ABSTRACT
The ability of nonprofits to weather hard times is a popular theme in the academic and practitioner literature, this chapter provides insights into resiliency tactics used by publicly funded nonprofits during a revenue crisis. The 2015–2017 Illinois Budget Impasse provided an excellent, if unfortunate example of resiliency demonstrated by resource-dependent nonprofits during a fiscal starvation of their organizations. The concept of resiliency describes an entity’s ability to survive change, and the formal study of the term stems back to the bioecological systems work of Holling. Resiliency is a more appropriate concept than either vulnerability or survival to study nonprofit operations during periods of crisis or change. Nonprofit managers employed six distinct tactics when responding to the Illinois budget crisis. Some were treated as emergency measures, while others were often used as a means of ensuring a better future. Due to these different needs, most organizations employed at least half of the financial tactics in their responses.
