As we close out 2025, I want to speak plainly about what this year revealed about the state of Southern California’s social impact sector. This has been one of the hardest years many organizations have ever faced, a year defined not by a single crisis but by multiple crises unfolding at once.

While our sector has always been resilient, 2025 made clear that resilience alone is not a sustainable strategy.

Southern California’s nonprofits were asked to shoulder impossible burdens.

In January, the fires that tore through our region displaced thousands, burned through entire neighborhoods, and destroyed our schools, places of worship, and local businesses in mere hours. Yet, nonprofits were the ones people turned to for shelters, meals, air purifiers, N95s, emergency cash, and reliable information. Many organizations were responding to the disaster even as their own employees were evacuated or had just lost homes.

Just as communities began to steady themselves, another painful blow hit this summer. Across the region, ICE raids aggressively targeted predominantly Latino and immigrant neighbors. Our family members, friends, and neighbors were violently kidnapped with no due process while waiting for the bus, working at their jobs, attending legal immigration hearings, and so on. Families stopped going to work and earning incomes. Parents kept their children home and away from school. In the wake of the raids, it fell to organizations like CHIRLA to immediately coordinate rapid-response networks and legal action to halt unconstitutional ICE enforcement, defend basic human rights, and push for due process and democratic accountability.

I heard from Southern California leaders who said the emotional toll on staff was unlike anything they’ve seen in decades.

And while organizations were managing this trauma on the ground, another pressure was brewing. Across sectors, we saw restrictions, rollbacks, and legal threats uniquely targeting racial equity efforts. Some nonprofits faced federal investigations or paused grant agreements. Not because they did anything wrong, but because the political climate was pulled out from under their feet.

This chilled sector innovation. It forced leaders to spend precious time and resources navigating risk rather than serving communities.

In the meantime, costs continued to rise. Government contracts were slow or insufficient. Philanthropic priorities shifted. However, demand for services surged from housing instability to food insecurity to mental health needs – especially during the government shutdown and end of SNAP benefits.

Nonprofit staff are burnt out. Boards are worried. And far too many organizations are operating month-to-month.