Nonprofit Leadership
Leading with Purpose. Innovating with Equity.
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** Building to Last
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February 3, 2026
Last Friday, “ICE Out” protests ([link removed]) swept across the United States. From coast to coast, workers walked off the job, students left classrooms, and communities stood together to demand an end to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s escalating violence. These coordinated actions represent more than outrage—they show how capable the people are of mobilizing a nationwide response.
Yet as nonprofits continue to face a fundamental tension around responding to rapidly escalating crises while sustaining long-term resistance. The events in Minneapolis crystallize this challenge—alongside other developments, such as the arrest of former CNN host Don Lemon or the FBI’s raid of the Fulton County election hub—and raise constitutional questions about the lawful use of force and whether basic accountability mechanisms are being systematically bypassed. For nonprofits on the ground, these are operational realities that demand both immediate response and strategic organizational capacity.
The question of organization design becomes crucial here. Justice-centered nonprofits face unique structural challenges that conventional management frameworks often fail to address. Rethinking organization design priorities will allow us to build organizations capable of sustaining resistance across diverse, often virtual, teams, and bolster our civil society under attack.
All of this serves as the political backdrop of our times for this first week of Black History Month. These questions of organizational resilience take on added significance, drawing on the long history of Black organizing that offers profound lessons in building institutions designed for sustained struggle.
In solidarity,
Coty Poynter
Senior Editor
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** Must-Read Articles
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ICE, Violence, and Legal Crisis in Minneapolis
by Jennifer Johnson
“When federal agents operate without accountability, and states are blocked from investigating, we’re seeing a fundamental breakdown in the rule of law.”
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The Missing Discipline: How Organization Design Can Align and Propel Justice-Committed Nonprofits
by Jeanne Bell and Daniel Tucker
“The gap between our aspirations and our operations in justice-centered nonprofits is largely due not to a lack of effort, but to the lack of a coherent theory and practice of organization design.”
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How the Trump Administration Is Undermining Civil Rights Law—and How Nonprofits Can Fight Back
by Zane McNeill
“As civil rights protections are increasingly undermined, nonprofits are confronting a difficult question: How do they remain faithful to their missions when the legal system designed to protect their work is being turned against them?”
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The Crisis Facing Organizing Isn’t Just Scale. It’s Also Structure.
by Dizzy Zaba
“There is no more online and offline, we exist in both simultaneously.”
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Black History Month Collection
by Multiple Authors
Explore NPQ’s collection of articles examining Black organizing, leadership, and institution-building—offering crucial lessons for today’s resistance movements.
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Nonprofit Leadership offers timely civic news, equity-centered insights, and innovative frameworks for leaders building a just and thriving civil society. This newsletter delivers field wisdom, leadership strategies, and practical tools to help you lead with intention and create sustainable impact in your organization and community.
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