White Papers
Nonprofit Leadership Transition: Sustaining Organizational Success When a Founder or Long-Term Leader Departs
Nonprofit organizations are predicted to transition their chief executive at a staggering rate for the foreseeable future. Many of these organizations are led by founders, or long-time leaders who have functioned as founders. Download white paper.
This document is featured on the Pennsylvania Nonprofit Report website.
Articles
Evaluating the Chief Executive
Many of the nonprofit chief executives we meet lament that they do not get ongoing feedback from their boards, or receive regular annual performance reviews ... [more]
How Does a Leadership Transition Differ From an Executive Search?
A leadership transition is the management of the entire anticipation-departure-recruitment-integration process in a holistic fashion … [more]
Asleep at the Helm
In A Perfect Storm, we talked about the leadership crisis that ensues when boards avoid discussion of succession planning for fear of rocking the boat … [more]
Letter to the Editor: Stanford Social Innovation Review
Thank you for publishing "Mission-Driven Governance." After working with dozens of nonprofits, I have found that board members do not fully appreciate … [more]
Best Practices for Effective Board Leadership
Every nonprofit organization is looking for the perfect board chairperson who can excel at every aspect of leading the organization to the next level … [more]
Ensuring Mission-Driven Board Leadership
After working with dozens of nonprofit organizations — both on the inside and the outside — I have found that, regardless of the size or scope of … [more]
How to Weather the Loss of a Leader and Keep Up the Mission
Published in the Philadelphia Business Journal, Friday, July 25, 2008 — Download article.
The Perfect Storm: or How to Plan a Leadership Crisis
In Sebastian Junger’s award novel, “The Perfect Storm”, a confluence of conditions combined to form a killer storm in the North Atlantic ... A leadership transition can unleash the perfect storm organizationally in much the same way … [more]
Creating a Leadership Legacy … Managing Successful Executive Transitions
Leadership transitions are under-realized opportunities to strengthen organizations. If founders and visionary leaders approach the transition process as … [more]
The Interim Interlude in a Transition
One of the most overlooked opportunities in executive transitions is how to make the most of the interim period, which is the time between the departure … [more]