Recessions are not sprints; they are endurance events. To find out how nonprofits are faring during the toughest recession in more than 30 years, we have been surveying 100 nonprofit executives across the United States at six-month intervals since late 2008. As of October 2009, some 80 percent of our respondents had experienced funding cuts, and a full 93 percent said that they were feeling the effects of the downturn. Yet many of our respondents are also adopting healthy habits that not only will help them survive the present recession, but also may help them thrive when better times return. Below we summarize the seven healthy habits of nonprofits that endure. Act quickly, yet thoughtfully Anxiety tends to provoke one of two responses: unthinking activity or deer-in-the-headlights paralysis. Both are understandable; neither is helpful. Instead, nonprofits must be both thoughtful in their decision making and fleet-footed in their implementation. And that means planning for the worst, starting now. For example, take the Women’s Lunch Place, a Boston-based nonprofit that gives poor and homeless women and children a daytime refuge. By the fall of 2008, the organization had seen its funding reduced by $400,000 and wasn’t sure what its future held.…