Editor's note: Barbara Cervone, 2008 Purpose Prize winner, launched What Kids Can Do (WKCD) in 2001 to bring youth voices and action to the attention of the larger media, educators and communities.

To call the current economic times "trying" seems an understatement. For those of us leading small nonprofits aimed at helping, healing, restoring, and change, the times seem more like a perfect storm. The needs that inspired us to step up and out are more compelling than ever, while the funds that previously supported our work shrink like ice caps in Antarctica. Staying afloat competes with taking risks. The temptation to "go where the money is" (assuming there is money) can end up in "mission creep."

As someone who lived through what now seem like lesser storms in the 80's and 90's--as a school reformer and grant maker--I thought I knew the dilemmas that face change-driven nonprofits in tough times. But that was before I took the helm of my own nonprofit (who had heard of an "encore career"?) and the term "global economic meltdown" entered our vocabulary.

My struggles since "the world as we know it" ended have come in waves. First, of course, was disbelief and anger. How can the ground shake just when it seemed WKCD's vision, hard work, and penuriousness have finally brought public attention to the young people whose voices we championed? It didn't take long, though, to realize we had lots of company--that economic meltdowns can dwarf virtue and the disbelief and anger I felt was endemic.

In the next wave, hope staged a come back. Certainly, our virtues will keep the funders we've counted on by our side--as their assets diminish, we'll remain high on their grants list. With a young African American president who overcame long odds filling our minds and hearts, certainly the black, brown, and poor youth WKCD supports might find it easier to make their own mark. And while the economy might be skirting depression, surely the new leadership in Washington would fix it, maybe not in a year, but in several.

Now as I look out my home office window and still see the December snow that was supposed to disappear in a January thaw, it is balance I seek most. As a manager (mostly managing myself and a small stable of consultants), I now weigh the costs and benefits of all our activities with uncharacteristic discipline. This did not stop me, though, from recently spending weeks of my time and WKCD's modest resources launching a national online petition to Congress on behalf of students who are or would be the first in their family to attend college. The notion came with a Sunday morning shower and 24 hours later we were off and running, costs and benefits be damned. The time seemed ripe and the cause right.

As an addict to new ideas, I've reined in my penchant to invent new projects as fast as I finish old ones. I ask myself more than ever, what's the goal, who's the audience, does it square with our mission, will it take more than we can possibly give? Still, this has not stopped our WKCD board and myself from deciding to grow a third organizational arm, with the too long title the "Center for Youth Voice in Policy and Practice." (WKCD's second arm is our nonprofit Next Generation Press.)

As an optimist by nature, I am fighting my usual instinct to reflexively reject bleak "what if" scenarios and, instead, try to stare them down. What if the U.S., like Japan, loses a decade--and a generation or two--to economic disease? (I'll be 71 by then...) What if a lack of funds dramatically curtails WKCD's reach? Or our drive to say afloat leads us to make compromises we shouldn't?

Although passion for my work (and falling retirement funds) keeps me working harder than ever, a small voice sometimes says, "You’re too old for this!" A bigger voice counters, "You’re the perfect age!"

I welcome your own stories of finding one's compass as the ground shakes.

In solidarity,

Barbara Cervone