Recently we received several questions and emails about how a CDC or a vibrant neighborhood association can cope with threats of losing their federal funding. In my offline community development world, there is plenty of anxiety. Everyone I meet seems on edge.

This caused me to think more broadly about how successful community organizations bolster themselves against uncertain funding streams and uncertainty in general. Here are suggestions for your consideration.

1. Deal with realistic threats, not rumors and innuendo. As a neighborhood leader, you are responsible for setting a calm and pragmatic tone that will facilitate problem-solving if you have to face drastic funding cuts or other organizational change. Try to channel the energy of neighbors that tend to hyperventilate into making the best of current resources.

2. Make a positive plan. If you had to scale back your program dramatically, what projects can you continue or start without depending on external funding? Can you attract more resources locally? That's the hopeful dimension of this planning, and it might just spur new thinking and creative projects even if you don't lose 90% of your funding. Share your positive plan with your entire neighborhood or membership. In fact, experiment with some of your new ideas now.

3. Make a plan for the worst. The messy part of major funding losses is that you may have to discontinue projects that people have come to rely on, and you may have to lay off valuable employees. Keep your planning for these contingencies confined to an executive committee or very small group, to the extent your organizational culture allows. There is no point in starting a neighborhood uproar based on uncertainty, but you also want to make sure that a few trusted leaders have had the conversation about how to unwind activities and let employees go. Understand the implications of both. For example, you can't just leave a house you are rehabbing without a roof. If you lay off employees, you may have to pay unemployment benefits.

4. Reassure yourselves that you are not alone. If major federal programs are axed in the U.S., you will not be the only CDC or neighborhood association that can no longer function in your accustomed way. You will not be the only ones feeling bereft and facing practical issues about how to discontinue some activities as gracefully as possible. Gather with a few level-headed leaders of other organizations in your broader community, both to support one another and to gather fresh coping ideas. Seismic shifts in the funding of community development have happened before on a small scale, and somehow our field reinvents itself every time.

5. Keep your eye on the ball. Revisit your "why." Revise or reinterpret your mission statement so that you remember what is important. Often organizations slide into thinking that self-preservation and defending the status quo are their most important goals, but challenge yourselves to focus anew on what you can do to serve your community.