Reflections on funding, capacity, and partnership in a time of ongoing change
Author’s note: This blog reflects what we are seeing and learning through our work alongside nonprofit leaders, funders, and capacity building partners across the social sector. We share it in the spirit of reflection and conversation, recognizing that organizational contexts and needs vary and continue to change.
Across the social sector, there is growing recognition that the challenges nonprofits are navigating are not a temporary disruption. Rising demand for services, workforce strain, economic volatility, and shifting policy conditions continue to shape how organizations operate — and how funders engage with them (Center for Effective Philanthropy, 2024; Nonprofit Finance Fund, 2025). For many organizations, these pressures are persistent rather than episodic, requiring ongoing adaptation versus short-term recovery.
In response, philanthropic practices have begun to evolve. Flexible and general operating support, attention to organizational capacity, and efforts to reduce administrative burden have gained traction across the field (Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, 2022). These shifts matter. At the same time, they raise a practical question many funders are now grappling with: how do we determine what kinds of support are most appropriate for different organizations, at different moments, in a dynamic and uncertain environment?
Based on our work with nonprofit leaders, funders, and capacity building partners, we have found that this question rarely has a single or linear answer. Organizations move between periods of stabilization, rebuilding, growth, and relative stability — sometimes quickly and sometimes simultaneously. External conditions can shift faster than grant cycles, and internal capacity is shaped not only by funding levels but also by leadership transitions, workforce well-being, and community needs (Institute for Nonprofit Practice & Community Science, 2024).
Attentive empathy and listening reflect a broader understanding of organizational change as dynamic and context-driven rather than linear, an idea we explore more fully in our writing on how organizations adapt their strategies over time in response to shifting conditions.
Rather than offering a checklist or model, we recently developed a short resource, Aligning Support with Nonprofit Reality: Emerging Field Insights (found at the end of this post), to support reflection in this moment. The resource outlines the non-linear considerations that funders and partners can revisit over time as conditions evolve, including:
- What is most true for the organization in this moment;
- How well current support aligns with organizational readiness and capacity and capabilities;
- Whether timing and sequencing, funding, and resources supports fit organizational reality;
- How equity and context shape needs and organizational constraints; and
- How investments by individual funders interact within a broader ecosystem.
These considerations are intentionally non-linear. Any one may be more or less salient at a given moment, and funders may move among them as circumstances change.
Taken together, they are intended to function as navigation tools, not prescriptions. They are designed to support thoughtful decisionmaking, surface assumptions, and strengthen partnership, especially as flexible funding becomes more common and expectations shift from transactional grants toward sustained engagement.
Why This Matters
As the sector continues to operate in conditions of volatility and constraint, the work of philanthropy increasingly centers on how funders engage over time, not just on what they fund. Aligning support with organizational reality — capacity, context, timing, equity, and ecosystem dynamics — can help ensure that investments strengthen resilience rather than inadvertently adding strain.
Read the resource: Aligning Support with Nonprofit Reality: Emerging Field Insights
Related reading: Interested in how organizations navigate ongoing change internally? Check out our blog Ditch the Bucket List: You Can’t Do It All. Using nature as our inspiration, this piece explores how organizations adapt strategy over time in response to shifting conditions. While written for nonprofit leaders, it also offers funders useful insight into the realities organizations are managing.
References:
Nonprofit Finance Fund (2025). State of the Nonprofit Sector Survey.
About The Authors
Marissa M. Salazar, Ph.D., Associate, is a psychologist focused on organizational strategies that integrate equity, effectiveness, and well-being across the social sector. She brings a rigorous, collaborative mixed-methods approach to advancing organizational learning and systems change. Current evaluations include partnerships with the Hewlett Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation.
Amber Trout, Ph.D., Managing Director, has extensive organizational and leadership development, change management, and capacity building experience in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. Most recently, she worked with the Institute for Nonprofit Practice to manage the implementation of their new learning agenda, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to manage the evaluation of the Racial Equity Anchor Collaborative, and the Knight Foundation to map pathways of change and more for an equitable revitalization project. She leads Community Science’s practice area on organizational effectiveness.