About 100 miles to the south, at the Pearl Buck Center in Eugene, Ore., matters are already grave. The center, which began in the early 1950s, is named after the Nobel Prize-winning author of “The Good Earth,” who had a developmentally disabled daughter. It serves about 600 children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

“We have six service programs, including a preschool. Four are effectively shut down,” said Margaret Theisen, the executive director. “Families we work with have very limited resources.”

A few weeks ago, 85 center clients were working in community jobs. Now, as the state shuts down, only 20 are. Out of 134 center employees, 80 have been laid off. Most of the upper-level staff members have taken a 25 percent pay cut.

On Wednesday, the Buck Center announced a $10,000 matching gift from Yellow Emperor, a local manufacturer of herbal supplements. Some of the funds will be used to pay the employee portion of health insurance premiums of the laid-off workers and maybe even bring one or two of them back.

“Literally every day we’re redesigning what we’re doing,” Ms. Theisen said.

If there is any redeeming aspect of the crisis for nonprofits, it might be this: When people are allowed to re-emerge into a changed world, there will be renewed enthusiasm for many causes. Parks and wilderness, for example, have never seemed as alluring as they do now, when so many are restricted to a walk around the block.

“When this crisis fades away, perhaps attention to our great need to protect our waters and lands will be more heartfelt and understood,” said Laurie Howard of the Passaic River Coalition, which has been advocating for the watershed in New York and New Jersey since 1969.