When the funding cuts hit, the executive director of a grassroots nonprofit had his budget drop by 30% overnight. The big international NGOs in his network were doing clean, surgical, and immediate mass layoffs. His board suggested the same.
Instead, he called a staff meeting. "We don't know where the next meal is coming from," he told his team, echoing the language of a household in crisis. "But we're going to figure this out together. Let's hold on."
Everyone stayed.
While the larger iNGOs were doing what he called “panic layoffs,” his organization maintained continuity. They could still deliver programs, community relationships stayed intact, and institutional knowledge remained embedded in the team.
Also, senior professionals laid off by the big organizations became available, and his organization could hire top talent for much less. There were other advantages too: No severance packages to fund, no rehiring costs and no need to rebuild trust with communities who'd watched staff disappear. And in a sector where reputation matters, the moral high ground of not “abandoning” your team turned out to be worth something with certain funders
Fast forward a few months. The big iNGOs were hiring back, selectively, strategically, and at market rates the grassroots organization couldn't match. Meanwhile, the family approach was showing cracks. Pay cuts that were supposed to be temporary had become permanent salary compression, and staff who'd stayed out of loyalty were quietly job-searching. The Executive Director found himself managing morale for a team that felt trapped between mission commitment and financial reality.
Also, bigger organizations had started competing for the same small grants his organization had always relied on.
Six months later, I asked him if avoiding staff cuts was the right call, and he said: "I don't know yet."
The family approach works brilliantly when the crisis is temporary. It preserves exactly what makes grassroots organizations effective: deep community relationships, contextual knowledge, trust.
It fails when "we'll figure this out together" stretches indefinitely.
His story made me ask myself: What's the difference between weathering a storm and slowly sinking together?
