Value Clarity: A Foundation for Community-Based Organizations in Times of Funding Uncertainty
By Susan Donovan, Vice President and Managing Partner
The funding landscape for community-based non-profit organizations has never been flush, but it’s especially tight in 2026 and for the foreseeable future. Federal resources are contracting, service reimbursement rates remain stagnant or are declining, and policy changes are creating uncertainty for even the most established organizations. In this environment, many struggle with the question of how to maintain their mission when financial foundations feel increasingly unstable?
The answer begins with a seemingly simple yet frequently overlooked exercise: develop a rigorously defined characterization of how core services generate value and an appreciation of which key organizational features support delivery of that value.
This isn't about crafting marketing language or satisfying a funder's reporting requirement. It's about doing the internal work on an ongoing basis to:
analyze and articulate the outcomes your services produce and for whom;
identify organizations that directly benefit when those outcomes are achieved; and
characterize and quantify tangible value (including but not exclusively monetary) for current and future partners.
By investing in this clarity, organizations are better equipped to navigate uncertainty and position themselves for sustainability, even as the ground shifts beneath them.
The Tangible Benefits of Defining Your Value
Organizations doing this foundational work report being better able to:
Right-size services. When you understand which programs drive the most meaningful outcomes and where your unique value proposition shines, you can make more informed decisions about program and service delivery. This might mean expanding high-impact programs, redesigning others to increase effectiveness, and discontinuing initiatives that don't leverage your organizational strengths or could be better delivered by alternative organizations. It ensures that when difficult choices must be made, they're guided by evidence about what works rather than by institutional inertia, subjective opinion, or immediate financial pressure.
Expand impact strategically. Clear value definition helps identify where your model could scale or adapt to serve more people. Rather than pursuing every growth opportunity, you can focus on expansion strategies aligned with demonstrated outcomes and organizational strengths.
Build stronger partnerships. When you can articulate precisely what value you bring to the table, potential partners can more easily align on shared goals and identify complementary capabilities. This leads to collaborations rooted in mutual interest rather than transactional relationships that are less likely to withstand external pressure or changes over time.
Create more sustainable revenue models. Defining your value opens doors to earned revenue strategies that might not have otherwise been apparent. Whether through vendor agreement, fee-for-service models, or outcomes-based payment arrangements, earned revenue can diversify funding streams and reduce dependence on increasingly unreliable contract and grant funding.
Moving From Concept to Action
Defining organizational value requires consistent and honest assessment of program performance data, community needs, service volumes, external conditions, incentive structures, and organizational capabilities. Connecting these elements to measurable outcomes is where the real magic happens.
In the healthcare ecosystem – with its broad and diverse landscape of needs, payors, and providers – this exercise and the resulting analysis can vary across environments, even for organizations providing similar services. Below are some examples of value positioning before and after value definition. Further clarity is possible if organizations are able to incorporate locally relevant cost savings and other value projections, and provide evidence of measurable outcomes generated by their programs.
| Service | Before Value Clarity | After Value Clarity |
|---|---|---|
| Medically Tailored Meals | We improve health by providing people meals that support chronic disease management. | We prevent hospital readmissions by delivering meals that support recovery for recently hospitalized individuals. Hospitals benefit from reduced readmission penalties. Medicare Advantage plans benefit from improved chronic disease management. |
| Medical Respite | We provide individuals experiencing homelessness with a safe place to recover and connections to community-based services after they have been in the hospital. | By engaging with individuals immediately after a hospitalization, we prevent their immediate return to the street and provide the clinical care needed to recover, while addressing other needs, like housing services. This increases connections to primary care and stable housing - which are significant drivers of long-term healthcare cost reductions for Medicaid plans. |
| Family Focused Recovery | We improve maternal health outcomes by providing holistic treatment and safe living conditions for mothers with substance use disorder. | By providing the opportunity for current and expecting mothers to receive residential treatment while living with their children, we not only reduce costs for Medicaid plans through reduced NICU admission and lower hospital SUD treatment costs, but also reduce foster care placements by preserving family custodial relationships. |
| Workforce Development / Job Placement | We prepare, train, and connect individuals with long-term unemployment or underemployment to jobs. | We create a reliable pipeline of candidates for hard-to-fill jobs. By working with us, employers experience lower recruiting and hiring associated costs, decreased time required to fill vacancies, and improved staff retention. |
The current funding climate for community providers is certainly challenging, but it's also an opportunity. Organizations willing to do this foundational value clarity work will emerge stronger, more focused, and better positioned to deliver the outcomes that partners seek and that their communities desperately need.
If you’re part of a community-based non-profit thinking about pursuing this important strategic work in 2026, we’d love to connect.
