In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, we expected to see a wave of nonprofit mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Like many others, we thought that the pandemic’s challenges would likely combine with an economic recession and force many nonprofits to consider them as an alternative to bankruptcy. Since then, nonprofit staff and constituents in the United States have faced many other stressors, including a crisis in childcare; a national, racial justice awakening and accompanying white nationalist violence; and foundational challenges to democracy, manifesting in armed insurrection and attempts to claw back voting rights.

While we don’t yet know the full extent of M&A activity over the past year and a half, we do know that many nonprofits will continue to grapple with existential questions about their strategy and structure moving forward. Many have already had to remake themselves multiple times—and will need to do so again. As Anna Galland, former executive director of MoveOn Civic Action, told us, “Organizations will be in a state of acute decision-making and rapid adaptation, in one form or another, for years to come. The long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will keep rippling out across our politics, economy, and culture, including affecting the funding landscape for nonprofits.”

Given that the external demands on organizations have changed so much so quickly, this is a natural moment to consider how bringing two complementary nonprofits together might add up to more than the sum of their parts. In our work at New Media Ventures, which funds organizations that develop technology that supports democracy, we invest in both for-profits and nonprofits, and the attitude toward M&A could not be more different between the two. While for-profit startups usually seek acquisition at their highest point of value and consider it a victory all around, nonprofit leaders commonly consider M&A only when they’ve exhausted all other options for sustainability. Yet when executed well, nonprofit M&A can bring together complementary programs, reduce redundancies, and retain critical talent and movement infrastructure.

Read the full article about nonprofit mergers by Christie George and Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman at Stanford Social Innovation Review.