State of Nonprofits 2026

In the March 2026 edition of From the Field, NASAA highlighted a report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), A Sector in Crisis: How U.S. Nonprofits and Foundations Are Responding to Threats, which provides insights into the challenges faced by the nonprofit sector and how nonprofits and foundations are responding to these challenges. As CEP noted at the time, many nonprofits and foundations are currently facing two interlinked challenges. Cuts to federal government funding have created a constrained budgetary environment for the nonprofit sector while, simultaneously, demand for nonprofit services has significantly increased. Building on this earlier report, CEP recently released its State of Nonprofits 2026 report, which continues to showcase the perspectives of nonprofit leaders and provide a clearer understanding of the pressures they’re facing and how they’re responding to current challenges.

In this fourth installment in its annual series, CEP surveyed a sample of 380 nonprofits based in the United States that are broadly representative of organizations receiving at least some foundation funding. Their responses revealed three key findings:

• Burnout has increased dramatically among nonprofit CEOs, who say the current context has contributed to lower staff morale and heightened levels of stress and fear. Of the CEOs surveyed, 46% indicated that their own burnout is a major concern, compared to 29% the previous year.
• Nonprofit CEOs report more difficulty obtaining foundation funding than in previous years, with 57% reporting that it has been harder to receive grants from foundations since January 2025. Moreover, 48% report that it has been harder to receive funding from their state government since January 2025.
• Many nonprofits are making strategic changes in response to financial difficulties. For instance, 88% report pursuing funding from new funders and donors, more than 40% are using reserve funds and about one-third are reducing programming and services.

Evaluating the America’s Cultural Treasures Initiative

In 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic threatening nonprofit resources and to demands for racial equity and justice across the country, the Ford Foundation launched the America’s Cultural Treasures initiative (ACT). This two-pronged national partnership, followed by nine regional partnerships, collectively involved more than 40 funders and distributed $276 million to support Black, Indigenous, Latinx and Asian American-led and serving arts organizations that have been historically underrepresented, underfunded and impacted by the pandemic. SMU DataArts, in partnership with Ted Russell Consulting, was asked to evaluate how this initiative affected investment patterns in practice. This study, Collective Funding with Intention: Lessons from America’s Cultural Treasures Regional Grantmaking Initiative, focused on the regional partnerships with a quantitative analysis of grant and community data alongside interviews with regional funding partners and intermediaries.

The evaluation illuminated several key findings. For instance, ACT helped shift historic patterns of divestment, at least initially.  Prior to ACT in 2019, in four of the five participating cities, organizations in majority BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) ZIP codes received lower median foundation funding than organizations in majority white ZIP codes. By 2022, arts organizations in majority BIPOC ZIP codes received higher median foundation funding than those in majority white ZIP codes in all four cities where funds had been disbursed.  When examining longer-term data from 2019-2024, the proportion of total foundation dollars supporting arts organizations in BIPOC majority ZIP codes slightly increased in four of the five cities. However, the authors caution that the percentage of funding to these neighborhoods was still inequitable.

For more detailed findings, including insights from interviews with participating funders and intermediaries, read the full report.

Arts Education Data and Reporting Initiatives 2026

In 2023, the Arts Education Partnership’s Data Working Group met to look at arts education data collection and reporting at the national, state, regional and local levels, culminating in a 2024 report. In a recently released update, Arts Education Data and Reporting Initiatives 2026: A Report from the Data Working Group of the Arts Education Partnership, the Data Working Group has identified new and updated arts education data sources and an increase in data collection and reporting capacity among arts education organizations. The report contains four sections: access, enrollment and participation; learning; staffing; and funding. Each section outlines questions, data and reporting sources, and gaps and potential barriers related to data. Read the full report.