True Grit: Exploring Nonprofit Sector Resilience Following Economic Recessions

Abstract The nonprofit sector has been portrayed as resilient, describing a sector that persists despite challenges. We investigate nonprofit resiliency by examining how organizational characteristics, strategies, and community factors equipped organizations to recover following economic recessions. Utilizing a fixed effects panel regression model, our study covers a period of 29 years (1989–2018), encompassing three economic crises in the United States. The primary focus is examining the sector’s financial health and the resilience of the constituent organizations. Our findings describe a sector buoyed by the resilience of larger and older organizations, earned revenue, and contribution revenue, as well as the role of community factors in influencing the sector’s resilience. This study examines a wider timeframe and employs a more expansive sampling approach compared to previous studies on nonprofit resilience. In doing so, it contributes valuable insights to our understanding of the resilient sector.