An Analytical Reading of the Report Grassi Nonprofit Leadership Survey 2025

First: Why this document?

The nonprofit sector is entering a new global phase; a phase where merely discussing "goodness" or "social impact" is no longer sufficient without the language of numbers, sustainability, technology, and governance.

In this context, the 2025 Nonprofit Leadership Survey report issued by Grassi provides an accurate "X-ray" of an important part of the nonprofit landscape in the United States, through the opinions of 207 nonprofit leaders across New York, New Jersey, and several other states.

For us in Saudi Arabia, this report is not read as a "different reality" but rather as a "forward-looking mirror"; much of what it notes in today’s New York environment can be sensed in its early stages in Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam, with the acceleration of Vision 2030 programs and the nonprofit sector entering new lines of funding, investment, and partnerships.

This document aims to:

  • Provide a scientific Arabic entry for the report;
  • Connect its results to the trends in the Saudi nonprofit sector;
  • And propose practical questions for the boards of directors and executive management in our associations and charitable institutions.

Important Note

This reading is based on the report:

2025 Nonprofit Leadership Survey Report 2025/2026 – Grassi Advisors & Accountants

And it is an unofficial translation/reading prepared for informational enrichment purposes only.

All rights to the original content are reserved to Grassi, and the full version can be accessed via their website.

Second: Who is Grassi? And what does the report say in brief?

Grassi Advisors & Accountants is a consulting and auditing firm specializing in working with nonprofit organizations, offering auditing, tax, financial, and strategic consulting services.

The firm conducted an electronic survey from June 10 to July 18, 2025, which included:

  • More than 200 nonprofit leaders;
  • Most of them from New York and New Jersey, with representation from other states;
  • From sectors: social/community services, health, education, as well as religious and professional organizations.

The report focuses on six main axes:

  1. Demand for services and costs
  2. Funding and the future of government funding (federal)
  3. Financial strategies and priorities in the coming 12 months
  4. Human challenges, governance, and boards of directors
  5. Leadership succession planning
  6. Technology, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and benchmarking

In a nutshell, the overall picture can be summarized as follows:

A continuous increase in demand for services,

Countered by an even larger increase in operating costs,

While funding growth remains below inflation,

With increasing pressure on human resources,

And a frantic race towards technology and artificial intelligence,

Against a backdrop of clear gaps in governance, leadership succession, and cybersecurity.

Third: The "demand and resources" equation… pressure intensifies

One of the most illuminating figures in the report is the percentage of organizations experiencing an increase in demand for their services:

  • 77% of organizations reported an increase in demand over the previous year,
  • While the percentage that experienced a decrease was less than 5%.

At the same time:

  • 79% of organizations reported an increase in operating costs,
  • With an average increase ranging from 13–15%,
  • Compared to an average increase in funding of no more than 1.6%, which is below inflation (2.9%).

This is the "pressure equation" that nonprofit leaders are facing today:

Increasing demand, higher costs, and resources that are not growing at the same pace.

What does this mean for the Saudi nonprofit sector?

In Saudi Arabia, we see similar features:

  • Expansion in the size of programs and initiatives;
  • Higher regulatory and operational requirements (governance, reporting, impact measurement);
  • Inflation in employment, technology, and professional service costs.

The implicit message from the report to our leaders here:

  1. Sustainability will not come from grants alone; but from redesigning the financial and service business model.
  2. Focusing on increasing the efficiency of resource use, not just on bringing in additional resources.
  3. Thinking about collaborations and alliances between associations to share costs in areas such as technology, training, and studies.

Fourth: Funding… between slow growth and a complicated relationship with the government

The report notes a change in funding levels:

  • 44% of organizations reported an increase in funding over the previous year;
  • 29% experienced a decrease;
  • 25% did not see any significant change.

When we look at federal funding (government), we find a more sensitive picture:

  • 56% of responding organizations receive some form of federal funding.
  • Among them, 36% reported a decrease in this funding over 12 months,
  • And 36% reported an increase,
  • While nearly a quarter did not experience any change.

In light of declining government funding, organizations resorted to:

  • Reallocating resources and adjusting priorities;
  • Intensifying fundraising efforts;
  • Reducing or halting some programs;
  • Freezing hiring or reducing staff in some cases.

In Saudi Arabia, government and institutional philanthropic funding (endowment bodies, funds, social responsibility programs) remains a key player in funding associations.

The report hints that the relationship with government/institutional funders will become more complicated over time, and that organizations must:

  • Develop balanced funding strategies that do not rely on a single source;
  • Build real capacity for financial planning for multiple scenarios (increase/stability/decrease in support);
  • Shift from a "waiting for grants" mentality to that of a strategic partner that provides value and whose impact can be clearly measured.

Fifth: Salaries and personnel… Human capital is the battlefield

The report clearly indicates that the primary issue for nonprofit leaders is human resources:

  • 58% are struggling to attract and retain employees.
  • 51% are complaining about rising labor costs.
  • Social services and healthcare sectors are the most affected.

This tension in the labor market drives organizations to:

  • Improve financial and non-financial packages (work flexibility, professional development, work environment).
  • Rely more on technology and artificial intelligence to compensate for the shortage of human resources.
  • Consider hybrid work models (part-time employees, freelancers, partnerships with service providers).

What does this say to our associations' leaders?

With the national trend to increase the nonprofit sector's contribution to GDP and create quality jobs, talent management within associations has become a strategic issue, not just an operational matter for the HR department.

