Every organization faces a moment when everything they thought was permanent suddenly isn’t. The playbook gets thrown out. The assumptions get challenged. The only path forward is one you have to create yourself.
I’ve watched this happen to dozens of mission-driven organizations over the past few years. And here’s what I’ve learned: the ones that thrive aren’t necessarily the strongest or the smartest. They’re the ones that can pivot when the ground shifts beneath them.
That lesson feels especially relevant now. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, health and human services organizations were on the frontlines, providing critical services despite all the unknowns and uncertainty around the virus. These organizations didn’t just survive—many emerged stronger, having discovered capabilities they never knew they had.
The Speed of Change Has Changed Everything
You know that feeling when you’re driving and suddenly realize you’re going way faster than you thought? That’s what digital transformation feels like for most mission-driven organizations right now.
According to McKinsey research, companies were able to adopt digital changes 20 to 25 times faster than they would have expected. In the area of remote working specifically, organizations moved 40 times more quickly than they thought possible before the pandemic.
Forty times faster.
What organizations thought would take a year took an average of eleven days. Not because they suddenly got smarter or more resourced—but because they had no choice. This rapid adoption was largely driven by businesses realizing that operations did not have to work perfectly before being adopted.
Perfect became the enemy of survival. And survival won.
Building Your Digital Resilience Portfolio
Think of digital resilience like a financial portfolio—you don’t put everything in one stock. You diversify. You hedge. You prepare for multiple scenarios.
Research from Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal identifies five digital capabilities—virtual access, virtual collaboration, data-driven decision-making, algorithmic reprogrammability, and assisted decision-making—that arose from technologies acquired to enable digital transformation before the crisis. The organizations that weathered recent storms weren’t the ones with the biggest technology budgets. They were the ones with these capabilities already in their toolkit.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
Virtual access means your team can work from anywhere—not just when there’s a pandemic, but when there’s a snowstorm, a family emergency, or just a need for flexibility. One of my clients discovered their best grant writer lived three states away. They’d never have found her without virtual-first thinking.
Data-driven decision-making isn’t about becoming a tech company. It’s about knowing which programs actually move the needle. According to BDO’s survey, organizations experienced increased requests for information about their cybersecurity strategy (48%), program impact data (46%), and financial information (42%). Funders want proof. Your board wants metrics. And honestly? You should want them too.
Algorithmic reprogrammability—fancy term, simple concept. Can you change how your systems work without starting from scratch? Think WordPress plugins versus hard-coded websites. Flexibility beats perfection every time.
The Modular Mindset
Remember playing with LEGO bricks as a kid? You could build a castle, tear it down, build a spaceship. Same bricks, different configuration.
That’s how resilient organizations think about their digital infrastructure now. The modular approach allows for an easily expandable infrastructure capable of adjusting to growing demands by incorporating additional modules with minimal interruption to operations.
I’ve watched organizations transform themselves using this approach. They don’t rebuild their entire website when priorities shift—they reconfigure modules. Need to pivot from in-person events to virtual fundraising? Swap modules. Need to add crisis response capabilities? Add a module.
Modular design offers the freedom to create content on-the-fly. Breaking up pages into modules means that building a page consists of moving parts around until you like how it looks, functions and communicates—and this can be accomplished in-house in a matter of minutes.
No more six-month website redesigns. No more being held hostage by vendor timelines.
The Human Side of Digital Resilience
Here’s something the techno-optimists don’t always tell you: digital transformation isn’t really about technology. It’s about people.
Research from Nonprofit Quarterly found that crises cause widespread human resource capacity loss, staff burnout, and “brain drain” as nonprofit workers leave for more stable opportunities in the public and private sectors.
Your fancy new CRM doesn’t matter if your team is too burned out to use it. Your modular website architecture means nothing if nobody knows how to configure it.
The organizations that thrive invest in their people first. They provide training. They create space for experimentation. They celebrate small wins and learn from failures without blame.
