NextBillion - A WDI Publication

Impact leadership is hard even in the best of times.

But when crisis hits — whether it’s a global pandemic, the collapse of development aid, or increasingly hostile political or regulatory environments — even the most seasoned leaders feel the strain.

As educators and advisors to impact enterprises, we’ve been hearing about these struggles from leaders across the sector: How do we stay true to our mission when funding and politics seemingly shift overnight? How do we make smart cuts to steady the organization for the long-term? How do we communicate clearly in a polarized environment? And how do we sustain ourselves and our teams, while leading through it all?

To answer these questions, we’ve drawn on lessons shared from our conversations with impact leaders during COVID-19, and on more recent insights we developed while working with winners of the F.M. Kirby Prize for Scaling Impact. These lessons show how globally recognized organizations are navigating today’s volatile funding and political environment.

Each crisis is different. But core leadership lessons endure. Here are four that matter. 

1. Act Decisively: Protect What Matters Most

When COVID-19 struck, mPharma CEO Gregory Rockson offered blunt advice: “Imagine you’re about to run out of money in a month. What decisions would you make today to extend that runway? Do it.”

In crisis, delay can be costly. The earlier that leaders can make hard trade-offs, the more strategic — and less reactive — those decisions can be.

That lesson is playing out again in today’s volatile funding environment. When USAID funding was frozen and later cut, Semilla Nueva, the 2024 Kirby Prize winner, acted before the full impact was clear. Leadership quickly prioritized the activities that were most aligned with its core theory of change — onboarding new seed companies, executing a government alliance with secured funding and advancing a breakthrough seed technology.

At the same time, they made disciplined cuts: pausing randomized controlled trials and impact studies, scaling back policy work, and making difficult staffing cuts. These were hard decisions to make, but ones that CEO Curt Bowen said were critical to ensure the stability of their mission, while still preserving the option to ramp back up when conditions improve.

Healthy Learners, the 2021 Kirby Prize winner, faced a different disruption. They felt fortunate that, when development aid dissolved, the majority of their core funding remained intact. However, their leadership proactively anticipated “second-wave” effects — supply chain breakdowns and gaps in clinical services caused by broader aid cuts that would impact their work improving children’s health through schools.

Recognizing that they had systems in place to procure medical supplies if needed, they quickly adjusted their financial forecasts to absorb and reallocate some funds in the short to medium term, to help avoid stockouts. At the same time, they acknowledged that disruptions to clinical services fell outside of their core competencies, and relied on other partners to address those gaps. By concentrating on the functions they were best equipped to support, they ensured their response was both disciplined and effective.

For leaders navigating tumultuous political and funding environments, they must acknowledge that protecting everything equally is not resilience, but rather avoidance. Stay focused on the long-term vision, act decisively and protect what matters most.

Practical moves to consider:

• Determine non-negotiables and cut around that core. Ask yourself: What are our core drivers of impact and revenue? Where are we uniquely positioned to deliver value? What can be paused without compromising long-term mission?
• Run time-bound scenario exercises: For example, Semilla Nueva began with a one-hour contingency planning session — a time-bound approach that kept the team strategic without spiraling into hypotheticals.
• Ignore sunk costs: Ask yourself: “If we weren’t already doing this, would we begin now?” If the answer is no, consider pausing or phasing out that program.

2. Communicate Wisely: Messaging to Inform and Mobilize

In uncertain times, silence creates anxiety. But poorly framed communication can create backlash.

For close stakeholders — staff, board members, funders — transparency can build trust and unlock support. For instance, Semilla Nueva communicated early and candidly about challenges brought on by the funding freeze, while outlining a clear path forward. That clarity prompted several funders to accelerate or increase their support. Similarly, 2023 Kirby Impact Prize winner Essmart’s proactive and transparent communication led one funder to loan a staff member to the Essmart team to help address emerging challenges.

However, communication becomes more complex with broader audiences, and especially in polarized political environments where language itself can become a flashpoint.

To address this, leaders we work with are not diluting their missions, but some are reframing their messaging to speak to different audiences. As Lindsay Dolce of Math Corps, the 2022 Kirby Impact Prize winner explained, her team tailors its messaging to focus on what “moves the needle” for different stakeholders. This means continuing their important work, while adjusting their communications to emphasize bipartisan priorities such as rural reach, data-driven accountability and diversified funding.

