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.”
