Leadership and Sustainable Development in Tabuk’s Nonprofits: A Moderated Mediation of Organizational Commitment and Strategic Planning Capability

In the context of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, which positions the nonprofit sector as a key driver of national development, these organizations face significant challenges including weak leadership, poor planning, and low employee commitment. This study investigates a moderated mediation model to explore how leadership affects organizational sustainable development (OSD). Specifically, it examines the mediating role of organizational commitment in the leadership–OSD relationship and the moderating role of strategic planning capability on the link between leadership and commitment. A quantitative, cross-sectional design was applied, involving 154 managerial respondents from 125 organizations in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. Leadership, organizational commitment, strategic planning capability, and OSD were measured using validated instruments, and the analysis—conducted through IBM SPSS Statistics 26 and PROCESS Macro 7—incorporated reliability testing, factor analysis, correlations, and bootstrapped mediation–moderation models. The results reveal that leadership strongly predicts sustainable development (β = 0.592, p < 0.001) and organizational commitment (β = 0.634, p < 0.001). Commitment also significantly enhances sustainable development (β = 0.308, p < 0.001) and partially mediates the leadership–sustainability relationship. Strategic planning capability amplifies the effect of leadership on commitment (β = 0.176), producing a meaningful conditional indirect effect. Overall, the model accounts for 63.8% of the variance in sustainable development. The findings underscore the central role of leadership in strengthening nonprofit sustainability and highlight its relevance to broader national development objectives, including those outlined in Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030.