Resources to Navigate Uncertainty
Get Monthly Advocacy Updates That Matter
Thank you! Please check your email inbox to confirm your subscription.
Updates on Executive Actions
UNA Newsroom: Latest Updates on Public Policy Impacting Nonprofits
Informational page on executive and legislative actions impacting the nonprofit sector, including resource for Utah nonprofits; updated regularly.
National Council of Nonprofits: Frequently Asked Question on Executive Actions Impacting Nonprofits
Responses to common questions relating to executive actions, federal funding freeze, and current judicial actions impacting nonprofits, updated regularly.
National Council of Nonprofits: Tracking Executive Orders
Chart of the most pertinent executive orders, expected impacts, and related actions; updated regularly.
GrantStation Insights: Tracking Federal Actions Impacting the Nonprofit Sector
This article tracks ongoing developments of the federal actions impacting the nonprofit sector and is updated weekly.
An Open Letter Rejecting Presidential Attacks on Nonprofit Organizations
Please consider adding your organization to the signatories of this letter.
5 Calls: Spend 5 minutes. Make 5 calls. Make your voice heard.
An easy and effective way for U.S. constituents to make a political impact.
Nonprofit Toolkit: Resources for organizations facing government investigations
Provides coordination services and strategic support for pro-democracy and grassroots organizations and individuals facing legal, public relations, digital, and physical threats due to their civic or elections related work, including at the national and state-wide levels.
The Future is Now: Preparing for the Unknown Crisis (Nonprofit Risk Management Center)
Tips on creating a practical and actionable crisis management plan
How to Simplify and Streamline During a Crisis (Nonprofit Risk Management Center)
Take Action on Risk: Make a Plan, Not a List (Nonprofit Risk Management Center)
Navigating Through Times of Financial Crisis (Nonprofit Finance Fund)
Assess your nonprofit’s potential financial risks and create a plan to respond to them.
Mapping Our Social Change Roles in Times of Crisis (Deepa Lyer)
Indicators of Financial Crisis: Organizational Self-Assessment (The Foraker Group)
Identifying and Mitigating Nonprofit Risk with a Six-Step Crisis Communication Plan (Blue Avocado)
Forecasting Nonprofit Finances & Pivoting Programs in a Crisis: Download Spreadsheet (Blue Avocado)
Resiliency Strategies for Nonprofits in Times of Political and Financial Instability (Nonprofit Quarterly)
Six Steps for Pivoting in a Crisis (Nonprofit Quarterly)
A Nonprofit Checklist: Conducting a Risk Assessment for Federal Funding (National Council of Nonprofits)
Templates
Business Continuity Planning Worksheet (Nonprofit Risk Management Center)
A Business Impact Analysis (BIA) identifies the impact of downtime for various activities and processes. Your BIA should help you determine which functions must continue without interruption, which can be scaled back or shuttered temporarily, and the desired timeframe for recovery and restoration.
AccessNow
Provides digital and cyber support through their 24/7 Digital Security Hotline.
Offers support across cyber, physical security, communications, and legal for organizations working on democracy. Support may be free or at low cost.
The Democracy Security Project
Provides trainings on physical, communications, and cyber security, along with 1:1 support through their intake process. Initially for the democracy field, now expanded to serve all organizations.
Offers security support and free trainings for POC-led and progressive-aligned organizations.
Prioritize identifying cybersecurity risks and develop an action plan to tighten up systems and processes.
Cybersecurity for Nonprofits Resource Hub
Additional cybersecurity resources.
Nonprofit Checklist: What to Do When Your Federal Grant or Contract is Terminated
National Council of Nonprofits resource with initial steps that nonprofits should engage in when they learn that their federal grant or contract is terminated by a federal agency.
A Nonprofit Checklist: Conducting a Risk Assessment for Federal Funding
National Council of Nonprofits resource with initial steps that nonprofits can engage in to conduct a risk assessment as the Administration targets federal grants and contracts for termination.
