The Case for Humility and Gratitude

What We Cannot Do Alone

I've been thinking a lot lately about how heavy this season feels for nonprofit leaders.

The political climate keeps shifting under our feet. Funding feels less certain than it did a year ago. Every week seems to bring a new headline that makes the ground feel less stable. And in the middle of it, so many of you are still showing up — writing grants, running programs, sitting across from board members, connecting with the community, trying to hold the mission steady.

I don't think anyone tells you enough how much strength that takes.

I've also been thinking about two words that don't usually get paired together: humility and gratitude.

Humility, at its root, is simply the truth that we cannot do this alone. Not because we're weak leaders. Because the work was never meant to be carried by one person, one department, one board. It takes staff and board working together. It takes funders who believe in what you're building, and a community that shows up in ways large and small. Humility is just an honest accounting of all the effort that happens on the ground. It’s seeing the little steps that lead up to big accomplishments in due time.

Humility moves us beyond our ego and recognizes our interdependence.

Gratitude is what we offer in response.

Not gratitude for everything being perfect. Gratitude for what's actually being given — even when it's incomplete, even when it's inconsistent, even when the funder's check is smaller than you hoped or the board member's follow-through isn't what you wanted. Gratitude doesn't wait for things to be ideal. It notices what's already here.

I think this pairing matters more right now than it has in a long time.

When leaders feel under pressure, the instinct is to grip tighter. Control more. Trust less. But grip doesn't make an organization more resilient. Relationships do. And relationships are built on the quiet, repeated act of noticing what people are offering you, and telling them you saw it.

What this can look like

Maybe it's the board chair who sets the agenda down for a moment and says one person's name — out loud, specific, unhurried — before the meeting rushes on.

Maybe it's the executive director who finds the program officer in the hallway at the end of a long week and says, without performance in it, thank you for staying in this.

Maybe it's simpler than either of those. Maybe it's just the pause itself — the deliberate, almost sacred act of stopping mid-stride to remember whose shoulders you're actually standing on, and letting that memory slow you down before you move again.

Here's what I've come to believe: humility and gratitude aren't two separate practices sitting side by side. They're one motion, done twice. Humility is the inhale — the moment you stop and take in how much of this you did not build alone. Gratitude is the exhale — the moment you let that truth out into the world, spoken, so someone else can feel it. A leader who only inhales gets brittle, holding their breath against a season that keeps asking for more. A leader who only exhales sounds performative, empty praise delivered without authentic appreciation. The leader who does both — who takes in the truth of their dependence and lets it back out as thanks — finds something sturdier than control. They find rhythm. And rhythm, more than any strategic plan, is what actually carries an organization through a hard season.

That recognition, spoken out loud, is its own kind of grace.

One thing to try

The breath, in practice: This week, name one person — a board member, a funder, a colleague, a friend, a partner — whose support you've been holding without saying so out loud. Breathe it in. Then exhale the appreciation. Send a text. Write a note. Tell them. Something specific: what they gave you, and what it made possible.

It takes two minutes. And it tends to change more than you'd expect.
All my best,

Janetta Cravens

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