New Nonprofit Finance Fund Survey

On June 18, 2025, the Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF) released an important and insightful survey of nonprofits in the United States. The Report’s title foreshadows the findings and conclusions:  Essential, Enduring, and Under Strain: The Nonprofit Sector’s Strength and Struggle in a Shifting Landscape.

The 2025 State of the Nonprofit Sector Survey is an “in-depth analysis of financial and operational data from 2,206 nonprofits across the country.” The survey was conducted in the first few months of 2025 and references data for 2024.

The Report “explores how nonprofits are faring in today’s changing environment and the investments needed to secure their long-term futures.” The purpose of this study is to “guide funding and advocacy decisions. There are overall findings and recommendations for nonprofits, government, and philanthropic funders.”

It is available for download (23 pages PDF) free of charge at the NFF website. There is a YouTube video of an hour-long webinar with an overview of the national results.

The Executive Summary begins: “Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF) conducted its tenth State of the Nonprofit Sector Survey in early 2025 to gather and share out data about US nonprofits’ health, including their collective challenges, successes, and the required investments to continue enriching millions of lives – in today’s challenging environment and well into the future.”

Key Concerns

Elise Miller, the NFF’s senior director of community engagement and lead survey report author explained: “In our 2025 survey, we heard some long-standing challenges, like rising demand and the toll of doing underfunded work year after year. But we also heard new and urgent concerns: Costs are climbing faster than funding, and many are worried about what will happen if government support continues to decline.” Demand for nonprofits rising amid financial constraints, report finds (June 18, 2025) philanthropynewsdigest.org,

More specifically, the data showed that “85 percent of respondents expect service demand to increase in 2025, and 36 percent ended 2024 with an operating deficit, the highest in 10 years of NFF’s survey data.”

In addition, “[i]nflation impacted nearly all respondents, with 86 percent saying their organizations or clients have been affected. Only 41 percent of survey respondents were able to pay all full-time staff” and the benefits packages remain limited.These findings are less favorable than those of the most recent NFF survey covering 2022; then, the pandemic was waning but still a major factor.

Ms. MIller presented an important reframing of the matter for the coming months and years: “Nonprofits are community infrastructure, as vital as roads and bridges. They are the community centers, health  clinics, theaters, shelters, museums, and schools that help us live full, connected lives.” They are “… the infrastructure that we rely on to meet everyday needs and epic challenges, and investments in this infrastructure yield sustained and substantial impact. Nonprofits are also employers, connectors, and advocates. We all have a stake in keeping this infrastructure strong.”

“What the Data Tell Us” 

The Executive Summary distills the Report findings into five major conclusions with highlights of supporting data:

• “Nonprofits Don’t Just Serve Communities: They Are the Community”

Almost one-third of leaders of the responding organizations have “lived experience representative of the communities their organization serves.” These 501(c)(3)s are also “community economic engines”: They are important employers as well as supporters of local vendors.

• “Our Community Infrastructure Is In Trouble”

“Nonprofits have always made do with limited resources, but they are close to reaching a breaking point in 2025,  as they navigate three colliding crises: inflation, government funding cuts and delays, and growing demand.” For respondents with government funding, “84% expect cuts due to 2024 election results” and “anticipate that these funding cuts will result in paused programs, hiring freezes, fewer services, and  challenges paying bills.”

Many respondents reported they “couldn’t keep up with demand in 2024 and expect it to get worse in the year ahead.”

• “Financially, Nonprofits Are Running on Empty”

“Nonprofits are doing everything they can to stay afloat, but the financial systems meant to support them are adding pressure, not relief. Our 2022 survey revealed a stronger relative financial position for nonprofits, as funders responded to the pandemic and racial reckoning with more dollars and flexible funding. Now we see signs of retrenchment in these practices and resultant financial fragility for nonprofits. The 2025 data shows many nonprofits living one unexpected cost away from catastrophe.”

• “Government Funding Dynamics Are Especially Challenging”

“In 2024, more than 70% of respondents received money from government.” Among them, 55% reported being paid late, with 11% noting average payment delays longer than 90 days.”

In any event, government funding rarely covers their costs of delivering services. “70% of respondents said they could only charge an indirect cost rate … of 10% or less, a rate acknowledged in October 2024 in OMB Uniform Guidance as insufficient to run a healthy organization.” Also, “[f]ederal funding cuts and delays in 2025 are destabilizing essential services. 45% of respondents had federal grants or contracts in FY24; even more are exposed as these cuts ripple through state and local funding.”

• “Nonprofit Staff are Running on Empty, Too”

“Right now, many of the people who power our nonprofit infrastructure are overworked, underpaid, and burning out under the relentless pressure….”

On top of the alarming data that a substantial percentage or organizations are unable to offer living wages, there are reports from over 2/3 of respondents about having trouble “employing sufficient program and administrative staff.”

Conclusion 

The Report offers information on “actions that funders and nonprofits can take to respond to these times….”

In addition, the Nonprofit Finance Fund’s website includes a comprehensive compilation of free educational and planning resources from beginner levels to more advanced. See, for example, just a few:

• The Financial Management Training section: An overview of core concepts plus templates to help evaluate and improve an organization’s financial health.
• How to Craft Your Organization’s Financial Story: Ideas and information on communicating the organization’s financial situation to staff, board, and funders.
• Full Cost hub and download the Full Cost Workbook: Planning tools and advice for longer-term balance sheet needs.

– Linda J. Rosenthal, J.D., FPLG Information & Research Director