. In a series of articles for The Nonprofit Times In those pieces and elsewhere I have laid out the arguments and offered a number of powerful options for the arts and aligned nonprofit sectors to pursue.
I have also reported on the nonprofit sector’s repeated self-examination and repeated findings of powerlessness, distress, disfunction, and decline – see “US Nonprofit Sector Documents Its Own Powerlessness, but What Will We Do?”
And now, the beat goes on with the recent release of “State of Nonprofits 2026” by the Center for Effective Philanthropy – which is robustly funded by the McKnight Foundation, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Houston Endowment, the Prebys Foundation, and Kenneth Rainin Foundation, and Sobrato Philanthropies. Perhaps we need to re-label this organization the Center for Powerless Philanthropy?
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Bottom line: after survey hundreds of nonprofit leaders across the country, we now know:
1. Burnout has increased dramatically among nonprofit CEOS, who say the current context has contributed to lower staff morale and heightened levels of stress and fear.
2. Nonprofit CEOs report more difficulty obtaining foundation funding than in previous years.
3. Despite ongoing financial challenges, many nonprofits are making strategic adaptations to their work in order to survive.
Wow. Burnout up. Financial distress and uncertainty up. Stability and robust funding down. What are the conclusions from this sad document?
The pressures facing nonprofit organizations are enormous. Burnout, for both nonprofit staff and leadership, has intensified in the last year, as many organizations confront a combination of increased demand for their services and a tougher funding environment. Nonprofit CEOs report foundation funding has become increasingly difficult to secure relative to previous years. As a result of these challenges, nonprofit leaders have had to make difficult and sometimes dramatic changes to their work to see their staff, organizations, and communities through the current context. As one CEO told us: “We’re all terrified and barely holding it together. We find solace in each other and our work but just existing is exhausting these days.”
Nonprofits are working in an environment of stress and uncertainty for their organizations, and for the communities they serve and the issues they seek to address. While these pressures have resulted in a renewed sense of purpose and energy for some organizations, the long-term consequences of the current context on staff, organizations, and communities remain unclear. In the words of one nonprofit leader:
We have staff and board members who are personally targeted and impacted by the current context. It has given us a sense of purpose, however. We share a belief in the importance of what we do and the role we are able to play in this moment. We talk regularly about how it gives us hope to focus on what we can do in this climate, rather than be overwhelmed by all the challenges that feel outside of our control.
“We are terrified” – that’s stark. And what is the response? “We talk regularly”! It’s beyond pathetic and powerless. There is literally nothing offered to the beleaguered nonprofit sector here. Or anywhere else, that I can see.
Meanwhile, while the nonprofit sector wallows it is perpetual lack of resources, lack of power, lack of just about everything. Another set of players are stepping up bat in the game of political power.
You know this guy, right?
That’s Gregory Bovino, the former leader of President Trump’s United States Border Control and the guy who personally led the occupation of a number of U.S. cities under Operation Metro Surge and Operation Midway Blitz – resulting in the murder of unarmed civilians. This guy is a full blown Nazi (just look at his uniform and his campaign graphic), and he is running for President of the United States! He is referred to as “The Commander” on his website. He is promising a thousand year Reich! This is no joke. I have to wonder – whose job is it in the civic landscape to track this wingnut and his followers? Who will track his staff and donors and track his public appearances, rallies, fundraisers, etc? So that we can react and protest – so we can make sure that no one that no one does business with his donors and vendors?
I am working on the 100K Project to try to inspire and equip my beautiful but stressed out creative peers to organize for power in order to govern for the common good. The Commander will be running even to the right of President Trump and his MAGA maniacs. Where is the collective political organizing from the arts, sciences, and education sectors?
Do we or do we not want our values reflected in and nourished by our government and its works? The Other Side has worked without pause or remorse to put their values and practices in the driver’s seat for American governing. If you don’t like the result, there is only one remedy – organize for power to govern.