by Dr. Kevin Dean, President & CEO, Tennessee Nonprofit Network
We need to talk. The nonprofit sector isn’t just navigating choppy waters; we are in a full-blown, Category 5 hurricane. This isn’t your grandma’s gentle squall; this is the perfect, terrifying trifecta of organizational doom. We’re being slammed by anti-nonprofit rhetoric and political polarization that treats us like public enemy number one, crippling funding cuts that make us feel like we’re running a marathon on one pretzel stick and a dream, and organizational culture issues that sometimes make the dream feel more like a nightmare.
Just when we thought we had finally stopped coughing up pandemic dust and were ready to embrace the “new normal” (which, let’s be honest, felt like a slightly less terrible version of the old terrible), BAM! Here we are, facing existential threats from every direction.
It’s easy to point the finger at external forces—the politicians, the economy, the culture wars. And those forces are real. But if we really want to be part of the solution, we have to look in the mirror and acknowledge that we, the noble, dedicated, and occasionally utterly insane soldiers of the sector, are doing things right now that are monumentally unhelpful and unproductive.
We are, in fact, actively undermining our collective ability to weather the storm. If we can stop doing these six self-sabotaging things, maybe, just maybe, we can stabilize the boat before the hull starts taking on water faster than a leaky bucket convention.
1. The Social Media Thunderdome: Not Giving One Another Grace Online
Let’s start with the low-hanging, hypocritical fruit: the internet.
We are, by definition, kindred spirits. We are the ones who chose the path of public service over, say, getting paid appropriately. We are fighting the same battles for marginalized communities, for a habitable planet, for arts education, and for puppies. We’re on the same team, and yet, we treat the comment section like a battle royale. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but I don’t need anymore “I don’t know who needs to hear this…” posts, thanks.
Now, let me be clear. If a person is saying truly hateful, dangerous, or purely discriminatory things—the stuff that constitutes actual harm—they deserve a reckoning, period.
But are we really going to come after one another with pitchforks because someone used a label that was correct last Tuesday but is now considered problematic, or shopped at the “wrong” store that’s owned by the “wrong” hedge fund manager, or, heaven forbid, joined an “evil” social media platform? Do we really want to cancel and shame people on our own team? Can we not make these teachable moments instead of life-altering social media virality?
I watched a friend of mine, a respected celebrity in our corner of the nonprofit universe, get absolutely filleted online because they had the audacity to join Substack. The digital villagers immediately called for their head, screeching about how Substack is an evil, un-woke cesspool. Here’s the hilarious irony: these righteous proclamations were posted on Facebook, Twitter (X), or Instagram—platforms whose ethical track records would make a villain blush. You’re calling for a boycott from atop a gigantic heap of corporate social media hypocrisy. It makes you, well, a huge hypocrite.
We have to stop policing every single perceived infraction. If you see something that genuinely concerns you—something that’s not pure, unadulterated hate—send a private message. Have the courage to send a thoughtful email. Because blasting someone online while hiding behind your laptop is not just performative, it’s fundamentally cowardly. And tell me, honestly, do you really think that public execution will make someone change their views, understand you better, or come to your side? No. No. No. I am stepping away from online trolls who go after nonprofits, and that includes those working in the sector! Just like you don’t air out your family drama online (save it for your reality show!), every disagreement shouldn’t be nationally televised and every person shamed online. You’re pushing people away, not drawing them in.
We won’t win this war if we’re all too busy canceling our own allies in the nonprofit sector over tactical disagreements, tone, and lexicon. Save the digital guillotine for true malfeasance, and offer your colleagues the same grace you hope to receive when you inevitably misstep. As a person who has been vilified online and publicly shamed online before, let me say that this is not the way to get a person on your team, full stop.
2. The Cubicle Crucible: Not Giving Grace In Person
If you work at a nonprofit and aren’t spending a good portion of your time worrying about your organization’s future, please, for the love of all that is holy, let me know if you are hiring. The rest of us are FREAKING OUT. We’re juggling the emotional toll of serving our communities with the stress of shrinking budgets, staff burnout, and an uncertain future.
Your coworkers, your board members, and your volunteers are courageous just for walking through the door right now. They are operating on 60% capacity and 100% anxiety. This is not the moment to demand perfection.
Give grace at work. No one is ever perfect. Lord knows none of us are going to be perfect in 2025. This entire geopolitical, socioeconomic moment is new for all of us.
When someone messes up the quarterly report, or sends that passive-aggressive email, or interrupts you one too many times in a meeting, take a breath. Take them to the side. Don’t blast them in front of the entire team. Public shaming is for bad reality TV stars and crooked politicians, not mission-driven professionals. Give second chances. Encourage curiosity, not certainty.
And here’s a radical idea: say nice things. Be nice. It’s not actually that hard. A single, sincere compliment can be the life raft that keeps a stressed colleague afloat for the rest of the week. Leadership in this crisis is less about strategy memos and more about modeling basic human decency.
3. The Ostrich Strategy: Keeping Our Heads Down
There is a soothing, almost childlike fantasy that goes something like this: Maybe if I just keep my head down, focus intently on my immediate to-do list, and avoid looking at the news, everything will be fine in the end, and we’ll all live happily ever after.
