Non-profit crisis leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic in India and the United States

ABSTRACT

During extreme crises, governments’ capacity is compromised, and they need support from non-profits, especially to reach the vulnerable and marginalised. Our qualitative study examines leadership response to the COVID-19 pandemic at four US and Indian non-profits; they paused their mission-related activities to focus on crisis leadership tasks. Our key findings reveal the importance of obtaining reliable information, balancing service delivery and stakeholder safety, communication with stakeholders, accepting the new normal and adopting creative solutions. These findings can inform training non-profit leaders on a number of key issues.

KEYWORDS:

• Crisis leadership
• crisis leadership tasks
• non-profit organisations
• crisis management

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Digital Empowerment Foundation, Utthan (Gujarat), Nashville International Center for Empowerment, and National FFA Organization for their valuable contributions to this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.