The nonprofit sector is facing a convergence of threats that are undermining its ability to operate effectively and efficiently. Changes to funding and recent legislative actions that directly impact the work of nonprofit organizations are being felt directly, and leaders expect these changes to continue having a negative impact on their organizations in the future.
These multi-front pressures affect the legal, financial, and political conditions necessary to sustain operations. Examples of current sector-wide pressures include political targeting, civic silencing, threats to the fiscal sponsorship model, government surveillance, and increased administrative burden. The consequences are already visible: unfulfilled government contracts, the closure of partner organizations, the loss of programming and jobs across the sector, and the lack of follow through of DEIB commitments from organizations, as noted in research from Center for Effective Philanthropy, Institute for Nonprofit Practice, and Urban Institute.
TSNE’s release of the Leadership New England 2026 report earlier this year also highlighted the harmful effects the current political climate has on nonprofits and the communities they serve. As one leader noted, the loss of jobs and programs is particularly painful as infrastructure, systems, and relationships took decades to build, and just one year to be dismantled. Another stated, “It feels like I’m a wartime executive director right now where it’s just like bam, bam, bam, bam!”
One leader described the dismantling of the nonprofit sector as a profoundly dehumanizing experience, marked by the erasure of the work and contributions of frontline communities and leaders. They expressed concern that these dynamics not only harm those currently doing the work but also send a troubling message to younger generations who are already frustrated with institutions and leadership. In their view, systems that pit people against one another, create barriers to participation, and undermine community leadership contribute to a broader sense of dehumanization and disconnection.
These pressures are amplified on the state level as well. As federal funding recedes, states face impossible choices — cutting services, raising taxes, or shifting costs onto nonprofits — while community need grows and the organizations best positioned to respond have the least capacity to absorb it.
Legal challenges have offered an avenue of resistance. In the courts, litigation is mounting against the administration’s most aggressive actions. While injunctions have offered some relief, legal wins are slow, narrow, and no substitute for stable policy. For nonprofits, uncertainty and instability have become the operating conditions, along with urgency driving this moment.
As the challenges that nonprofits and leaders face continue to increase, some have started creating space to unpack their experiences together. Below, TSNE’s Manager of Cohort Learning, Carro Hứa, shares how some leaders are engaging in grounding practices to deepen self-awareness and collective care as a key resource to navigate these times.
Collective Care as a Key Resource
“Where are you on the spectrum of ‘hope’ and ‘despair’ during this political moment?”
That was the question that was asked of leaders participating in TSNE’s Powering Cultural Futures (PCF) cohort in April 2025. We gathered during a hostile and tumultuous time for those in racial justice and community-based arts and cultural spaces.
To these leaders and the lineages that they are from, injustices and scarcity of resources are part of the historical legacy that they live with. Often, leaders are isolated and taught to not openly express despair but instead perform optimism and hopefulness. There is a need for public and collective grieving as people who experience consistently that resources for living and being creative, artistic, and collective are denied. When we grieve together and allow ourselves to tend to despair, then we can build on the reality that struggle is part of the process of collective freedom. Collective tending to despair is an antidote to fascism.
“What do you notice inside of you when you are faced with pressure? And how may you respond to pressure choicefully from a grounded stance?”
A year later during a convening in May 2026, that was the question posed to PCF cohort leaders invited into somatic awareness, a practice of noticing how our internal worlds and physical bodies are responding to external pressures, especially pressures against people with marginalized identities. People have grown more exhausted building alternative worlds to our current oppressive society, while navigating a terrain where resources continue to be made scarce purposefully.
This question was an intentional intervention in our current hostile political moment for leaders to be introspective and reflective about how they lead and govern. Through somatic practice, we reflect on our habitual reactions to external stimulation, are invited to notice with self-compassion, and consider being more choiceful and rooted in collective values when supremacy culture is explicitly omnipresent.
We are constantly feeling the pressures of systems of oppression and the ongoing uncertainty about our collective livelihood and well-being. The grounding practice and antidote are to convene in care and with intention. Together, we can ask, “how might we move through this collectively and not through habitual individual and isolated reactions and answers?”
As nonprofit leaders navigate through ongoing threats, uncertainties, and impacts to their organizations and communities, it is critical that we continue to cultivate our leaders’ wellbeing, create opportunities for our leaders to engage in collective actions, and invest in infrastructure that strengthens the nonprofit sector overall. Below we share some key recommendations for how we can start to bolster the sector in the face of a shifting political landscape.
Recommendations
- For nonprofit infrastructure organizations and funders: Convene nonprofit leaders and funders to build shared analysis of existing funding practices/structures, reduce power imbalances between funders and nonprofit organizations, and shape responses to current pressures grounded in community experience.
- For nonprofit infrastructure organizations and funders: Invest in coalition-building and regional alliances to enable leaders to respond collectively to political and economic upheaval, advocate for policy change, and share strategies for organizational resilience.
- For funders: Engage in collective action with peer funders by coordinating shared priorities, and mapping resource concentration and gaps. Commit to addressing gaps across the nonprofit sector.
- For leadership and governance: Strengthen leadership that is grounded in self-awareness, accountability and repair as the climate of harm intensifies, and be committed to the well-being and dignity of people especially those on the ground delivering on mission.
- For all stakeholders: Support nonprofit leaders; treat wellness supports and rest as legitimate, fundable infrastructure for organizations.
Read more in TSNE’s Leadership New England 2026 report.