WRONG. That is the Ostrich Strategy, and it is a recipe for isolation and eventual collapse.
The problems we face—the trifecta of crisis—are systemic, interconnected, and collective. You cannot isolate your way out of a Category 5 storm. Right now, you and your colleagues need to be in community.
Keeping your head down is a defensive crouch that prevents you from seeing the lifeboats—or, more accurately, from building them with your peers. Stop treating professional development and community-building like a luxury item to be cut when budgets are tight. It is a survival tactic.
Join a peer learning network. Find time to join a book club that discusses more than just your program metrics. Make space for a staff retreat, even if it’s just an afternoon at a local park, to reconnect with the humans behind the mission statements. We will not get through this if we are all isolated islands, convinced our private struggle is unique.
Your organization needs the shared wisdom, moral support, and strategic clarity that comes only from leaning into others. Find community. Share the trauma, share the solutions, and share the collective courage.
4. Band-Aids on Bullet Wounds: Avoiding Public Policy Work
If your organization isn’t at least starting the journey of building out a public policy agenda, I’m not sure what you’re doing. You are essentially paying people to mop the floor while the pipes above them are spraying water directly into the building.
We cannot, in good conscience, keep putting band-aids on systemic issues and expecting everything to be okay. If you run a food bank, you know that the core problem isn’t a lack of canned goods, it’s a lack of wage and housing policy that prevents people from needing the food bank in the first place. Many of our worst community challenges are due to poor policy or a lack of thoughtful policy.
You owe it to your community to begin building meaningful relationships with your legislators and working with them. Not as an adversary, but as a trusted expert. Your data is your superpower. Use it to fight bad policy and pass good policy that serves our communities and our nonprofits.
Now, let’s look at the external crisis: anti-nonprofit rhetoric. It’s much harder to vilify, caricature, or attack the nonprofit sector if we are trusted allies and problem-solvers in the halls of power! When you’re helping a legislator craft a bill that genuinely helps their constituents, you stop being a nebulous, easy-to-demonize organization and start being a vital resource. Get off the sidelines. The work is hard, but the alternative is perpetual emergency response.
5. The Spin-Out: Overcorrecting
Yes, the new normal of anti-DEI backlash is jarring. It feels like the letters that used to stand for lifting up our communities are now being wielded as a cudgel to bash hiring practices and assign blame for systemic failures onto people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, and other historically marginalized groups. It’s disheartening, for sure. It feels like the entire car has hit a patch of ice.
But here is the reverent truth: DEI isn’t illegal.
While certain specific practices may now be prohibited in certain regions, being intentional about creating inclusive spaces, giving voice to the voiceless, and lifting up people who aren’t invited to the table is still very much legal.
The danger of the Overcorrecting phenomenon is slamming the brakes so hard you spin out. Organizations are pulling back on all inclusion efforts, terrified they might run afoul of the latest cultural or legal threat. This fear is understandable, but it is strategically disastrous. Follow the letter of the law, of course, but don’t overcorrect and abandon the moral imperative of equity simply because it became politically uncomfortable.
Inclusion is not a compliance issue; it’s a mission issue. Your organization cannot fulfill its potential—or serve its whole community—by making decisions based on fear and exclusion. Don’t let external hostility dictate internal values that are essential to your purpose.
6. The Head-in-the-Sand Hill: Undercorrecting
On the flip side of the Overcorrection coin is the Undercorrecting crowd. This is when the new reality of anti-DEI backlash causes some of us to dig in our heels, double down on rigid language, and take actions that no longer serve us or our communities.
Let’s be honest: in this climate, some of the most dedicated advocates have become more focused on being right than on being effective.
The goal of public service is to create positive change and support the community, not to win ideological arguments on a purity test. We need to speak to be heard and understood, not simply to be right. We need to take appropriate, strategic action to preserve and support our communities, not to make a grand, symbolic, but ultimately self-defeating gesture.
Yes, some of the new policies and rules are truly problematic. But if you are breaking the law or acting in a manner that alienates the very people you need to influence (legislators, funders, potential allies), you aren’t going to get very far. You’ll just be a martyr nobody remembers.
Don’t get mad and make rash, emotional decisions. Be strategic. Survival requires us to be brilliant tacticians. It means choosing your language carefully, understanding the legal boundaries, and focusing your energy where it can actually move the needle, even if that means temporarily adopting a slightly less abrasive tone. Strategy over self-righteousness. Always.
A Call for Collective Sanity
The storm is real. The winds are whipping, the rain is horizontal, and the boat is rocking wildly. We can’t control the weather, but we absolutely can control our behavior on deck.
We are smart, passionate, and relentlessly dedicated people. We just need to stop being so relentlessly dedicated to making our own lives harder. Let’s trade the online sniping for private counsel, the in-meeting critiques for in-person kindness, the solitary coping for collective action, and the ideological purity tests for strategic effectiveness.
We have a mission to protect. Let’s act like we’re on the same team, because if we don’t, there won’t be a team left to argue with.