The main purpose of this paper is to identify the key challenges faced by managers in civil society organizations. The secondary goal of the paper is to present the specifics of management, i.e to present the specifics of management structures of selected countries of the European Union. The main method of work is data collection and analysis. The obtained results indicate a possible classification of management challenges into: challenges related to civil society organizations themselves, challenges related to managers in such organizations, challenges related to the environment of organizations (local community, state, European Union), and specific challenges listed as a result new pandemics, and numerous accompanying changes in the management of civil society organizations. The main challenges related to: 1. organizations are: relative novelty, complexity, existence of several different purposes of organizations, challenges of specific structure; 2. managers: failure to identify key stakeholders, arogancy, lack of creativity and innovation, copying existing inefficient models, lack of skills, insufficient emphasis on training; 3. environment: digitalization, globalization, demographic changes, populism, economic crisis, narrowing of civil society; 4. specific challenges related to the pandemic: working from home, the need for IT knowledge, online management.