America’s nonprofits are being asked to do more with less, and the executives running them say the strain is causing massive burnout.
Nearly three-quarters of nonprofit CEOs surveyed by the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) said their organizations have experienced increased demand for their services brought on by cuts to major programs, according to a report shared with Fortune this week.
“The current environment has created ongoing uncertainty and strain within our organization,” one leader wrote in the report. “National cuts to major food programs have reduced resources and increased instability across the hunger-relief sector, leaving nonprofits like ours facing higher demand with fewer supports.”
The pressure stems from a tougher funding environment, staff cuts, and mounting concerns about their organizations’ ability to weather the current climate.
Findings are based on survey responses from 380 nonprofit leaders who cover a range of causes, including food, housing, childcare, education, health care, elder care, workforce training, and other services at a time when people need them the most.
The Trump administration’s budget cuts
Since President Donald Trump returned to office, he’s brought a cascade of funding cuts to the nonprofit sector. It began in late January 2025, when the Office of Management and Budget ordered a freeze on federal grants and contracts covering a wide array of aid programs.
Diane Yentel, the president and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, called this a “potential five-alarm fire for nonprofit organizations and the people and communities they serve.”
“From pausing research on cures for childhood cancer to halting food assistance, safety from domestic violence, and closing suicide hotlines, the impact of even a short pause in funding could be devastating and cost lives,” Yentel continued in a January 2025 statement. “This order could decimate thousands of organizations and leave neighbors without the services they need.”
Ultimately, the move was blocked in court, but was followed by what the National Council of Nonprofits describes as terminated contracts, rescinded grants, and refusals to release congressionally approved funding. Still, the administration canceled $30 million in Fair Housing Enforcement Grants to 66 nonprofits in March 2025, revoked $11.4 billion in COVID-era mental health and addiction grants, and dissolved the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration entirely (although it was later reinstated). Hundreds of arts organizations received late-night emails terminating their National Endowment for the Arts grants, and Trump’s proposed FY 2026 “skinny” budget calls for a 23% cut to domestic discretionary spending.
“Defund the Harmful Woke, Marxist Agenda,” the budget proposal reads.
“Every single agency across the Federal Government was engaged in funding and advancing DEI and other radical, harmful ideologies such as: $315 million for grant programs to push ‘intersectionality,’ ‘racial equity,’ and LGBTQIA+ programming for preschoolers; housing grants that funded activities such as an ‘Equity Audit’ to reverse land use patterns that have roots in systemically racist policies in L.A. County; and ‘addressing White Supremacy in the STEM profession,’ according to the budget proposal. “The Budget ends all of that.”
Stability concerns
Due to funding cuts, 66% of nonprofit CEOs said they are concerned about their organization’s financial stability, while the share of respondents reporting a budget deficit rose to 39% in fiscal 2025, up from 22% in 2022, according to the CEP report.
“We are working to break even and survive rather than thrive and expand,” one CEO said in a survey response, according to the report.
Aside from federal funding cuts, the Trump administration has issued executive orders, launched investigations, and threatened to revoke tax-exempt status for some nonprofits, according to CEP.
“One year into the Trump administration’s campaign against nonprofits, these organizations are facing enormous and unprecedented pressures,” CEP Vice President and report co-author Elisha Smith Arrillaga said in a statement. “This isn’t happening at the margins—it’s happening in cities and towns across the country, to the organizations people rely on when they have nowhere else to turn.”
The report also found 36% of nonprofits had seen reduced federal funding since January 2025, while 34% reported reduced state or local government funding.
Staff cuts and CEO burnout
Funding cuts affect both the beneficiaries of the organizations they help and the people who work for them.
About 30% of nonprofits surveyed said they had reduced staff size since January 2025, and for most of those organizations, staff had been reduced by more than 10%, the report showed.
Burnout is also worsening among leaders. Nearly 90% of nonprofit CEOs reported some level of concern about their own burnout, and 46% said their own burnout was “very much” a concern, up from just under 30% in CEP’s 2025 survey. One quarter of CEOs said burnout is significantly affecting their staff, compared with 17% in 2025.
“People are sad and stressed out,” one CEO responded to the survey, according to the report. “Clients are worried about the future and fearful of violence and hate speech.”
Philanthropists are under pressure to respond
The crisis also comes as major donors and billionaire philanthropists are moving enormous sums of money, though not always in the flexible ways nonprofits say they need most.
MacKenzie Scott, one of the most closely watched philanthropists in the world, has donated more than $26 billion since 2019, much of it through unrestricted gifts that allow organizations to decide how to use the money themselves. In 2025 alone, Scott gave away $7.2 billion.
Other research from CEP on Scott’s philanthropy found her large, unrestricted gifts strengthened nonprofits’ long-term financial sustainability and community impact, while also boosting leaders’ confidence and reducing burnout.
Nearly 90% of nonprofit leaders who received Scott grants said the money moderately or significantly strengthened their organization’s long-term financial sustainability, and 93% said it strengthened their ability to achieve their mission.
“There is much to learn from the experiences of nonprofits who received grants using Scott’s approach,” Arrillaga said in a statement about the report. “These organizations have managed large gifts in strategic ways that have impacted thousands of lives.”
Other wealthy donors have also made major philanthropic commitments, including the Audacious Project, where 35 wealthy families committed $1 billion to more than a dozen nonprofits, as well as Houston billionaires Rich and Nancy Kinder, who said they plan to give away 95% of their estimated $11 billion fortune to local charities.
Still, CEP’s latest report suggests the question is no longer just how much money is flowing into philanthropy, but whether it is reaching nonprofits quickly enough and with enough flexibility to keep up with demand.
In turn, the groups surveyed are considering a range of survival measures, including pursuing new donors, engaging existing funders, building reserves, freezing hiring or delaying raises, reducing services, sharing back-office operations, and even merging with other organizations, according to the report.
“[We are] cutting fat and tightening up operations,” one CEO respondent said in the report. “But that also means we’re all working at 175%, and it is not sustainable.”
