​In our line of work, we talk to nonprofit leaders every day that are making career moves. Some are entering executive leadership roles for the first time after putting in their time on boards or in mid-level managerial roles. Some are seasoned nonprofit leaders that are making lateral moves from the helm of one organization to another. Some are coming over from executive leadership roles in industry to the nonprofit sector.

But regardless of where they’re coming from, they enter the role bright-faced and optimistic about their future with the organization. They are excited, ambitious, and ready to succeed!
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There’s just one problem... They can’t succeed alone!

Every new Executive Director placement brings an individual with a unique set of skills and experiences into an organization with unique needs and goals. To effectively unite the two, the organization’s board and existing leadership team needs to provide their new ED with everything that they need to find success. 

The idea of shared leadership has always been around in some form or another in the nonprofit space for years. However, nonprofit co-leadership across the entire sector gained popularity as a concept 5-10 years ago, and we continue to see some organizations choose this format today. Since its heyday conversation around whether it’s a worthwhile concept seems to have faded somewhat into the backdrop behind other more pressing nonprofit topics like decreasing philanthropy funding, diversity, pay transparency, and unionization. And yet, because “distributed leadership” is such a vague term we can’t say organizations are altogether done with it these days because it can mean different things to different organizations in different circumstances.
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Let’s look at where it’s still being used and why, as well as who is most likely to embrace it!

For over two years one of the most popular articles on our blog has been about helping staff through planned leadership transitions. It likely comes as no surprise to anyone that nonprofit leaders are often concerned with how to best prepare their organization for success after they leave, so they are eager to find resources on how to make the transition smoothly to ensure success for everyone. But a planned leadership change is vastly different than an unplanned leadership change. The timeframe is different, the considerations are different, the emotions are different, the operational needs are different, the communications are different. Everything is different!

There is very little that can be said about preparing for a leadership change that applies when a nonprofit loses their Executive Director without warning. The jarring nature of losing a leader unexpectedly provides a whole host of unique challenges.

Our hope is that this resource will give boards the framework they need to manage through an unexpected leadership transition so that if their Executive Director quits, is terminated, or is abruptly unable to lead, the organization will be fully equipped to keep moving forward.

Previously, we published an article about what nonprofit leadership can learn from frustrating nonprofit boards. In it we highlighted five common problems that boards experience and how an Executive Director, nonprofit CEO, or Board President can work to overcome them. If you haven’t checked that out yet, you definitely should! We highly recommend all nonprofit leaders familiarize themselves with the ways that boards can (and do) fail so that they can take a proactive approach to board management. 

Afterwards, we noticed the people we talked to were beginning to ask deeper questions like, “How do you know if a nonprofit board is doing a good job?” It seems that article helped nonprofit leaders, board members, and major donors to start thinking more critically about what they should look for in determining if the board they are connected to is being run effectively and accomplishing the organization’s mission. They wanted more information about what they should be on the lookout for – what kinds of red flags might signal an underlying culture problem or what kinds of signs indicate that the board is going off track. 

What are your natural competencies as a leader? If you don’t know, how can you find out? And why should you care anyways?
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We’re helping today’s nonprofit leaders (and tomorrow’s nonprofit leaders in the making) answer these questions!

​When you hear the phrase “community outreach” what comes to mind? Most people immediately think of nonprofit organizations hosting community events, which isn’t necessarily wrong. However, on its own it’s an incomplete view of what community outreach means for nonprofits. Hosting events can be an important component of what outreach in our communities looks like, but it is, by no means, all that should be included.
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Often, this overly simplistic view of what is included in community outreach comes from a misunderstanding of what community outreach should accomplish. The goal of community outreach shouldn’t just be to recruit volunteers and increase funding to support the organization’s mission. Outreach should also be the organization’s mission. 

In a recent article we published our team members offered their perspective on the most important topics facing nonprofit leadership these days.

​Liz Swanson, a nonprofit professional with over 30 years of experience leading mission-driven organizations, offered a key insight: 

We want to highlight this challenge specifically because it’s one that all organizations are currently facing and will continue to face in the coming years. Our hope is that by highlighting the underlying causes of today’s rise in nonprofit costs and identifying some strategies to combat these challenges, we can equip nonprofit organizations to operate sustainably into the future. 

​As nonprofit consultants, we often talk internally about the challenges our clients are facing. We will share with each other regarding cause-specific issues, new challenges, and emerging opportunities. Since our team is comprised of experienced nonprofit leaders that work mainly in interim Executive Director roles, we have a unique vantage point that offers us valuable insights into where the nonprofit landscape is headed. We’d like to share that perspective with you to give you a glimpse into what is most important in the world of nonprofit management right now!
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We recently asked our team the question, “What do you think are the most important issues facing nonprofit leadership this year?” These are some of their responses: