Dear Reader,
Like you, I’ve been reflecting on what comes next. As NPQ’s interim leader, I keep returning to this question: How can NPQ best support you—nonprofit leaders and emergent leaders, workers, and movement activists—to sustain our fight for a just and equitable future?
Today, that is my question for you.
We are at an impact inflection. Our sector’s external challenges are clear and urgent: a pulverized democracy, yawning wealth gaps, deliberate racial injustice, compounding anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation, anti-immigrant violence, the overturn of Roe, catastrophic climate crises, the COVID-19 pandemic, billionaires holding democracy hostage, and, of course, the 2024 election.
Meanwhile, ongoing internal nonprofit workplace failures, including overburdening and underresourcing BIPOC leaders, threaten our ability to make both this sector and this country a place where everyone can thrive.
At NPQ, we are more than a media platform—we are a multiracial, multicultural, multigenerational nonprofit. We are fiercely committed to amplifying the voices of leaders and workers building just and liberated organizations, foundations, leadership, power, and movements from the ground up.
We also know that without healthy nonprofit institutions, we cannot build the unwavering defenses, resilient coalitions, and deep support systems required in 2025 and beyond.
Here are topics readers have already asked us to cover since last Tuesday:
- Fundraising and Sustainability: How do we approach fundraising in such a polarized climate?
- Legal Protections and DEI Attacks: What do we need to have and know in a period of political instability?
- Equity-Centered Management: Can we get more training for BIPOC leaders and next-gen leaders? What about women and LGBTQIA+ leaders?
- Burnout and Wellness: How do we manage organizational and employee health, exhaustion, and burnout in perilous times?
- HR: What are brass-tacks best practices for genuine DEIB in multiracial, multicultural organizations?
- Technology Risks and Opportunities: How can equity-driven but resource-strapped movements and organizations best leverage AI and other new technologies? What digital safety measures do we need to take to protect our communities?
- Liberatory Leadership Lessons: How can we operationalize “power with” not “power over”?
- Conflict Management: How can we improve cross-cultural communication and conflict resolution across identity groups?
It’s early days, but we’re exploring a bold emergent strategy to meet this moment. One where NPQ becomes an indispensable resource enabling progressive organizations to build healthy, equitable, sustainable, and high-impact workplaces. Imagine NPQ as your go-to resource for:
- Unflinching, independent solutions journalism focused on bold and practical equity-centered leadership and management solutions for progressive and justice-driven nonprofits.
- Actionable, on-the-ground tactics shared at monthly online gatherings, each focused on concrete solutions to 2025’s toughest organizational challenges, led by diverse field leaders with lived experience.
- Accessibility for all, where we seek grants or sponsorships to pay for memberships for BIPOC-led, women-led, and LGBTQIA-led organizations, which are systemically underfunded.
- Amplification of your voices, with new opportunities for people on the frontline to share experiences and expertise through paid recurring columns.
This isn’t an exhaustive list, it’s a starting point. Looking to 2025, we’ll be offering:
- A dedicated magazine issue uplifting stories about and by women of color in the South leading the charge for change.
- A holistic approach to justice by integrating our racial, climate, health, and economic justice reporting, expanding our gender and disability justice content, and sharing it all through the lens of power-building and leadership strategies.
- Insights into how we at NPQ are transforming our own workplace, with a new column from me about how we are embedding equity and social justice commitments into our operations, policies, and practices.
As NPQ responds to our rapidly changing landscape, we want to collaborate with you. Your voice is more than important. It’s essential. You can email me directly at [email protected] to:
- Share the workplace challenges keeping you up at night as we stare down 2025.
- Name support you desperately need but haven’t found elsewhere.
- Identify critical topics you think NPQ needs to tackle in this new era.
- Offer feedback on whether this vision resonates with you or your organization.
- Contribute your expertise as a writer, artist, or webinar leader (paid, always).
- Nominate people leading sustainable progressive change whom you believe deserve coverage.
- Simply share your thoughts on this pivotal moment.
This moment demands collective power. NPQ is committed to building with and alongside you. I welcome your feedback, and I read every message readers send me.
As Moe Mitchell wrote in our most-read article of the last five years, “I believe our people deserve mass movements that exude joy, build power, and secure critical victories for the masses of working people.”
We are clear-eyed in our vision of a multiracial democracy with values fully grounded in human rights, racial equity, economic and social justice, and thriving communities. We are angry but we are not defeated. And we will not give in to despair.
Thank you for your passion, your power-building, and your partnership. Onward.
With determination and hope,
Sara Hudson
Interim CEO & Editor-in-Chief
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