Insights on Purpose: New Research from the Chronicle and Mission Partners

What if the defining feature of nonprofit leadership right now isn’t burnout or bravery, but a kind of double vision—an ability to stare straight at worsening conditions and still believe, perhaps stubbornly, that impact can grow?

The Chronicle of Philanthropy joined forces with Mission Partners to take the pulse of the nonprofit world. In this episode of the Mission Forward podcast, Chronicle CEO Stacy Palmer talks with Mission Partners's President and CEO Carrie Fox and Chief Strategy Officer Brian Fox about the 2026 Insights on Purpose™ Report, which was built from interviews and a national survey of nonprofit and foundation leaders.

You can download the full report here, and dive into the Chronicle's coverage of its findings here.

This week, we look at what nonprofit and foundation leaders are really carrying right now — what they’ll say out loud, what they’ll admit in private, and why the gap between those two versions matters. This is the story of confidence and strain living in the same institutional body. About “resilience” as something everyone invokes, but fewer people can define in a way that survives contact with payroll, boards, and the calendar. About why planning feels harder when the ground won’t stop shifting — and why the answer probably isn’t a bigger plan, but a different relationship to planning altogether.

If you’re leading an organization, funding one, serving on a board, or simply trying to understand why so many leaders sound calm while feeling anything but, this episode gives you a lens — and a few powerful questions worth keeping close. The report, in their telling, isn’t a stack of charts. It’s a set of voices — unfiltered — trying to say what’s happening before the sector pays for it in closures, mergers, and communities left without the organizations they rely on.

Our great thanks to the Mission Partners for their partnership in bringing this report to life. We hope you’ll take the time to read and share it broadly.