Are you a #NonprofitCEO or #BoardMemberforGood?
Are you struggling to make sense of the #2025NonprofitCrisis and the path forward?
You are not alone! Senior leaders across our sector are trying to make sense of this moment. I recently wrote a blog reminding us of our own resilience when facing crises [Leading Through Crisis: Reframe and Realign | Ms. Quality1]. We have a long history, as social impact leaders, of navigating threats to our institutions and mission – from the 2008 Financial Crisis to the 2018 Safeguarding Crisis to the 2020 Pandemic. In each crisis, we found creativity and innovation to not just address the crisis but to come out stronger.
With each challenge, executives found the pathway of opportunity within adversity.
Below I, along with colleagues at FASTx Partners, humbly recommend effective strategies to successfully navigate this moment. We are focused on new ways of working and new models for delivering sustainable, positive impacts for local communities. In each case, these models already exist. In fact, some have matured enough to replace old operational, funding and program models.
💻Digital modernization. Institutions, big and small, must find the focus to adopt new technology architectures and secure your data. As the nonprofit sector contracts, we can better manage costs and new funding streams by becoming truly digital-first. Proven technologies tailored to your mission and impact value chain are available and can be efficiently implemented into your organization. [See HBR, 2021 and NetHope, 2024]
📊Data Harmonization and Cleaning. We can master and use our data as a sector better. If we secure it, harmonize it and efficiently share it – our collective impact can be more robust. Common data models and approaches are ready – are you? [See NetHope, 2021]
🏠Local Decision-making. Decision making is most effective when it happens closest to the impact. Decades of investment and partnership with local leaders and institutions has prepared the #NextGen. Now is the time... local leaders are ready to take the lead. [See NEAR, 2018]
🌍Collective impact. With the elimination of funding and US federal agencies, we must evolve the design and evaluation of social programs to center local coalitions and networks as the primary agents of change. We must work to re-align the purpose of large institutions to become primarily knowledge and donor exchange platforms that enable local coalitions to co-fund, co-lead and co-produce impacts. [SSRI article on Collective Impact, 2011]
🧳Fractional leadership. And we need to reduce executive costs. New leadership models like fractional leadership (part-time, on demand executives) can maximize the total value of the nonprofit workforce. Let's intentionally reduce the large draw on undesignated/unrestricted funds in the c-suite to retain workforce expertise on the ground. More importantly, fewer, skilled fractional executives can work to orchestrate sector-wide transformation by working in more than one institution delivering change. [Stay tuned! FASTx Partners blog on What is Fractional Leadership and Why it Matters More than Ever to the Nonprofit Sector]
My colleagues and I at FASTx Partners are working to make these changes happen. Join us. Come see what we’re doing:
E-mail: info@fastxpartners.com
LinkedIn: FASTX Partners LLC: Overview | LinkedIn
Website: www.fastxpartners.com
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