Protect Your Nonprofits Tax-Exempt Status
Loss of tax-exempt status can have disastrous consequences for a charitable nonprofit. It is helpful for every nonprofit leader, whether board or staff, to be familiar with the importance of tax-exempt status, and with situations that put a charitable nonprofit’s tax-exemption in jeopardy.
12 Urgent Financial Action Steps for Nonprofits in 2025 (Nonprofit Financial Commons)
Leading During Traumatic and Triggering Events (Diversity, Equity, Inclusiveness Consulting)
Emergency Succession Plan Template (Propel Nonprofits)
Craft an emergency response plan should your Executive Director become ill or temporarily unable to perform their duties.
Governing in a Time of Crisis (Propel Nonprofits)
10 actions for boards.
Beyond Financial Oversight: Expanding the Board’s Role in the Pursuit of Sustainability (Nonprofit Quarterly)
This article stresses that sustainability and engagement with the work is essential for nonprofit boards as they approach the future.
How Board Members Can Learn to Spot the Red Flags (Propel Nonprofits)
Rather than expecting board members to instantly recognize a problem in the making, let’s encourage boards to learn to ask the questions that will lead them there.
Consider hiring an expert to help the board govern thoughtfully and effectively during this time
UNA’s Business Directory is ready and waiting.
Have you already received a letter entitled Notice of Modification to Award Provisions
Consider using this letter as a guide for your response from Tennessee Nonprofit Network
Review NCN’s Executive Order Summary Chart
With the board or executive committee, review NCN’s Executive Order Summary Chart and identify how EOs and the climate they create might impact your organization.
Review NCN’s FAQs to gain clarity
Videos
The Board’s Financial Leadership (Nonprofit Financial Commons)
Recorded webinar to help nonprofit boards understand their fiscal leadership, including fiduciary duties, committees, audit, legal forms, and internal controls.
Boards in Times of Adaptation (Propel Nonprofits)
Recorded webinar.
Revisiting the Financial Oversight Role of Nonprofit Boards (Nonprofit Financial Commons)
(Video) The real financial governance challenges of nonprofit boards and how they can function more effectively through redirecting efforts and redefining duties.
Nonprofit Legal Compliance in an Unfriendly Political Environment (Nonprofit Quarterly)
List of compliance matters to prepare to address a threat.
Fortifying the Frontlines: How to Protect Social Movements Under Attack (Building Movement Project)
Explore resources for social movements under attack.
Turn on Your Headlights: How Funders Can Cut Through the Chaos Right Now (The Center for Effective Philanthropy)
Investing in Racial Equity through Charitable Grants and Services (Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law)
Challenging Times: How U.S. Nonprofit Leaders are Experiencing the Political Context (Center for Effective Philanthropy)
This new CEP Research Snapshot reveals how nonprofit leaders are experiencing the current political climate – and what they need from their funders right now.
Support your team by listening, communicating, and taking proactive steps. Have open and compassionate discussions with your staff about what they need and how the organization can support them.
Here are some practices to consider if you anticipate your staff are at risk of being targets of hostility or violence because of their identities, or because of your organization's mission-related work.
- Remove your office's physical address from your website and other public facing documents.
- Have a standard policy not to share details of staff locations/schedules without permission.
- Remove from your bio details about your families or other identifying information.
- Weigh the pros and cons of having staff feel accessible with the risks of sharing staff names - consider removing staff names & photos entirely from your website if you feel at high risk for personal attacks.
- Utilize a web "scrubbing" service (like DeleteMe, Incogni, or Optery) to remove all mention of identifying information on the web (age, address, phone number - the things you can easily find through a web search).
- Document standard operating procedures (SOPs) regarding emergencies (who to call in various scenarios) and regularly talk through these scenarios with staff.
- Closely monitor all incoming mail, email, voicemail, and social media messages, and make a plan for how you will - if necessary - contact local police and/or the FBI.
- Install security cameras.
- Offer de-escalation training for staff to support them in navigating a situation with a confrontational or hostile participant at an event or who shows up at the office.
