Many nonprofit organizations still operate based on assumptions that worked well in calmer times. That government funding will more or less continue as usual. That fundraising will pick up again on its own with sufficient effort. That labor costs will rise, but remain manageable. That you can make minor adjustments without really reevaluating your organization’s structure.
That's exactly where things are going wrong right now.
The tricky thing about 2026 is not that everything is turning red. On the contrary: the CPB expects the Dutch economy to continue growing for the time being. But that same agency also emphasizes that there is a great deal of international uncertainty. At the same time, wages under collective bargaining agreements in the first quarter of 2026 were 4.5 percent higher than a year earlier, and inflation rose to 2.7 percent in March, consumer confidence dropped to -30, and at the end of 2025, there were still 93 job openings for every 100 unemployed people. That is precisely the combination that is causing problems for nonprofit organizations: costs are rising, staff remain scarce, and the sense of financial security among households and donors is more fragile than a growth figure on paper would suggest.
Pressure is also mounting on the public sector. Municipalities are projecting total expenditures of 84.6 billion euros for 2026, 5.8 percent more than in 2025, primarily due to rising social spending. And in some areas, budget cuts are already very real: the government previously announced that, starting in 2026, less funding will be available for partnerships with NGOs in development cooperation. Organizations working on sustainability, nature and biodiversity, climate, or culture would also be wise to brace themselves.
That is precisely why now is the time to look not only at your budget, but also at your organizational model. Because in times like these, a few isolated measures are rarely enough. You need to go back to the basics: how do you create value, how do you organize that work, and how do you finance it in a way that aligns with your mission and with today’s reality?
Your organizational model is the logic behind your organization
An organizational model is much more than an organizational chart. It is the underlying logic of your organization. Who exactly are you there for? What value do you add? What activities are necessary to actually deliver that value? Through which relationships, channels, and partners do you do that? What people, systems, resources, and competencies do you need to achieve that?
Many organizations know their annual budget better than they know their own model. They know what’s coming in and going out, but they’re less clear on the underlying assumptions. Which activities actually demand too much capacity. Which projects mainly add complexity. Which teams or layers of consultation primarily generate coordination costs. Which revenue sources seem attractive but contribute little in net terms because they consume so much time internally.
That’s exactly why this exercise is so important. As long as you’re just tweaking parameters within the existing model, you’ll keep optimizing something that may no longer be fundamentally sound. You’ll save a little on individual items, while the real costs lie in the structure itself. Or you’ll be chasing extra revenue, even though your model isn’t set up at all to support that revenue in a healthy and sustainable way.
A good organizational model forces you to see both sides at the same time. On one side are all the costs: people, systems, processes, governance, facilities, support, coordination, and implementation. On the other hand, there is everything that generates revenue: grants, donations, donor relationships, members, clients, paying participants, partnerships, sponsorships, or other forms of value creation. Only when these two sides align can financial stability be achieved.
First lever: redesign your structure
The first instinct when facing financial pressure is often: where can we cut back? But that’s rarely the best first question to ask. A better question is: How does the work actually work? Which activities are truly core? Which are supportive but necessary? Which do we do simply because we started doing them at some point, not because they’re still strategic today? And where are we making our organization unnecessarily complex?
That’s where structural redesign often begins with simplification. Fewer exceptions. Fewer parallel processes. Fewer projects that are all somewhat important. Fewer consultation structures without a clear mandate.
That usually calls for a few tough decisions.
The first is portfolio selection. Not everything that is valuable needs to be done by you personally. Some activities are part of your mission, but no longer part of your core operations. Other activities may have originated from enthusiasm or a grant opportunity, but today they take up a disproportionate amount of time and attention. A more focused portfolio not only reduces costs; it also increases focus.
The second is role clarity. In many organizations, overhead isn’t just found in staff or management, but in diffuse ownership. Three people who are each only partially responsible for something often cost more than a single person with a clear mandate. Teams that want to decide everything collectively also become costly over time—not only in terms of money, but also in terms of speed, energy, and execution capacity.
The third is process design. Standardize wherever possible. Centralize tasks that don’t need to be handled separately in every location. Don’t digitize just to be trendy, but to eliminate manual hassle and reduce the risk of errors. And take an honest look at support functions: where is on-site presence necessary, and where would a shared, streamlined back office be a smarter choice?
“The key issue isn't more money, but money that's better suited to the situation”
Second lever: rethink your financial model
On the revenue side, the same principle applies: the key issue isn’t more money, but money that’s better suited to the need.
