Before You Pivot, Pause.
- Chilande Kuloba-Warria
- Jun 4
- 2 min read
Back home in the Western Kenya border town of Bungoma, I still occasionally see village elders sitting under trees, deliberating about this or that community dilemma... Decisions are not rushed. Everyone speaks. And before anything is resolved, someone will inevitably ask: “Who does this serve?” It is not just tradition, it is wisdom.
I have been thinking about those elders a lot lately.
Recently, I spoke with a community-based organization that had just merged with a larger INGO to survive a funding drought. On paper, it looked like a strategic move. But months later, their staff quietly admitted:
“We no longer felt like we belonged to the community... we were reporting to a different mission.”
This is the quiet danger of change without reflection: mission creep.
Right now, many NGOs are standing at a crossroads. Funding is shrinking or shifting. And the consequences are real including but not limited to:
Long-serving teams are being let go.
Community programs are being cut midstream.
Institutions are making decisions in survival mode, with little time to reflect.
In the process, identity, trust, and long-built community relationships are being put at risk.
Hard choices lie ahead including what to choose from the options of: mergers, partnerships, downsizing, even closing doors and everything in between...
But urgency shouldn’t erase purpose.
Why do we exist?
What’s our mission—really?
Are our communities shaping these decisions?
Who are we being accountable to?
The social impact sector wasn’t built to preserve institutions. It was built to serve. So if transformation must happen, and sometimes it must - let it be rooted in purpose, not panic.
To funders: your role in these moments matters deeply. Not just in resourcing survival, but in enabling integrity. Support organizations to pause, consult, and recalibrate with care. Invest not just in continuity; but in clarity.
Because how we pivot matters.
👇🏾 What’s guiding the decisions in your corner of the ecosystem right now?
Let us not lose the plot. And may we carry with us the wisdom of those elders from Bungoma, as are elders from many other parts of the world, always pausing to ask: Who does this serve?
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