One client told me they started “Failure Fridays”—weekly sessions where team members share what didn’t work and what they learned. Turns out, normalizing adaptation makes people more willing to try new approaches.
Practical Steps for Uncertain Futures
Let me give you something concrete to work with. Based on what’s actually working for organizations right now:
Start with scenario planning. Not doomsday prepping—realistic thinking about various futures. What if your biggest funder pivots priorities? What if demand for services doubles? What if your building becomes inaccessible? For each scenario, identify which digital capabilities would help you adapt.
Build your measurement muscles. According to industry analysis, 2024 showed a marked shift toward data-centric nonprofit operations. You don’t need fancy analytics—start with basics. Which pages on your website actually drive donations? Which email subject lines get opened? Build from there.
Embrace the hybrid model. The pandemic forced many nonprofits to go virtual, and they’ve discovered benefits to this approach. The Alzheimer’s Association raised $92 million by offering both in-person and virtual participation options for their Walk to End Alzheimer’s. Don’t choose—combine.
Invest in integration, not isolation. Your website shouldn’t be an island. APIs enable different software systems to communicate and share data seamlessly. When your donation platform talks to your CRM talks to your email system, everything gets easier.
The Opportunity Hidden in Crisis
I’ve been through enough business crises to know this: they reveal what’s already broken. They also reveal what’s possible.
Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal research shows how the pursuit of organizational resilience can be a vital justification for investments in digital transformation. Organizations aren’t just building websites anymore—they’re building adaptive capacity. They’re not just implementing technology—they’re developing resilience muscles.
According to Grassi’s 2024/2025 nonprofit survey, 73% of respondents said demand for their programs and services has risen in the past 12 months, with just 4% reporting a decrease. Accordingly, 81% reported higher operating costs in the same period, with an average cost increase of 15%.
Demand up. Costs up. Resources stretched. Sound familiar?
Yet these same organizations are finding ways to do more with less by working smarter. They’re discovering that distributed teams can be more effective than centralized ones. That virtual programs can reach audiences they never could before. That transparent, data-driven operations actually increase donor trust.
Your Next Move
Here’s what I want you to do right now. Not tomorrow. Not after the next board meeting. Now.
Audit your digital breaking points. Where would your organization hurt most if you couldn’t access physical spaces? If key staff couldn’t come in? If traditional fundraising channels dried up?
For each breaking point, identify one small step toward resilience. Maybe it’s documenting a critical process. Maybe it’s testing a virtual program format. Maybe it’s finally integrating those two systems that don’t talk to each other.
Start small. Build momentum. Celebrate progress.
Because here’s the truth: uncertainty isn’t going away. As Nonprofit Quarterly’s research emphasizes, the nonprofit sector’s greatest asset is its workforce. Yet crises often place employees in precarious positions, forcing them to endure job instability, increased emotional labor, and reduced wages and benefits.
We can’t predict the next crisis. But we can build organizations that bend without breaking. That adapt without losing their mission. That emerge from challenges stronger than before.
Research shows digital transformation promoted organizational resilience by upgrading each firm’s capabilities for adapting to adversity. Not by replacing human judgment with algorithms. Not by automating away the personal touch. But by creating flexible, responsive systems that amplify human capability rather than replacing it.
The future belongs to organizations that can hold two truths simultaneously: technology is just a tool, and it’s an essential tool. Digital transformation isn’t the goal—resilience is. But in our interconnected, rapidly changing world, you can’t have one without the other.
Your mission matters too much to let outdated systems hold you back. Your community deserves an organization that can weather any storm and emerge ready to serve.
The question isn’t whether you’ll face uncertainty. It’s whether you’ll be ready when you do.
Joe Taylor Jr.
After a decade in broadcast media, Joe developed early online platforms for NPR, PBS, and AOL. Today, he helps our clients tell compelling brand stories through audio, visuals, and software.