When the Future Gets Fuzzy: A Scenario Planning Toolkit for Navigating Disruption
For many nonprofit and social impact leaders, scenario planning used to be an annual retreat exercise—something you did in a quiet room with flip charts and coffee.
But lately? It’s become a weekly survival skill.
With federal-level policy shifts and funding changes creating ripple effects across the nonprofit sector, many organizations are navigating new realities daily. Programs are in limbo. Budgets are unstable. Decisions that used to unfold over months are now happening overnight.
This isn’t just turbulence. It’s the new terrain.
Scenario planning offers a way to lead through the fog. It won’t give you a crystal ball—but it can offer a map, a sense of direction, and a shared language for your team to make clear-headed, values-aligned decisions in uncertain times.
This blog is the toolkit. No separate templates or worksheets required. Use it in real time. Share it with your team. Come back to it whenever the ground shifts again.
Step 1: Ground in What’s Real (Even If It’s Messy)
Let’s start with the moment you’re in—especially if that moment feels unclear or high-stakes.
Funding tied to federal or state decisions? A key partner backing out? Leadership transitions? These moments don’t just disrupt plans—they can shake your team’s sense of stability and trust.
Begin by asking together:
What do we know for sure?
What’s still uncertain?
What decisions are time-sensitive, and what can wait?
What hasn’t changed?
These questions help surface both facts and emotions—because navigating change isn’t just logistical; it’s deeply human.
Tool to Try: Propel Nonprofits’ Scenario Budget Planning Template is a clear, editable worksheet that helps organizations map out multiple financial paths based on emerging realities. Especially useful when a big funding shift is in play.
Step 2: Explore Plausible Scenarios (Not Just Best/Worst Case)
The goal of scenario planning is not to predict the future—it’s to prepare for multiple versions of it. Think in ranges, not extremes.
Try sketching out three to four plausible scenarios based on your current context. For example:
Optimistic: A new funding stream comes through
Middle Ground: You pause hiring or reduce some programs
Hard Call: Major cuts are necessary to stay solvent
For each scenario, ask:
What actions would we need to take immediately?
What could we delay?
What would be non-negotiable for our mission and values?
Give yourself permission to imagine without immediately jumping into execution. You’re not committing—you’re preparing.
Deeper Dive: Bridgespan’s Guide to Nonprofit Scenario Planning walks through frameworks to help teams clarify assumptions, signals, and triggers for action.
Step 3: Look Across Your Organization
For each scenario, it’s helpful to explore implications across different parts of your organization. We use the Brico Org Design elements as a guide:
Purpose
Does this change your essential intent or focus? What would we need to recommit to or revise?
People
Who is impacted most in this scenario? Where do we need to communicate early and clearly? What support might be needed?
Workflow
What day-to-day functions shift? What needs to pause, stop, or speed up?
Culture
What are people feeling? Are there fears, questions, or morale risks we need to tend to?
This step helps ensure your planning doesn’t stay abstract—it gets rooted in how change shows up in real ways for your people and your work.
Try building a quick chart with each scenario down one side and the organizational elements across the top. Even a 30-minute walk-through can surface valuable insights.
Step 4: Identify Adaptive Anchors
Even when the future is unclear, there are usually a few smart, grounded steps you can take now—no matter which scenario plays out.
These are your adaptive anchors. They build clarity, stability, and momentum across any future.
Examples might include:
A team-wide update on the current financial picture
Individual or team check-ins to acknowledge uncertainty and gather input
A pause list of projects that can be shelved quickly if needed
A communications plan for staff and stakeholders
Ask:
What decisions or actions can serve us in any scenario?
What’s within our control right now?
Anchors don’t eliminate risk, but they build confidence and reduce reactivity. They remind your team that action is still possible, even when clarity is not.
Step 5: Set a Recheck Cadence
Scenario planning isn’t a one-time event. It’s a practice.
Build in a rhythm for returning to your scenarios and updating them as conditions shift. At Brico, we often use quarterly pacing or seasonal mapping to revisit big questions and adjust course.
Try setting a recurring 60-minute “Scenario Sync” with your leadership or cross-functional team. Review:
What’s changed?
What signals are emerging?
Which scenario feels most aligned with reality now?
What adjustments do we need to make?
You’re not trying to stay ahead of every possible twist—you’re building the habit of pausing, reassessing, and moving forward with intention.
Final Word: This Is the Work of Leadership
Disruption isn’t new—but its pace, depth, and complexity feel different now.
As changemakers, we are being asked not only to lead through uncertainty, but to stay aligned with our missions, our people, and our values as we do.
Scenario planning is one way to do that. It doesn’t give you certainty, but it gives you clarity. It creates space for your team to breathe, think, and act—together.
And that might be the most powerful kind of resilience there is.
