It is now 2026. A new year. And with it comes no shortage of uncertainty about how social good will fare in the months and years ahead.
With so many variables at play, you may be asking yourself: Is now really the time to embark on a strategic planning effort?
Pardon the colorful language, but hell yes.
Organizations that elect to take a “wait-and-see” approach — or focus only on the next calendar year without considering what comes after — are likely to be unprepared when the worst of the disruption arrives in early 2027.
Revisiting the One Big Beautiful Bill
I hate to do this so early in the new year, but some may need a reminder: a tsunami of epic proportions is approaching. Federal policy change in the form of the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) will disrupt everyone. It feels like watching a car wreck in slow motion. We know the outcome, and yet there is very little we can do to stop it.
But maybe your area of human services wasn’t mentioned in the bill. Maybe you think this doesn’t apply to you. Maybe you believe you’re the one organization that can rest easy.
Think again.
While the impact of the bill to date has been largely administrative, in early 2027, people will roll off Medicaid in large numbers — and they will lose much more than just access to healthcare.
Medicaid is one of the largest funding mechanisms for addressing the social drivers of health, which include food access, housing stability, and transportation. And when people lose Medicaid coverage, the burden for meeting those needs will not disappear. Instead, it will shift to state governments, local municipalities, nonprofits, and philanthropy, and the challenge that creates is sobering. In our home state of North Carolina, NC DHHS estimates that nearly $50 billion in federal Medicaid funding will be lost over the next decade. No state can absorb that level of loss and continue operating as before. Simply put, there is no realistic way for the gap created by federal spending cuts to be made up elsewhere. It is too large a shortfall to backfill.
At Next Stage, we believe this represents the single greatest challenge to social good in our lifetimes — one that will manifest in predictable ways:
- Increased competition for resources. Everyone will be competing for a much smaller pie, forcing painful decisions for boards, executives, and funders alike. The desperation this creates will likely produce false choices about what matters most in sustaining healthy, safe, and affordable communities.
- Surging need as services shrink. As resources contract, need will continue to grow. When people experience unmet needs — food insecurity, housing instability, untreated health conditions — those pressures do not stay contained. They ripple outward. Families across income levels will feel the consequences of communities under strain, and the calls for solutions will intensify even as capacity declines.
- Continued politicization of settled assumptions. All this is unfolding in a moment when there is deep disagreement about what it means to be an American. Ideas that once felt broadly shared — that people deserve access to health, opportunity, and dignity — are increasingly contested. Addressing barriers to access becomes more difficult when the language of equity itself is under attack.
That’s why the work in front of us should not focus on overcoming this disruption — that is not where we are. Going forward, the social good sector must work to minimize harm, manage contraction, and make hard choices as thoughtfully as possible.
But without a shared internal framework to create alignment, clarity, and discipline in decision-making, institutions may risk their own sustainability moving forward.
So what does this mean for your nonprofit, government agency, or philanthropic organization? Strategic planning.
A Passionate Argument for Strategic Planning
Strategic planning differs from annual planning or budgeting exercises. And especially in uncertain times, it can be a powerful way to help your organization make intentional operational choices.
The most effective versions of strategic planning include:
- A focus on external data. Strategic planning forces organizations to look outward — at policy shifts, demographic trends, funding trajectories, and community needs — rather than relying solely on internal performance or historical success. In moments like this, intuition and gut feelings are not enough.
- Greater clarity on perception and reality. Many organizations believe they understand their position in the ecosystem. Strategic planning creates space to test those assumptions. What role do you truly play? Where are you indispensable? Where are you replaceable? These are uncomfortable, yet necessary, questions.
- A multiyear horizon. Annual planning keeps the lights on. Strategic planning prepares you for what’s coming. A multiyear horizon allows organizations to scenario-plan, sequence decisions, and avoid reactive whiplash as conditions change.
Strategic planning matters in moments like this because it creates shared discipline when instinct pulls leaders in different directions. It gives boards, executives, and staff a common set of assumptions to work from, a clear understanding of tradeoffs, and an agreed-upon rationale for difficult decisions. Without that alignment, organizations drift into reactive mode — chasing funding, protecting legacy programs, and deferring hard conversations until options narrow.
A strong strategic plan does not eliminate uncertainty, but it does provide a stable platform for making choices grounded in reality as conditions continue to change.
Our Commitment to You
While we will continue to track and share updates on the impacts of federal spending cuts throughout the year, our central focus will be on supporting you, your organizations, and the communities you serve by highlighting tangible ways social good leaders like you can get actionable.
Because we believe informed, intentional efforts are the best — and only — way forward.
Our collective legacy, as organizations, as communities, and as people, will be defined by how we respond to this moment. This is an eyes-wide-open period. The decisions made now will shape what survives, what adapts, and what is lost.
We stand ready to support you as you navigate the future. Reach out to set up a call today.
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