That’s important because the fundraising and financing landscape isn’t simply “bad,” but it is becoming more unpredictable. The study Giving in the Netherlands 2024 shows that 5.3 billion euros were donated to charities in 2022—the lowest share of GDP to date—and that corporate donations, in particular, declined. At the same time, organizations affiliated with Goede Doelen Nederland report that private donations actually rose by more than 6 percent in 2024 to nearly 1.45 billion euros, with 31 percent of that amount coming from bequests. In other words: money is still available, but it is distributed more unevenly, is less of a given, and is more often dependent on sources of income with a different risk profile.
That is why organizations need to analyze their financial model more closely—not as a sum of individual line items, but as a mix of funding models. A structural grant is different from a project grant. A loyal monthly donor is different from an occasional donor. A bequest is different from a predictable annual contribution. Generating revenue from training programs or services requires a very different organizational structure than a model that relies primarily on public funds.
That means you need to evaluate each revenue stream based on at least five questions.
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Does this source really align with our mission?
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How predictable is she?
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How much internal capacity does it take to acquire and retain them?
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How dependent does it make us on a single policy change, a single major donor, or a single market fluctuation?
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And: Does this source of income force us to do things that no longer align with who we want to be?
That’s where you often see interesting shifts taking place. Some organizations discover that they rely too heavily on project funding and are therefore constantly in “production mode.” Others realize that their private fundraising isn’t structured enough and depends too much on campaigns. Still others see that there is indeed room for additional revenue—such as training, paid programs, services, licenses, communities, employer contributions, or strategic partnerships—but that these only work if they clearly align with the core of their value proposition.
For organizations that rely heavily on government funding, this effort is even more urgent. Not because the government will suddenly withdraw its support everywhere tomorrow, but because priorities are shifting, regulations are changing, and the pressure on public budgets is clearly mounting. In some areas, this shift is already well underway, such as with the announced cut to funding for partnerships with NGOs in development cooperation starting in 2026. Any organization that does not yet have an alternative or supplementary revenue stream by then is making itself unnecessarily vulnerable.
A healthy financial model is therefore not just about growth. It’s about resilience. It’s about whether your revenue mix aligns with your identity, your pace, your capacity, and your risks. And so it’s also about having the courage to walk away from money that makes your organization look bigger on paper but, in reality, makes it more fragile.
“The biggest mistake organizations make here is thinking that structure and funding are separate issues. They are not.”
A new financial model almost always requires a different organizational structure. Organizations that want to generate more revenue on their own usually need to be more focused in terms of their value proposition, customer or participant journey, pricing, acquisition, and delivery. Organizations seeking to build a base of regular donors need different systems, rhythms, and competencies than those that rely primarily on grants. Organizations that want to work more through partnerships must invest in relationship management. And those that want to reduce their dependence on project grants will also need to have the courage to standardize, prioritize, and sometimes scale back internally.
Conversely, the same applies. A leaner structure without a new revenue model often results in nothing more than a slightly more efficient version of the same problem. And an ambitious new revenue plan without the necessary adjustments to teams, processes, and management usually gets stuck at the good-intentions stage.
So the real challenge is integration. It’s not a question of how we can cut costs and find extra money somewhere, but rather: which model will make our impact truly financially viable and manageable in the coming years?
What the Board and Management Need to Do Now
For the board and executive management, this begins with five in-depth discussions.
Not a discussion about where there’s still a little fat to trim. Rather, a discussion about what we really need to keep doing, what we can stop, what we need to standardize, which revenue streams we want to consciously strengthen, and which dependencies have become too risky. And also: what competencies are needed for that new model? Because every serious financial strategy requires adjustments to your organizational design—different people, different routines, different management information, and different choices.
This also involves a different approach to management. Less reliance on annual budgets. More insight into the underlying dynamics. Which activities truly contribute to your value? Which teams or programs require a disproportionate amount of coordination? Which revenue streams are stable, which are volatile, and which seem attractive but yield far too little net profit once you factor in internal resources?
Only then will financial strategy shift from a back-office administrative function to a core management function.
In conclusion
Now is not the time to just be a little more frugal. Now is the time to design smarter.
Not every social organization needs to grow. Not every organization needs to engage in business activities. Not every organization needs to undergo a radical reorganization. But almost every organization would benefit right now from taking a fresh look at the logic behind its work: How do we create social value, how do we organize that, and how do we finance it without slowly bogging ourselves down?
In an era of rising costs, more volatile cash flows, and greater social pressure, your organizational model is no longer just a technical appendix. It is where your future is decided.
