Focus Is Not Optional: Why Nonprofit Leaders Stay Stuck (and How to Break Free)

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Nonprofit leaders are often praised for juggling multiple priorities, responding quickly, and “putting out fires.” But that behavior — while understandable — is one of the biggest reasons organizations stay stuck longer than they need to.

Focus is not a personality trait.

It’s not about discipline or willpower.

It’s a structural leadership decision.

And when focus is missing, progress slows to a crawl — even when everyone is working hard.

The Burning Building Problem

Imagine a burning building with three people trapped inside, each pinned under a heavy beam in a different room.

You rush into the first room and lift the beam just enough to free them a little — then you hear someone screaming in the second room. You run there, lift that beam slightly, then sprint to the third room to do the same.

You keep running room to room, partially solving each problem.

The result?
No one gets fully rescued — and you exhaust yourself in the process.

Most nonprofit leaders operate exactly this way.

They move from funding to programs to staffing to board issues to systems — touching each problem just enough to keep things from collapsing, but never long enough to truly resolve any of them.

This isn’t a failure of effort.
It’s the cost of context switching.

Why Context Switching Is So Expensive

Every time you shift your attention between problems, you pay a cognitive tax.

You lose momentum.
You re-orient.
You re-explain.
You re-decide.

Over time, leaders spend more energy moving between problems than actually solving them.

The organization feels busy but brittle.
Progress feels slow despite constant activity.
And leaders often blame themselves for not being “better at prioritizing.”

But here’s the truth:

You don’t need to understand every problem to know where to focus first.

The Myth of “We Need More Information”

Many organizations believe they need comprehensive discovery before they can prioritize. That belief keeps them stuck.

In reality, there are a few problems that, if present, automatically rise to the top — no matter what else is going on.

You can short-circuit the entire prioritization process by asking one simple question:

Is there a problem that makes everything else harder?

If the answer is yes, that’s where focus belongs.

The Two Problems That Override Everything Else

Across hundreds of nonprofits, two issues consistently create the most drag:

1. Not Enough Money

If your organization is at risk of running out of cash — or constantly scrambling — that problem will block progress everywhere else.

Money fuels capacity. Without it:

Staff burn out
Programs stall
Leaders stay reactive
Strategy becomes theoretical

If the financial bucket is leaking, fixing the leak comes first.

2. The Wrong Team (or One Toxic Fit)

A dysfunctional team — or even one deeply misaligned person — can make forward motion feel like swimming upstream.

Leaders try to compensate by working harder:

Over-communicating
Re-checking work
Avoiding hard conversations
Carrying responsibility that should be shared

This doesn’t just slow things down — it drains energy and credibility.

In many cases, addressing team fit frees up money and makes revenue growth easier. That’s why team problems often need to be solved before funding problems.

Why Program Optimization Usually Comes Too Early

Many nonprofits focus on improving programs before fixing money or team issues.

This makes sense emotionally — programs are mission-visible. But structurally, it’s backwards.

When organizations expand or refine programs without sufficient funding or the right people, they create fragile systems that eventually collapse under their own weight.

Program improvement is a great problem to solve — just not the first one if capacity is broken.

The Priority Stack (Not the Priority List)

Think of priorities as a stack, not a checklist:

1. People – Are the right people in the right roles?
2. Money – Do you have enough resources to move forward?
3. Infrastructure – Tech, space, systems that support growth
4. Programs – Are they effective, efficient, and scalable?

5. Future Vision – Innovation, expansion, long-term positioning