“Nobody Knew the Rules”: Nonprofit Resilience, Rules, and Resources During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

ABSTRACT Nonprofit organizations faced a high demand for their services during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet they experienced unique constraints due to their distinct financial model amidst a global economic crisis. Given the extraordinary circumstances that nonprofits confronted during the pandemic, the purpose of this study is to understand nonprofit workers’ experiences navigating COVID-19, how they coped with COVID-related constraints, how they generated agency amidst restrictions, and built resilience. Through 25 semi-structured interviews with workers employed in a variety of nonprofit sectors, our findings indicate that despite numerous COVID-19 constraints, nonprofit workers used communicative resilience to generate new rules and resources within their organization and cope with volatile pandemic challenges. While this enactment of resilience provided for positive experiences during the pandemic, the new structures may not be sustainable long-term for the organization. In addition, we offer theoretical implications surrounding communicative resilience as a mechanism for rewriting organizational rules and practical implications for nonprofits as they confront future crises.