History and traditions are important for many civil society organizations (CSOs). However, they have to mediate between their original mission and modern-day realities. This article argues that the concept of decoupling can enrich analyses of how organizations deal with path dependency. Hence, theoretically, the article discusses cross-fertilization between historical and organizational institutionalism. This is illustrated through a study of Swedish CSOs using survey data, interviews and documents. The Swedish popular movement tradition is argued to be a path that is not easily abandoned, and the results show how actors in CSOs find history to be both a resource and a constraint. Furthermore, different decoupling strategies, including both reversed and official decoupling, are used to balance between historical legacies and current challenges.