The worldwide decline of coral reefs necessitates targeting management solutions that can sustain reefs and the livelihoods of the people who depend on them. However, little is known about the context in which different reef management tools can help to achieve multiple social and ecological goals. Because of nonlinearities in the likelihood of achieving combined fisheries, ecological function, and biodiversity goals along a gradient of human pressure, relatively small changes in the context in which management is implemented could have substantial impacts on whether these goals are likely to be met. Critically, management can provide substantial conservation benefits to most reefs for fisheries and ecological function, but not biodiversity goals, given their degraded state and the levels of human pressure they face.