How Dissolving Your Nonprofit Can Strengthen the Sector

In moments of significant political and financial crisis, nonprofit leaders are expected to adapt or pivot to survive. This is the state of the sector where failure is viewed as a weakness. Yet surviving is not always synonymous with thriving.

In some cases, the most responsible—and perhaps most radical—act of leadership is to pause, assess, and consider unconventional alternatives such as dissolving with intention, integrity, and transparency. This allows the field to absorb, carry forward, and evolve the work rather than forcing an organization to persist in a weakened state.

For me, this was not an abstraction. I assumed the role of president of The Opportunity Agenda (TOA) in January 2025. TOA is a 20-year-old narrative strategy organization whose mission is to build “the national will to expand opportunity in America.” The organization acted as a premier social justice communications lab, providing the field with research-based messaging, strategic communication tools, and training to advance equity and opportunity.

In the first few months following my arrival, the changing political and philanthropic landscape, along with increasing fiscal constraints, all posed challenges for TOA. I discussed various scenarios for the organization’s sustainability with the board and senior staff. I met with major funders and donors. I reached out to partner organizations for guidance. There was no clear solution.

In some cases, the most responsible—and perhaps most radical—act of leadership is to pause, assess, and consider unconventional alternatives such as dissolving with intention, integrity, and transparency.

Eventually, winding down emerged as a strategic decision rooted in care for the organization’s legacy and the larger social justice ecosystem. In the end, with an uncertain future ahead, TOA’s board voted unanimously to file for dissolution in November 2025.

To understand why adaptation was an insufficient strategy, it is necessary to understand the organization’s constraints, which were structural and emergent.

The Landscape

By the start of 2025, approximately 73 percent of TOA’s revenue was restricted. The organization had come to rely on program-specific grants, as general operating grants were increasingly difficult to secure. This imbalance created a strain at a time when flexibility was needed. Converting restricted funding into unrestricted support to deploy funds where needed was one of my highest priorities, alongside reducing overhead and reassessing programmatic viability.

The tension between program and operating support did not emerge overnight. TOA began as a founder-led organization with a fiscal sponsor, a model that provided stability and flexibility during its early growth stages. Following the principal founder’s departure, TOA spun off as a 501c3 in May 2020. Shortly thereafter, the organization received a MacKenzie Scott grant of $4 million in July 2020.

While transformative, the infusion of unrestricted funding masked structural vulnerabilities. The grant provided significant support but did not build a diversified revenue pipeline that would attract future investments at the same level. It also did not reconcile TOA’s long-term funding mix challenge.

In the years that followed, the organization grew increasingly more dependent on restricted grants to support core programmatic efforts and emerging issue areas in the social justice arena. In a more stable political and philanthropic climate, perhaps this model would have been workable. But in this moment of retrenchment and heightened legal and reputational risk, TOA’s foundation proved unstable. Adaptation alone could not resolve a fractured funding model.

Would continuing the organization advance the mission or further deplete resources, staff, and trust among funders?

I assessed the path forward with urgency. TOA had been through a series of leadership transitions, and there was noted concern that it was not moving boldly or quickly enough to meet the political moment. There was worry that the organization could become a political target, and there was fatigue over the political environment that forced the organization to continually justify its value, particularly to funders. Taken together, these conversations revealed a deeper concern around operating in a hostile, uncertain environment.

Wind-Down, Sunset, Dissolve

Recognizing that the organization I inherited had been operating in a sustained state of crisis and under significant cash constraints, I moved quickly to engage the board and staff in formal scenario planning.

I changed the accounting team from working on the more general financials to conducting deeper forensic accounting. At the same time, I pulled the board into weekly management discussions to better understand the underlying operational strains. And I convened the staff weekly to share my assessment openly and to collectively discuss the path forward, a process that was grounded in transparency around what I was seeing and learning.

I viewed the challenges we faced as a governance responsibility and asked this question early on: Would continuing the organization advance the mission or further deplete resources, staff, and trust among funders?

The results that emerged were clear: Without a significant infusion of unrestricted dollars and facing declining philanthropic confidence, the runway was finite.

Once that realization was clear, the plan was to slow the pace of cash depletion while honoring existing commitments and obligations. Staff work tied to specific grant deliverables was prioritized while administrative costs that were redundant or outsourced were reduced or eliminated. I kept funders informed of the organization’s internal challenges through one-on-one strategy calls and emails.

We then began to develop a sunset strategy with pro bono legal counsel. Rather than closing abruptly, the goal was to design a structured wind-down that would align legal compliance, financial stewardship, and staffing transition. This framework established a clear timeline of obligations and operational decisions, including:

• Consult with funders to ensure continuity in communication, fulfill remaining funder commitments, and secure wind-down grants, where possible.
• Identify projects and programs that could be spun off to or absorbed by other organizations, discontinue programs that could not, and terminate multiyear agreements and contracts.
• Vote to dissolve, reduce the number of trustees needed to operate during a wind-down, and file for dissolution.
• Offboard staff with severance and other benefits and assist with job placement where possible.
• Complete a final fiscal audit.

Rather than allowing two decades of narrative strategy to disappear, we treated intellectual property as an asset to be stewarded. We transferred rights and materials to aligned organizations: the majority of TOA’s intellectual property including reports, white papers, research, blogs, and website shifted to narrative power building organization Reframe; and all of TOA’s immigration projects and reports went to immigrant narrative organization Define American, along with TOA staff to support the transition.

This experience revealed that the philanthropic community must understand that nonprofits need support beyond the actual grant.

Once the details were finalized, TOA communicated with the entire field about the direction and timeline for awareness and support.

The Need for Two-Way Partnerships

In the end, the process was emotionally demanding and required sustained engagement from the board, staff, funders, and partners. It also involved difficult conversations, collective grief, and an ongoing commitment to openness. Once the endpoint was clear, there was no ambiguity, just a shared commitment to get there.

This experience revealed that the philanthropic community must understand that nonprofits need support beyond the actual grant.

Nonprofit organizations need a two-way partnership rooted in transparency, where capacity building support, strategic planning, board development, executive coaching, and legal counsel all provide support to organizations throughout the life cycle and especially during difficult times. It is a partnership from the grant award through the end of the grant period.

Leaders must be able to speak openly about their experiences. Without honest and transparent communication, more nonprofit organizations will struggle and possibly close. Funders who want to strengthen the field must also be willing to show up after the crisis, not just before it.