When Everything Hits at Once: Protecting Your Team Through Overlapping Crises

Originally published September 12, 2023 on knowgood.ca as “When Facing Concurrent Crises, Demand Outside Help”

Updated September 2026

A few things have held true for my entire career in the charitable sector. Resources are always tight. And good fundraisers change roles every few years.

On their own, those are just facts of the job. Stacked on top of the pressures of the last few years, they become something heavier. The Ontario Nonprofit Network’s 2025 State of the Sector survey, with 469 organizations responding, shows how heavy.

Four pressures, all at once

1. Demand. 85% of organizations saw demand for their programs rise in the past year.
2. Staffing. 52% of organizations with paid staff struggled to recruit or keep people. Among those, 51% named staff burnout and stress as a cause, and 62% had to scale back programs or services.
3. Money. Nearly one in four (23%) said they could sustain operations for six months or less.
4. Donors. Fewer Canadians are giving. In 2013, 21.9% of tax filers claimed a charitable donation. By 2023, that number was 16.8%.

Each of these is manageable on its own. Together, they can make a strong team feel like it is running uphill in the dark.

The people doing the work

The non-profit sector is a significant part of Canada’s economy – about 8.3% of GDP. Imagine Canada counts roughly 2.7 million people working in it, about 70% of them women, earning on average 13% less than other Canadian employees. These are people who chose this work because they care. They deserve leaders who protect their capacity as carefully as they protect the budget.

The good news is that most of what burns teams out can be seen coming. And what can be seen can be planned for.

What leaders can do

1. Be clear about the goal, and about the work it takes. A target without an honest picture of the hours behind it is a burnout plan.
2. Know where your team is strong and where it is stretched. Map the skills you have against the goals you have set. The gaps will tell you where help is needed.
3. Protect the work that drives results. Choose the projects that matter most this year and next, and give them room to be done well. Let the rest wait.
4. Keep your skilled people. When someone is doing their job well, guard their time. Asking them to absorb one more project “just this year” is often how you lose them.
5. Bring in help for specialized, time-bound work. A new stewardship program, a database migration, a campaign plan – these can be scoped, delivered and handed back. Contract staff, a peer organization, a volunteer with the right expertise, or an external consultant can carry that load so your team can keep its focus on donors and the community.

Asking for help is a leadership skill. The charities that come through hard seasons in good shape are usually the ones that noticed early, named the pressure out loud, and made room for their people.

Try this

At your next team meeting, ask everyone one question: “What is one piece of work you’re carrying that someone else could carry better?” Write down the answers. That list is your starting point.

Be well.

Sources

1. Ontario Nonprofit Network, State of the Sector Survey 2025 – https://theonn.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/ONN-2025-State-of-the-Sector-technical-report-EN-final.pdf
2. Imagine Canada, People First: A Portrait of Canada’s Nonprofit Workforce (April 2025) – https://imaginecanada.ca/en/research/people-first-canada-nonprofit-workforce
3. Fraser Institute, Generosity in Canada: The 2025 Generosity Index – https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/generosity-in-canada-2025-generosity-index
4. Statistics Canada, Non-profit institutions and volunteering: Economic contribution, Q4 2023 – https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240328/dq240328c-eng.htm