It’s hard out there right now, y’all.
Nearly every nonprofit leader I know is navigating a mix of funding uncertainty, policy changes, rising costs, growing community need, workforce challenges, and general exhaustion. For many organizations, this isn’t a single crisis with a clear beginning and end.
It’s
one thing after another. It’s unrelenting.
That was the backdrop for a conversation I recently had the honor of facilitating at the 2026
Partnership for Excellence conference, hosted by the
Foundation Roundtable in Santa Barbara.
I was joined by Erik Talkin, CEO of the
Foodbank of Santa Barbara County, and Teresa Alvarez, Executive Director of the
Carpinteria Children’s Project. Both shared candidly about what it has actually looked like to lead through multiple crises over the past two years.
We grounded the conversation in story because (as you’ve heard me say before, screaming it from the rooftops)
storytelling is a leadership practice for everyone.
We also explored the role of adaptive leadership, particularly when the challenges in front of us can’t be solved by simply working harder or applying the same solutions we’ve used before.
So how do we lead well when the crises don’t stop?
At the conference, I shared a
framework grounded in adaptive leadership and four capabilities I believe nonprofit leaders need right now:
Anticipate. Adjust. Align. Advance. Think of these as four muscles leaders need to keep exercising at all times.
ANTICIPATE:
What is changing around us, and what might be coming next?
When everything feels urgent, it’s easy to stay focused on what’s directly in front of us. Leadership requires lifting our heads and scanning the landscape. Pay attention to what’s changing. Challenge your assumptions. Lean into relationships. Talk with peers, funders, and partners about what they’re seeing. You don’t need to predict what happens next, but you do need to pay attention.
ADAPT:
What needs to change based on what we’re learning?
Protecting the status quo can be one of the riskiest things we do in a changing environment. If we don’t adapt, change will eventually happen to us, and we’ll have fewer choices about how to respond (because hope is not a strategy). Adjusting doesn’t mean abandoning your mission. Sometimes it’s exactly what’s required to protect it.
ALIGN:
Who needs to be at the table, and what does our mission require of us right now?
Crises create distractions. Mission creates clarity. So, get back to the basics: Why do we exist? Who are we here to serve? What must we protect, even if other things need to change? And don’t make those choices alone. Bring in your board. Listen to staff. Talk with partners. Center the people most impacted by your decisions. The vision for the future is not your burden alone. Leadership is only lonely if we let it be.
ADVANCE:
What opportunity might be emerging because of this moment?
Crises disrupt old assumptions. They force decisions we’ve avoided and create opportunities to rethink how we work. Instead of only asking, “How do we get through this?” ask, “What could this moment make possible? How could this push us to innovate? What are we learning that could make us stronger? What should we change now to be better prepared for what comes next?" Reframing the moment is about building a more resilient, future-ready organization.
As Erik shared during the session, “We are in a time where distraction and ‘flooding the zone’ are an intentional tactic to keep you stuck in a responsive mode and being defined by someone else’s agenda.”
His advice?
“Deal with the tactical whack-a-mole, but make sure there is time, money and focus left for what you know will define your work in the future.”
There’s a difference between responding to a crisis and allowing the crisis to set your agenda.
I closed our session with a poem from Wendell Berry, who passed away the day before our gathering. It felt like the right way to close a conversation about uncertainty, purpose, and what it means to keep moving when we can’t see exactly what comes next.
No playbook exists for what is happening in today's volatile landscape. And there won't be a point anytime soon when everything settles down, and we can finally get back to “normal.” So perhaps part of the work is learning to lead differently within the uncertainty.
Our communities and neighbors need organizations that can still dream, challenge the status quo, and co-create what comes next. Our future depends on it.
The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
