Trust During Disruption: How Nonprofit Leaders Keep Their Teams

If there’s one constant in the nonprofit sector, it’s disruption.

Funding shifts. Policy changes. Leadership turnover. New systems. Cultural resets. A tightening labor market. The pressure never eases – it just changes shape.

And while disruption can absolutely impact operations and financial stability, it hits something far more fragile first: trust.

In our latest episode of A Modern Nonprofit Podcast, Tosha sat down with Kim Bohr, President & COO of SparkEffect, to unpack what really happens inside teams when uncertainty shows up – and more importantly, what leaders can do to protect the people powering the mission.

Kim and her team recently released Trust in Turbulence: The 2025 State of Organizational Trust, a research report examining how employees respond to both personal and organizational disruption. The findings are eye-opening, especially for nonprofit leaders navigating today’s environment.

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Why Disruption Damages Trust So Quickly

Every organization experiences change. But the reason disruption shakes trust isn’t because people fear change itself – it’s because they fear being left in the dark while change happens around them.

Kim’s research identified three trust destroyers that showed up again and again:

Lack of transparency
Misalignment between leadership decisions and employee needs
Poorly executed technology or systems changes

The encouraging part? These aren’t unsolvable problems. They’re leadership behaviors that can be intentionally addressed with communication and consistency.

The Trust Dividend: Why Trust Can Grow During Disruption

One of the most surprising insights from the research was that trust actually increased in organizations that handled disruption well – even more than in workplaces that didn’t face disruption at all.

That means disruption isn’t just a threat; it’s also a leadership opportunity.

When leaders communicate clearly, acknowledge uncertainty, and create space for employees to voice concerns, they actually strengthen organizational resilience. They “stick the landing,” as Kim puts it. And when they do, their teams come out the other side more aligned, more connected, and more confident in the mission.

Where Trust Actually Lives Inside the Organization

Executives may set strategy, but trust isn’t built in the boardroom – it’s built closest to where the work happens.

That’s why middle managers become both the most powerful and most vulnerable players during disruption. They carry the emotional labor, the communication load, and the responsibility of translating executive decisions into day-to-day practice.

When these leaders are prepared and supported, they become culture stabilizers. When they’re not, trust breaks quickly.

And here’s the part many organizations miss: Influence doesn’t always follow title.

There are informal leaders inside every team shaping the culture, too – an important reminder when building trust strategies.

How Leaders Can Protect Belonging During Change

Belonging and psychological safety often take the hardest hit when things feel uncertain. And while nonprofit leaders can’t control external disruptions, they can absolutely control how they respond internally.

Kim encourages leaders to focus on clear and repeated communication:

What we know
What we don’t know
What decisions are made and why
What support is available
When employees can expect the next update

These actions reduce fear, prevent rumors, and create the predictability people crave during uncertainty.

Kim also shared SparkEffect’s “first 48 hours” protocol – a tool designed to guide leaders through the earliest and most consequential moments of a disruption. These early steps often determine whether trust strengthens or fractures.

Why Trust Is No Longer a Soft Skill — It’s a Strategic Metric

For years, trust was treated like something nice to have – a leadership trait that couldn’t be measured or managed. But that’s no longer the case.

The SparkEffect research shows clear connections between trust and several performance indicators:

Retention
Reputation
Financial confidence
Engagement and innovation

High-trust organizations outperform low-trust organizations across every metric.

Which means trust isn’t just cultural – it’s operational.

Kim encourages leaders to measure trust using five domains: strategic clarity, psychological safety, cultural belonging, systems trust, and fairness. These indicators help leaders understand where trust breaks down and where it grows.

Leading Through Change With Honesty and Humanity

Nonprofit leaders don’t have the luxury of avoiding disruption – especially not in today’s climate. But as this conversation reinforces, the goal isn’t to eliminate uncertainty. The goal is to lead through it in a way that protects your people and strengthens your mission.

Trust isn’t built through perfection. It’s built through presence, clarity, and honest communication – especially when things get messy.

To dig deeper into the research or explore SparkEffect’s tools, download the full report at sparkeffect.com/mnp