The Strategic Pause: Why Navigating Uncertainty Demands More Than Survival Mode

Almost a year ago today, the new administration returned to power, setting into motion twelve months of relentless ambiguity, uncertainty, and anxiety. While few sectors emerged unscathed, the social impact world absorbed particularly brutal blows—funding streams redirected overnight, regulatory frameworks upended without warning, and long-standing partnerships suddenly called into question.

For nonprofit leaders, the past year has felt like an endless game of organizational whack-a-mole. Each day brings fresh fires to extinguish: a major donor reconsidering their commitment, a program partner withdrawing support, staff members burning out under constant crisis management. The reactive muscle has been worked to exhaustion, while the strategic one has atrophied.

This isn't a character flaw—it's a survival instinct. When you're fighting to keep the doors open, strategic planning feels like a luxury you can't afford.

But here's what I've learned: the worse the storm gets, the more essential your strategic compass becomes.

Before another year of turbulence begins, I'm suggesting something that might feel counterintuitive: take a strategic pause.

Why Most Organizations Abandon Strategy When They Need It Most

I can already hear the objections. "We don't have time for lengthy planning exercises." "Our world is changing too fast for multi-year plans." "We're already stretched thin." I get it. Strategic planning has earned its terrible reputation—those shelf-worthy documents filled with corporate jargon that somehow say everything and nothing at the same time.

That's not what I'm talking about.

Strategic planning in turbulent times isn't about predicting the future. It's about creating organizational clarity so you can navigate profound uncertainty.

Let's Talk About What Strategy Actually Means

I keep coming back to Roger Martin's definition because it cuts through the nonsense: "True strategy is about placing bets and making hard choices. The objective is not to eliminate risk but increase the odds of success."

Strategy doesn't eliminate risk—it manages it. It doesn't promise certainty—it increases your odds. And crucially, it demands hard choices about what you won't do, which opportunities you'll pass up, which constituents you can't serve right now.

Most organizations resist this. It's psychologically easier to keep all options open, to say yes to every opportunity, to try serving everyone. But that's not strategy—that's strategic drift.

When the ground beneath you keeps shifting, you don't need a more detailed map of terrain that no longer exists. You need to increase your odds that you’ll focus on what can measurably accelerate your mission.

Four Steps for Your Strategic Pause

1. Get Clear on Your Vision and Mission

For most organizations, this means ruthlessly refining what already exists until it's sharp enough to actually guide decisions.

Your mission answers: What problem exists that we're uniquely positioned to address?

Your vision answers: What does success look like if we execute brilliantly over the next few years?

If your leadership team can't recite both from memory, or if your statements need three paragraphs to express, you don't have clarity.  In turbulent times, ambiguity is organizational quicksand.

This clarity becomes your filter for everything. When a foundation offers funding for work adjacent to your mission, when a board member suggests expanding into new territory, when staff propose an innovative but resource-intensive program—your mission and vision become the test. Does this move us toward our True North, or does it scatter our limited energy? Does this serve our stakeholders in a measurable, tangible way?

2. Pick 3-5 Strategic Goals

Strategic goals aren't wish lists. They're specific, consequential bets about how to advance your mission despite current conditions.

Each goal should pass this test: If we achieve this, will it materially move us toward our vision, even if other things fail?

I said 3-5 goals, not 15. This is where hard choices happen. You probably have 20 worthy goals, but pursuing all of them means achieving none of them. Strategic discipline requires brutal prioritization.

In these crazy times, these goals might include defensive strategies ("Diversify funding so no single source exceeds 25% of revenue") alongside offensive ones ("Launch our peer leadership program in three new communities"). Both matter. Both might be essential for survival and impact.

3. Choose Initiatives That Actually Serve Your Goals

This is where things get real. Initiatives are concrete projects, programs, and efforts that achieve your goals. Each should clearly connect to one of your strategic goals. If it doesn't, it's a distraction.

Try this: list every program, project, and significant activity your organization currently runs. Next to each one, write which strategic goal it serves. If you can't identify a clear connection, you've just found something consuming resources without advancing strategy.

This doesn't mean those activities are worthless—some might be operationally necessary, others might honor past commitments. But calling them what they are (operational necessities or legacy obligations rather than strategic initiatives) creates clarity about where your innovation energy and marginal resources should actually go.

4. Set Up Metrics That Let You Course-Correct and Measure Success

In stable times, metrics are about accountability. In turbulent times, they're about learning.

You need outcome metrics and SMART goals  that show whether you're progressing toward goals, and leading indicators that provide early warning when something isn't working.

But here's what matters: these metrics only create value if you actually review them regularly and adjust based on what they reveal. Too many organizations collect data religiously and ignore it completely.

Build in quarterly strategy reviews where you examine metrics honestly and ask: What's working? What's not? What's changed that requires us to adapt?

This isn't abandoning strategy—it's making strategy operational.

You Don't Need a Mountain Retreat

Taking a strategic pause doesn't require expensive consultants or three-day resort retreats (though if your budget allows for facilitation support, it helps). It does require carving out dedicated time—even a series of focused two-hour sessions—where leadership steps out of reactive mode and into reflective mode.

It requires courage to have hard conversations about what's actually working, what's not, and what bets you're willing to make about an uncertain future.

It requires accepting that you cannot do everything, serve everyone, or pursue every opportunity—and that this limitation isn't failure, it's strategy.

As we approach another year promising more uncertainty and disruption, ask yourself: Can we afford another twelve months of reactive firefighting? Or is it time to reclaim strategic leadership?

The fires will still be there after your strategic pause. But you'll have clarity about which ones to extinguish, which ones to contain, and which ones to let burn while you focus precious resources on work that actually matters.

The storm isn't going anywhere. But you get to decide how you navigate it.

What's one strategic question your organization has been avoiding because you've been too busy fighting fires? That's probably exactly where your strategic work needs to begin.