In addition, you may have employees or clients who are concerned about their rights related to immigration—make sure your organization understands what to do in the case of a visit from ICE. The National Immigration Law Center offers A Guide for Employers: What to Do if Immigration Comes to Your Workplace. New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and Lawyers Alliance for New York have issued updated guidance to nonprofits outlining best practices for assisting and protecting immigrant clients.
Some additional resources:
- Democracy Protection Network: Offers support across cyber, physical security, communications, and legal for organizations working on democracy. Support may be free or at low cost.
- The Democracy Security Project: Provides trainings on physical, communications, and cyber security, along with 1:1 support through their intake process. Initially for the democracy field, now expanded to serve all organizations.
- Vision Change Win Community Safety Rapid Response Support - free of charge virtual rapid response support to social justice movements, organizations, and leaders dealing with urgent community safety incidents.
- When Purpose Feels Uncertain: Navigating Well-Being in a Humanitarian Sector in Crisis (Stephen Thompson, Headington Institute)
Nonprofit Dissolution
Just as your organization worked hard to operate effectively and legally, it is important to dissolve your organization with the same level of compliance.
Nonprofit Scenario Planning (The Bridgespan Group)
Guide to build scenario plans to successfully navigate uncertainty of local, national, or even global events.
Resiliency Tactics During Financial Crisis: The Nonprofit Resiliency Framework (Wiley)
A research study establishing the Nonprofit Resiliency Framework mapping tactics in five areas: financial, human resources, outreach, program and services, and management and leadership.
12 Urgent Financial Action Steps for Nonprofits: A 2025 Checklist (Steve Zimmerman and Ruth McCambridge, Nonprofit Financial Commons)
This article is intended to help nonprofit organizations take on the first phase of what is likely to be an extended period of financial uncertainty. It is structured as an action checklist designed to build your organization’s agility under turbulent conditions.
Nonprofit Scenario Planning in an Age of Chaos (La Piana)
"Scenario planning, like traditional strategic planning, is premised on a belief that with enough data and a sound analysis, an organization can assign a reasonably accurate likelihood to each potential future it may face. But in an era of extreme unpredictability, data collection and analysis are only the beginning. An organization needs to determine its Must Do’s, Won’t Do’s, and Might Do’s."
Scenario Planning Playbook (Georgia Center for Nonprofits)
Cash Flow Management (Propel Nonprofits)
Management strategies to help your nonprofit prevent cash flow shortages
Videos
True Business Planning for Nonprofit (Nonprofit Financial Commons)
The distinction between business planning, financial planning, and strategic planning; how to present risks to board members; frameworks to analyze your model and explain to stakeholders.
What to Watch and Do as Your Nonprofit Enters a Chaotic 2025 (Nonprofit Financial Commons)
Nonprofit leaders and experts examine key financial trends that nonprofits need to navigate an uncertain landscape.
Cash Flow Management: A Tactical Review for Nonprofits of All Sizes (Nonprofit Financial Commons)
Tools to use for projections and forecasts, and tactics to manage cash after you have identified a potential problem.
Templates
Emergency Succession Plan Template (Propel Nonprofits)
Craft an emergency response plan should your Executive Director become ill or temporarily unable to perform their duties.
Risk Assessment Template (Tangelo Tree Consulting)
Identify risks; rate likelihood of occurrence; rate potential impact; identity top risks for further discussion; plan to mitigate risk.
Cash Flow Template (Propel Nonprofits)
A template to help you understand the ebbs and flows of your cash.
Scenario Budget Planning Template (Propel Nonprofits)
Think through different possibilities and consider the impact on your programs and organization.
Share Your Voice: How Federal and State Actions are Impacting Your Nonprofit
Prepare your messaging to talk to your constituents about the issue. Emphasize that attempts to punish political opponents is an abuse of power. There are already systems in place for oversight of nonprofits. Focus on the important work of your local, service-based organizations and the impact you have in your communities. Americans Against Government Censorship has created a guide for messaging points.
Consider Updating Your Language if Funding is at Risk
Consider what your threshold of risk is to change language on your materials and website, weighing the threat of funding cuts with meeting the needs of your community.