Today we’re sitting down with Ed Rogan, Partner and Search Practice Leader here at Valtas, to discuss forming a search committee for your Executive Director (ED) search. He is going to share some nonprofit search committee best practices from his more than two decades of experience in connecting people with missions to help you be better prepared for finding a new ED to lead your organization.
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Our hope is that you will use this as a sort of “search committee formation FAQ” to get your most pressing questions answered, but if you still have questions at the end, please reach out to Ed directly to get those answered in a way that’s customized to your organization’s specific needs. Let’s get started!

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!

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. 

​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:

Originally posted: 5/22/23
Updated: 6/5/24

​Risk management isn’t just for lawyers anymore because it’s not a matter of if adversity will strike, but when. Today’s nonprofits need leadership teams that understand nonprofit risk management best practices to ensure the organization can function effectively even when adversity arises.
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Nonprofit organizations face a multitude of internal and external risks that can affect their ability to achieve their mission. By adopting proactive risk management best practices, nonprofits can improve their organizational resilience to better sustain their impact in the face of an increasingly complex economic and operational landscape.​

Imagine the following scenarios:

• In a nonprofit board meeting full of smiling people everyone is congratulating the Executive Director on a job well done. She is at the front of the room, making jokes and seeming very happy. The following week, she resigns.
• As he compiles data for an annual report, a Program Manager realizes that the organization's primary program had significantly worse outcomes than the year prior, despite increased staffing. He decides to keep the information to himself and highlight other data in the report.
• The Treasurer of an established nonprofit calculates that the organization's last fundraising event missed its goal by thousands of dollars. Worried about the future of the organization, they decide not to contact a wealthy friend with their annual request for support.

​In the nonprofit space, like all spaces, things go wrong. This can happen regardless of your level of preparation, financial capacity, and good intentions. Organizational leaders at the board and staff level need to know what has gone wrong and why so that they can make informed course corrections. Usually, the sooner they know, the better. But often, bad news doesn’t reach key decision makers in a timely way and sometimes it doesn't reach them at all!