The report’s results encourage us to ask ourselves sharp questions:

  • Do we have a clear strategy for attracting and retaining talents?
  • Do we rely solely on the "reward for the hereafter" rhetoric or do we offer a professional mix of incentives?
  • How do we leverage technology to alleviate the burden of routine tasks from our small teams?

Sixth: Technology and artificial intelligence… from "luxury" to operational necessity

One of the most advanced sections of the report concerns technology and artificial intelligence:

  • The use of artificial intelligence tools in nonprofit organizations jumped from 31% in 2024 to 48% in 2025.
  • Another 19% plan to adopt it within 12 months, raising the potential user rate to nearly two-thirds of the sector.

The most common areas of use include:

  • Automating administrative and routine tasks;
  • Supporting accounting and financial work and data analysis;
  • Generating content for marketing campaigns and communication with donors;
  • Fraud detection systems in donations and financial transactions;
  • Tools for program evaluation and beneficiary data analysis.

In contrast, the report notes that leaders' confidence in cybersecurity capabilities is still limited; only 56% feel "somewhat confident" in protecting their data, while the percentage of those who are "very confident" is low.

Based on the initiatives of digital transformation and support for platforms like "Ehsan", the Saudi nonprofit sector represents a fertile environment for adopting artificial intelligence.

However, the critical lesson from the report is:

It is not enough to add a layer of smart tools; we must also introduce a corresponding layer of digital governance and cybersecurity.

Organizations considering:

  • Chatbots for beneficiary service;
  • Advanced analyses of donor data;
  • Automating fundraising processes and project follow-ups;

Simultaneously need:

  • Clear policies for data protection and beneficiary privacy;
  • Continuous training for staff on cybersecurity practices;
  • And periodic tests to breach systems and ensure their robustness.

Seventh: Boards of Directors… between interaction and readiness for the future

The report offers an in-depth reading of board interaction:

  • On average, interaction is rated as "moderate";
  • 28% of boards are "highly interactive",
  • 43% are "interactive",
  • And 28% are "somewhat interactive".

More important than the percentages is the relationship noted in the report between level of interaction and level of financial and technical understanding:

  • Boards with high interaction are more six times likely to have "excellent understanding" of financial information;
  • They are also more capable of understanding technology trends and their impact on the organization.

At the same time, the report reveals a significant gap in leadership succession planning:

  • Few organizations have complete plans that define critical roles, potential successors, development plans, and knowledge transfer.
  • About 10% of organizations have no succession plan at all.

Implications for our reality:

In many Saudi associations, the board of directors is still:

  • Preoccupied with daily operational files;
  • Or reliant on a single key person, upon whom relationships, funding, and decisions depend.

The report’s results urge us to redefine the role of the board:

  1. From "a group of busy volunteers" to a strategic leadership board.
  2. From thinking about "the duration of the current term" to planning for who will take over in five or ten years.
  3. From evaluating only the executive director to evaluating the entire leadership system (executive director, deputies, program leaders).

Eighth: Benchmarking… The language of the future

The report highlights that organizations are increasingly relying on benchmarking as a management practice:

  • The most commonly measured and compared indicators include:

    • Financial performance indicators;
    • Program and service performance indicators;
    • Fundraising indicators;
    • Human resources and talent indicators.

This shift from "impressions" to "indicators" aligns with what funders and regulators in Saudi Arabia demand:

Periodic reports, impact indicators, executive implementation dashboards.

Here the report opens a window for the third bank itself to be:

  • A platform providing contextualized standard measurement tools for the Saudi context;
  • Helping associations compare their performance against global and local standards;
  • And linking daily figures with long-term board decision-making.

Ninth: What can the Saudi nonprofit leader practically gain?

Instead of merely relaying figures, the results of the Grassi report can be transformed into a set of practical questions that every leader should ask themselves and their team:

  1. Regarding demand and services

    • How is the volume of demand for our services changing? Do we have accurate data on that?
    • Does our current business model accommodate this growth, or do we need to redesign it?

  2. Regarding funding and sustainability

    • What percentage do we rely on a single funding source? What is the impact of losing it?
    • What is the financial scenario if costs increase by 10–15% in the coming years?

  3. Regarding human resources

    • What is our plan to attract and retain talents over the next 3–5 years?
    • What tasks can be automated to free up our teams for higher-value tasks?

  4. Regarding technology and artificial intelligence

    • What are the best use cases that could relieve our teams of burdens today?
    • Do we have a written cybersecurity policy and ongoing training on it?

  5. Regarding governance and leadership succession

    • How do we measure board engagement and the quality of its contribution?
    • Who are the potential "backup leaders" in the second and third tiers? Are we actually preparing them?

  6. Regarding benchmarking

    • What is the core set of indicators we will commit to measuring quarterly?
    • Who are we comparing ourselves to? How do we use the results in decision-making?

Tenth: Legal notice and usage suggestion

Intellectual Rights and Ownership

This document is an independent analytical reading in Arabic of the content of the report

2025 Nonprofit Leadership Survey Report 2025/2026

Issued by Grassi Advisors & Accountants.

All figures, graphics, and indicators provided are based on the original report and have been re-presented for non-commercial informational enrichment purposes within the "Third Bank | Knowledge Enrichment Encyclopedia for the Nonprofit Sector".

All intellectual rights to the original content are reserved to Grassi.