I recently read a great article in Harvard Business Review titled “In Uncertain Times, Ask These Questions Before You Make a Decision.” It felt very timely and sums up the kind of conversations I’ve been having with charity leaders lately. People are under pressure, there’s uncertainty everywhere, teams are stretched, and it’s hard to know what the right move is. In this article I urge you to rethink fundraising with these four questions.

The reality is, we’re not in a storm we can wait out. We’re operating in what the article described as a “perma-crisis”, where uncertainty isn’t temporary, it’s the new normal. And that means leaders, especially charity CEO’s and fundraising director’s need a different approach to making decisions. One rooted in long-term thinking, clarity of values, and honest reflection.

The article offered four brilliant questions to guide decision-making in this context. With this in mind, I wanted to share them here, alongside a few reflections from my own work supporting charities through strategy development, fundraising audits, and leadership decision-making.

1. What decision today will still make sense a year from now?

This question is a brilliant nudge toward longer-term thinking. While I didn’t have this exact phrase in mind at the time, I recall a conversation I had with a leadership team facing some tough financial decisions. Like many organisations, they were under pressure to reduce costs, and it would have been easy to apply broad cuts across the board.

But we paused to consider the longer-term implications. What would their income picture look like next year if they cut key fundraising roles today? I helped them model various scenarios and the risk was clear, a much weaker financial position in a year’s time.

In the end, they made the difficult, but strategic choice to retain their fundraising posts and take a more targeted approach elsewhere. That’s the kind of decision that might feel uncomfortable in the moment, but it’s one that’s far more likely to stand the test of time.

2. If a year from now this decision was used as an example of our leadership, what would it teach?

This question is all about the legacy our decisions leave, not just the results, but what they signal about how we lead.

I recently worked with a charity that had a significant contract cut. Understandably, there was debate about whether to go public. Would supporters or beneficiaries assume the charity was in trouble? Would it damage trust or create unnecessary concern?

But rather than staying quiet, the leadership team chose transparency. They communicated clearly and confidently about the funding cut, why it had happened, and how they were responding. It wasn’t a panic message; it was rooted in their mission, and it invited people to stand with them.

The result? Their most successful fundraising quarter to date includes their strongest year-end appeal and a halo effect across other income streams. It’s a decision that will be remembered not as a crisis response, but as a moment of authentic, values-led leadership that galvanised their community.

3. What if this isn’t the storm, what if it’s the climate?

This question gets right to the heart of the challenge many charities are now facing. If uncertainty is here to stay, how do we stop planning for a return to normal and start building something that can thrive in the long term?

I worked with a charity that had done a brilliant job with high-value fundraising. Major donors and trusts were delivering significant results, and on paper, things looked strong. But their CEO could see the broader picture. They recognised that relying too heavily on a few large gifts, especially in such a changeable environment, left them vulnerable.

Together, we worked on diversifying their income. We introduced public fundraising, including a new individual giving programme. The aim wasn’t just growth, it was to build a more predictable and flexible income stream that could cover both core costs and project work.

That stream is now going from strength to strength. By acting early and thinking long term, they’ve put themselves in a much stronger position, whatever comes next. That’s what it means to stop weathering the storm and start building for the climate.

4. What’s the cost of staying still?

Sometimes the boldest decision is choosing to act before you have all the answers.

I worked with a membership organisation whose primary income stream, membership fees, was beginning to plateau. Budget was tight, and there was understandable hesitation about committing funds to new fundraising activity. Many around the table felt it would be safer to wait and see how membership numbers played out before investing elsewhere.

But leadership took a different view. They recognised the risk of standing still and pressed ahead with an increased focus on fundraising.

The result? They didn’t just stabilise their income, they grew it. They also secured their first-ever six-figure major gift and created real momentum for future fundraising. It was a decisive move that shifted their trajectory, and it came from deciding to move forward instead of waiting.

These four questions don’t give you neat answers, But they do help you ask better ones. In today’s climate, that’s what real leadership requires.

If you’re grappling with big decisions for your charity I highly recommend the article the article In Uncertain Times Ask These Questions (Link in Further Reading). Better yet, carve out time to sit with these questions alongside your leadership team or trustees.

And if you’d like a sounding board, a critical friend to help you apply this thinking to your own context, that’s exactly what we do at Honest Clarity.

Get in touch if you’d like to explore how we can work together.

Further Reading:

In Uncertain Times Ask These Questions Before You Make A Decision