The author of this article gives a point-in-time view of what is happening to people who are not making profits.  This is a very helpful article about what to be doing now and in the near future. Here is how the article begins:
Tough times force hard choices. And these are rapidly becoming the toughest times most of us have ever seen. Even for nonprofit leaders who are accustomed to ‘making much of little,’ the repercussions of the unfolding economic downturn are likely to pose unprecedented challenges. It’s hard to imagine that many (if any) of us in the sector will escape unscathed. The results of a survey we conducted of over 100 nonprofit leaders in mid-November of 2008 are telling: 75 percent of the respondents reported that they are already feeling the effects of the downturn, and 52 percent have already experienced funding cuts. 
So what to do? Not surprisingly, there are no easy, or even particularly novel, answers to that question. But learning from what others have done before in the face of less severe financial crises can be extremely useful. To that end, we’ve begun collecting insights and advice from our clients, from other nonprofit leaders and experts, and from our own leadership. The results are sketched below. We’ll be adding to and complementing them over the coming weeks and months, as we all learn more about what it takes to manage successfully through tough times.
1. Act quickly, but not reflexively, and plan contingencies. Acute anxiety tends to provoke one of two responses: unthinking activity or deer-in-the-headlights paralysis. Both are understandable; neither is helpful. The challenge is to be both fore-thoughtful about the decisions you will need to make and fleet-footed in implementing them at the appropriate time.
In the current climate, this means taking immediate action: to manage costs aggressively; to do away with nice-to-haves (both because they are easily expendable and because of the signal it sends to the whole organization); and to delay undertaking new initiatives. It also entails developing explicit contingency plans, even if your organization is not yet feeling any pain. Waiting to get specific until the wolf really is at the door will not make the choices any easier, but it will sharply increase the likelihood that the available options will be fewer and more draconian.
Recessions are a time to keep up hope, and to plan, quite explicitly, for the worst, recognizing that troubles may unfold in fits and starts. Having Plans B, C, and D in place and knowing when to move to each can mean the difference between pacing your organization through a marathon and a slippery slide into financial and organizational exhaustion. How to craft contingencies? Many organizations start by asking themselves what they would do if they had to cut their budget by 10 percent, by 20 percent, and even by 30 percent.
They also specify the tripwires that would cause them to move from Plan A to Plan B, C, or D: an X percent fall in fee-for-service revenues, for instance, or a Y percent drop in donations or foundation funding, or a Z percent decrease in the organization’s cash reserves. A community-based after-school program with multiple sites, for example, might establish contingencies that called for renegotiating rents immediately; reducing staff and filling positions with volunteers as Plan B; consolidating one or two sites as Plan C; and consolidating to a core site as Plan D. Painful as each shift would be, both for clients and staff, the pacing signals clearly that the organization is doing all it can to preserve services and to keep the core of its mission alive.
2. Protect the core. The bad news is that financial constraints may mean you cannot pursue all of your current activities. The good—or at least the less bad—news is that not all of them are equally essential in terms of impact. Now is the time to allocate your discretionary dollars and best staff to the activities that make the greatest difference in your ability to achieve and sustain results: the programs and services that have the greatest impact on those you serve; and the organizational infrastructure required to support them. It is also the time to consider whether you need to cut back or discontinue less critical activities—and to ask yourself, “If not now, when?” 
Acting on this advice requires clarity about the programs and services that matter most, and about where your discretionary dollars are currently going. Your organization’s leadership may already be clear about what the most important priorities are. But if they aren’t we strongly recommend bringing board members and key staff together to wrestle with three critical questions that can help to create that clarity: “What results are we trying to achieve, and for whom?” “How do we achieve them?” And “What does that really cost?” Until everyone has agreed on the answers to these questions, it will be hard to develop a real consensus around which programs and activities are truly core and which ones, however reluctantly, can be let go.
3. Identify the people who matter most and keep that group strong. It’s often said that in good times you need good people; and in tough times you need great people. Every organization has a small group of people who are critical to its success—current and future. If you were to name your strongest performers, who would they be? Odds are not all of them are your direct reports. Some are likely to be board members and volunteers; others are probably less senior colleagues. These are the people who should be receiving the lion’s share of your attention, so that they can feel like allies and partners in keeping the organization focused on its mission and pulling through. This is a time for shared goals and creative solutions, not individual priorities and business as usual. Members of the management team, for example, might agree to take voluntary pay furloughs in order to keep frontline staff at full strength.