Johnathan Star talks about the future of nonprofits being VUCA. Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous. This doesn’t sound very promising. But it’s true. When you talk to nonprofits or survey the nonprofit landscape, they are in survival mode. They are protective, frantic, and sometimes even hostile. This environment stifles change, rather than contribute to it.

In order to create change, we have to start at the here and now. While we cannot change the terms of the future, we can help nonprofits embrace them, and be prepared enough for them that they feel they are fostering change rather than defending their existence. This isn’t going to happen within nonprofits. This attitude adjustment needs to come from the outside. I propose that corporate donors facilitate this change.

We all know that when times get tough, people stop giving, corporations included. So, while times are prosperous, or even just ok, we need to step in and help the organizations and communities we are passionate about prepare for the times that aren’t so great. Whether that be helping to fund an endowment, creating an emergency plan, encouraging mergers of nonprofits or closer collaboration, or simply learning how to operate with more efficiency (which, we should do anyways because efficiency makes the dollar go further), many corporations possess the skills in house to do this. And your donations can contribute to that. And you SHOULD donate to that. Help your partners think differently. Help them exit survival mode and enter change engine mode. Remember, we can’t just write checks anymore, we need to get our hands dirty to make our communities work.