If you’ve spent time in or around nonprofit leadership over the last few years, you know it’s been a time unlike any other. Demand for services is up, as access to resources is down. There is pressure to navigate uncertainty with a sense of calm, to evolve with technology, to be nimble with strategy, all while engaging new supporters to keep the mission moving forward. It’s all real. At Mission Partners, we feel these competing pressures from nonprofit and foundation leaders every day. And, just as often, we observe resilience, creativity, and a determination to navigate through all of that complexity with unshakable confidence. 

As social impact consultants working directly with nonprofit and foundation leaders, the duality of leading through complexity with confidence was something that struck us, and it’s a large part of why we decided to collaborate with the Chronicle of Philanthropy on the 2026 Insights on Purpose™ Report. The report, informed by a national research study involving responses from more than 400 nonprofit and foundation leaders, was designed to surface the shared patterns shaping today’s environment and point leaders like you toward a set of insights that can fuel better decisions in the year ahead.  

 

Confidence and Complexity Can Coexist 

One of the first patterns that emerged from the data was a striking duality: leaders overwhelmingly describe their work as more difficult than a year ago, yet large majorities still believe their organizations can increase impact over the next five years. 

The report also revealed something more subtle: confidence doesn’t always feel like confidence. Many leaders described a sense of calm on the surface, but they are carrying a lot underneath it. It’s a sentiment that captures how resilience isn’t just a metric to track; it’s a lived experience that requires care and practice. 

 

Seven Insights, One Shared Reality 

From financial strain to tech adoption, the insights help us better understand what it means to be a social sector leader today. Among the patterns we found: 

• Challenges, Meet Confidence. In 2025, leaders experienced a striking duality between experiencing real, multifaceted challenges today and projecting more confidence than might be expected about their five-year outlook. Nonprofits report more significant challenges; foundations report higher confidence. 

• Differing Views on Organizational Resilience. While nonprofits and foundations report confidence in weathering the challenges over the next five years and both tend to value the same factors as most important to ensuring organizational resilience, under the surface, nonprofit leaders express doubts about just how resilient their organizations are, compared to the high resilience reported by foundations. 

• Financial Realities and the Cost to Mission Advancement. Nonprofits face profound financial strain, while foundations, as expected, remain on solid ground. Funding shifts have left nonprofits scrambling to fill gaps while demand rises, threatening their ability to deliver on their mission. 

• Strategizing for Future Impact and Readiness. Strategic planning has become harder for all, and both nonprofits and foundations are reassessing strategies and approaches. As foundations rethink their grantmaking, it poses a clear challenge for nonprofits — but can also be an opportunity for the organizations that make their case effectively to current and prospective funders. 

• The Great Reframe. Many organizations are reframing their work, especially nonprofits under public scrutiny and whose values are being publicly challenged. Nonprofits found it even more necessary to reframe how they described their work to funders and their core values to the public in the past year. 

• The Next Digital Divide: AI. Organizations know AI matters, but feel behind in leveraging it. Similar majorities of nonprofits and foundations say they are “behind the curve” on using AI. For nonprofits in particular, funding constraints pose a significant challenge to adopting new technology. 

• Closing the Gap Will Be A Group Effort. As nonprofits dig deep to meet the moment and provide their services with fewer resources, foundations are showing up as well, with a majority increasing their outflows. Their missions are intertwined, yet our research shows a relationship shaped by a fundamental lack of understanding. Meeting this moment could hinge on mutual understanding. 

 

Toward Clarity and Action 

As we know well, no study or set of findings is transformative on its own. What is transformative is when insight turns into intention — when teams, and their leaders take evidence and use it as a springboard for adaptive practice. That’s why the Insights on Purpose Report doesn’t end with findings; it includes recommendations and curated resources designed to meet leaders where they are and help guide next steps.  

At Mission Partners, we believe that shared data can help normalize hard conversations, reduce isolation, and sharpen strategic thinking in a moment when leaders are doing their very best with imperfect clarity. We also believe that connection, across organizations, across missions, and across sectors, is what unlocks collective learning.  

 

A Call To Keep Learning 

Thank you to every leader who contributed their time, candor, and insight to the research that informed this report. Your voice shapes not just this report, but the collective picture of a sector in motion — a sector that is learning, adapting, and persevering together. 

I hope you’ll take time to explore the full 2026 Insights on Purpose Report, reflect on what resonates with your own experience, and use these insights as tools for conversation, strategy, and action in the months ahead. 

Let’s continue moving mission forward — together.