Impacts of Systems Thinking on Mission When Environmental Nonprofit Organizations Encounter the Complex Systems Problem of Homelessness

The article examines how nonprofit organization staff navigate organizational mission as they encounter complex systems problems outside their area of expertise, focusing on environmental organizations encountering homelessness in river watersheds. Drawing on surveys from seventy-three individuals from forty-three organizations and interviews with seventeen nonprofit staff, I find that staff who demonstrate systems thinking are more likely to describe integrating complex systems problems into their mission and activities in meaningful ways. Not interacting with systems issues due to lack of skill is most often explained with language of mission adherence and avoiding mission drift.