Other leaders emphasize strengthening coalitions, building on existing partnerships and finding new cross-sector or cross-issue alliances. Building this sort of collective voice amplifies credibility, diffuses risk — and can mobilize action on behalf of shared goals.

Practical moves to consider:

• Prioritize language that maintains your mission and principles but can help align other stakeholders’ motivations.
• Lead with data and demonstrated outcomes.
• Seek out broad coalitions, knowing that power resides in the collective.

3. Adapt Thoughtfully: Mission is fixed, Strategy is not

As one of CASE’s Board members, Habitat for Humanity CEO Jonathan Reckford, has often told us: “Be religious about your principles, but not about your tactics.”

Funding streams shift. Political winds change. Public narratives evolve. The question for leaders is not whether to adapt to new realities, but how to do so while staying true to their missions.

That may mean reimagining how core assets — e.g., people, partnerships, infrastructure — can be repurposed to solve emerging challenges and seize new opportunities. For example, Semilla Nueva recognized that the same capabilities their team used to engage development aid partners — who were often the bridge to local government — could be applied directly to those local government stakeholders, allowing them to bypass the additional step and set up funding relationships and partnerships directly with in-country governments. And Math Corps and Essmart are exploring how to monetize existing assets — e.g., data, networks, training content — to create earned income streams.

For some organizations, adaptation may also mean consolidation. An October 2025 survey, part of the Global Aid Freeze Tracker, an effort to understand how global organizations are impacted by bilateral and multilateral aid cuts, showed that 64% of respondents were either actively seeking or considering mergers or other partnerships. While complex, these moves reflect a broader truth: Resilience sometimes requires structural change.

In today’s turbulence, external conditions may shift quickly, but long-term social needs will not. Leaders who can separate mission from tactics can find the space to adapt thoughtfully to evolve and endure.

Practical moves to consider: 

• Map your ecosystem (see the SSIR article “Cultivate Your Ecosystem”) to find partners to co-create, co-fundraise and more.
• Challenge entrenched thinking (“this is how we have always done things”), leveraging thought partners and tools like AI.
• Merge wisely: Look at matching services like Accountability Lab, and resources from La Piana Consulting or Bridgespan.

4. Lead Sustainably: Sustain the Leader to Sustain the Mission 

Crisis leadership tests more than strategy, it tests stamina and resilience. That is especially true in impact work where the stakes are high, and the work is deeply personal.

As Dolce of ServeMinnesota reflected, “In times of uncertainty or crisis, leaders must approach issues in 15 different ways to find the right path — and that requires a lot of resilience.” She added “Good decisions can’t be made out of panic and despair. They must come from a place of calm.”

Cultivating that calm takes intention. Dolce recommends stepping away, even briefly, when needed — before burnout sets in. Gary Cohen, founder of Health Care Without Harm, encourages leaders to take the long view: “We are part of a greater movement, and, while we are contributing to an important chapter, there will be more chapters to write by future generations (and, in fact, many chapters upon which we stand). So, try to hold on to the outcomes of your actions lightly, knowing that you exist within the maelstrom of a long-term struggle.”

Acknowledge that impact work progresses over a long arc, and that sustaining the leader is as important as delivering the programs. As Cohen says “Self-care — as we try to repair the world — isn’t selfish.” It protects the mission. Resilience at the organizational level begins with resilience at the leadership level. Only then can leaders be intentional about leading with care for their employees, recognizing and acknowledging employees’ fatigue from the volatility, grief for lost programs or laid-off colleagues, and often anger and fear about positions eliminated or progress stalled.

Practical moves to consider:

• Build trusted peer networks to help process challenges and see opportunities.
• Deliberately subtract — e.g., create “To Don’t” lists with tasks that aren’t critical.
• Make a habit of noting daily progress and celebrating small victories with your team.
• Model healthy boundaries for your team to avoid burnout.

In today’s world, volatility is no longer the exception — it is the norm.

Yet whether they’re navigating pandemic shocks, funding collapses or political polarization, leaders and organizations can find ways to endure — and the ones that do share common habits: They act decisively, protecting what matters most; they communicate with discipline; they adapt without losing sight of principles; and they sustain themselves for the long term.

Of course, none of this eliminates volatility. And even the strongest organizational strategies cannot fully offset systemic funding gaps or political headwinds. But we hope that these lessons help leaders to not only navigate the pressure of the present, but to strengthen their organizations’ ability to shape a more sustainable and equitable future.

Erin Worsham is executive director, and Kimberly Bardy Langsam is senior program director, at the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Photo credit: fizkes