title: Organizational resilience: Nonprofit organizations' response to change.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Organizational resilience refers to the ability to respond productively to significant disruptive change and transform challenges into opportunities. There is a gap in the literature about resilient nonprofit organizations and its application for identifying organizational conditions for successful adaption to external variables that threaten their existence.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study was to identify organizational characteristics that point to the resilience of nonprofit behavioral healthcare organizations as they successfully adapt to funding changes.
  
  
  METHODS
  A multiple case study of two behavioral health nonprofit organizations was conducted. Data was collected through interviews and focus groups, and analyzed through a qualitative content analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Using the framework of resilience, six themes that equipped these organizations to successfully adapt to funding changes were identified. They included: commitment to the mission, improvisation, community reciprocity, servant and transformational leadership, hope and optimism, and fiscal transparency.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings suggest that incorporating these qualities into an organizational system equips it to systematically adapt to funding changes and other disruptive challenges. Using resilience as a process and not simply an outcome after recovery, nonprofit organizations can have the capacity to continuously respond to challenges and provide uninterrupted and valuable services to society.
authors.affiliation: Urban Studies Department and Centre for Work Life and Evaluation Studies (CTA), Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden.
authors.forename: Hope
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Witmer
authors.affiliation: School of Social Work, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Marcela Sarmiento
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Mellinger
mesh_terms: D003159:Community-Institutional Relations; D030881:Disclosure; D019981:Health Care Sector; D065026:Hope; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D007857:Leadership; D008603:Mental Health; D000067656:Optimism; D015279:Organizational Culture; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D009937:Organizational Objectives; D009939:Organizations, Nonprofit / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D055818:Public-Private Sector Partnerships; D055500:Resilience, Psychological; D014481:United States
keywords: Resilience; healthcare; nonprofit leadership; organizational adaptability