“We have had to be agile, flexible, and optimistic in ways that I haven’t experienced before,” said Elizabeth Lindsey about nonprofit leaders embracing collaboration in the face of uncertainty.

Elizabeth Lindsey, who leads the Washington, DC area location of the youth-empowerment nonprofit Genesys Works, has spent most of her career in the nonprofit sector. In her words, there are always ups and downs — but this past year has been “particularly challenging.”

In CEP’s recent report on the state of nonprofits, my colleagues elucidated what that challenge has meant for nonprofits, revealing stark increases in concern about burnout among nonprofit leaders, a sense that they are operating in an environment rife with fear and uncertainty, and a growing proportion of nonprofits reporting a deficit or concern about their future financial stability, demonstrating the need for nonprofit leaders to embrace collaboration.

In the following conversation, I asked Elizabeth to share more about what it’s like to be a nonprofit leader right now and to give us a first-hand view of how those concerning data points are showing up in her — and other nonprofit leaders’ — realities.

CG: Your experience is reflective of our findings in “State of Nonprofits 2026,” where we share how almost three quarters of CEOs report experiencing an increase in demand for their organization’s services, yet nearly 60% say it’s been harder since January 2025 to secure foundation grants. What impact have you seen this dichotomy of increased demand and decreased funding have on your peers? What are you seeing within your nonprofit ecosystem, and how has it impacted your work? 

EL: I’ve seen an impact across the board. Many nonprofits are having to cut staff and service. At Genesys Works, we connect young adults, rising high school seniors, with amazing opportunities and paid internships, and we have partner organizations who’ve needed to reduce the number of internships and amount of support they’re able to provide. We partner with corporations to actually pay our interns, so we have a mixed revenue model, and what we’ve seen, especially in DC, is that companies are very, very wary of making any kind of investment.

Read the full article about collaboration in the face of uncertainty by Caroline Gasparini and Elizabeth Lindsey at The Center for Effective Philanthropy.