Nonprofit organizations are often described as the backbone of civil society—trusted to care for communities, elevate marginalized voices, and respond to needs where government or market systems fall short. But today, that backbone is under immense strain.
Recent executive orders issued by the current administration have abruptly changed the federal government’s posture toward many sectors of nonprofit work. Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs have been chilled or outright defunded. Immigration services, environmental advocacy, LGBTQ+ initiatives, and legal aid projects are facing intense scrutiny, pauses, or terminations of longstanding contracts and grants. In many cases, organizations learned of these changes not through consultation, but through formal notices ending years of partnership with the stroke of a pen.
The legal and political implications are significant, with lawsuits filed and litigation unfolding. But what’s happening is more than a clash over law or policy—it is a crisis of trust, identity, and direction. For nonprofit leaders, staff, and communities, the question isn’t just how to respond—it’s how to make sense of the conflict they’re now embedded in.
This is the kind of conflict that doesn’t live only in boardrooms or courtrooms. It lives in the internal strain of organizations trying to remain true to mission under pressure. It shows up in frayed relationships between partners who disagree about how to adapt. It becomes visible in the decisions about which programs to save, whom to lay off, and how to communicate with those who rely on their services.
And while the mechanics of funding may change with each administration, the deeper tensions—over race, power, values, and inclusion—aren’t going away.
What makes this moment particularly challenging is not just the external pressure, but the way it brings internal differences to the surface. Under stress, conflict tends to harden. People become reactive, protective, and positional. Dialogue narrows. Trust erodes. And when conflict is avoided or mishandled, organizations fracture—at precisely the moment when resilience is most needed.
But this pattern is not inevitable.
For more than 40 years, the Center for Understanding in Conflict has been working at the intersection of conflict and capacity—helping people engage productively with the differences that challenge them. Our understanding-based approach is grounded in the belief that conflict, if approached with curiosity and care, can be a catalyst for clarity, creativity, and connection.
In our work with nonprofits, we’ve seen how this approach can change the way teams navigate tension, how leadership groups handle disagreement, and how organizations realign around their core values when the ground shifts beneath them.
Conflict, after all, is not just something to manage—it is something to learn from.
The current pressures facing nonprofits illuminate how easily conflict can become adversarial, especially when shaped by political forces outside an organization’s control. But these moments also reveal something more hopeful: that there is another way to move forward, one rooted not in avoidance or escalation, but in understanding.
This doesn’t mean minimizing the seriousness of what’s happening. The stakes are high. Programs are closing. Jobs are being lost. People are hurting. What it means is that how we respond to this moment matters just as much as the policies we protest or the funding we pursue.
We need more than policy change—we need a shift in how we handle conflict itself.
That’s why conflict resolution education is not a peripheral need—it’s a structural one. Organizations that are equipped to face conflict with clarity and empathy are more adaptive, more connected, and more capable of sustaining their mission through uncertainty. They are better positioned to engage with funders, advocate for change, and hold space for disagreement within their communities.
At the Center for Understanding in Conflict, we have dedicated our work to making this kind of learning accessible—not just to lawyers and mediators, but to nonprofit leaders, educators, HR professionals, and community builders. Our vision is that people in conflict will engage in authentic conversations that build understanding. And our mission is to train the people who make that possible.
In this moment of upheaval, the nonprofit sector is being asked not only to serve—but to transform. To do that, we need to invest in our collective ability to navigate conflict constructively. The path forward isn’t easy. But it is possible. And understanding can lead the way.