Nonprofit Leadership & Management Resources
Our blog features resources on nonprofit leadership, management transitions, the importance of interims, and more. The articles featured here are written by our IEN members or are links to external sources.
Never Waste a Good Crisis: Why, When & How to Hire an Interim Executive Director
When the board is exhausted and answers won't come, don't send a board member into the breach. This article explains why professional interim executive directors—like those in the Interim Executive Network—are crisis managers, not placeholders. Includes when to think of hiring an interim, what to expect and how to find us.
Capacity Is Tested in Transition
Leadership transition isn't a bug in the system — it's a predictable feature. When something is predictable, we should design for it. This article reframes interim leadership as organizational infrastructure, not temporary coverage, and draws on a 100-practitioner study to show why transition either weakens or strengthens an organization.
12 Important Steps When Hiring The Right Nonprofit Successor, by the Forbes Nonprofit Council
Among its twelve recommendations, this article recommends considering “a purposeful interim leader who can facilitate important transition work.”
Five Principles for Supporting Nonprofits During a Leadership Change
We are living in an era dubbed the “Great Resignation,” as millions of people worldwide are quitting their jobs and re-examining their priorities and values in the wake of the [...]
Nonprofit Executive Search – Do You Need an Interim Executive Director?
When a nonprofit Executive Director/CEO leaves, the Board of Directors often faces the question of whether to bring in an Interim Executive Director. Read more in this article from the [...]
Navigating Succession: Four Exiting CEO Mindsets
What determines a company’s readiness for navigating a CEO transition? Our proposed answer builds upon prior research on CEO succession, viewed through a novel theoretical lens based on generativity theory [...]
What to Do AFTER You Fire Your Executive Director
The circumstances surrounding most executive director terminations are often more complicated than they appear. I’ll leave the termination process to the legal experts. Instead, this article by Don Tebbe covers [...]
What Does an Equitable Executive Leadership Transition Look Like?
As the country grapples with systemic and structural inequality, nonprofits struggle to play the civic role they should play because they struggle with their own internal unequal systems. Read more [...]
If You Like It Then You Shoulda Put a RE-ng On It!” Moving Nonprofit Boards Towards Real Racial Equity (RE) Commitments
Author’s note: I wrote this blog back in April, but I couldn’t post it now and pretend like the violent deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor [...]
Reflections on Trust and Its Relationship to Racial Inequity on Nonprofit Boards
One of Stephen M.R. Covey’s fundamental beliefs about leadership is that progress happens “at the speed of trust” — that organizational work gets done with and through people, and [...]
Our Opportunity
Reprinted with permission from Boardsource. The original article was originally published on May 28, 2020 and can be found here. And it goes that when one person can focus [...]
The Hidden Potential of an E.D. Search Committee
As an interim executive director, I’ve enjoyed supporting several E.D. search committees. Of course, the primary role of the search committee is to vet candidates for the long-term executive [...]
Leadership Transitions During a Global Pandemic
The Japanese word for crisis is composed of both danger and opportunity. It is challenging in this time of crisis for the world, our nation and for the non-profit [...]
Managing during the Covid-19 Crisis
COVID-19 has given rise to uncertainty for all businesses, including the non-profits that often operate on the financial edge in the best of times. The major costs of running [...]
Seven Types of Executive Director Transitions and How to Manage Them
While every nonprofit and its executive director transition are unique, these leadership transitions tend to follow seven broad patterns. And each of these types needs its own set of actions [...]
Four Ways to Mitigate Bias in Performance Evaluations
Reprinted with permission from The Management Center. The original article published on December 4, 2019 can be found here. When done well, performance evaluations serve several valuable functions. For [...]
Interim Executives: Added Value in Transition
When I left my last full-time nonprofit executive position after nine years, I felt a duty to stay until the last moment. I was approached at the time by [...]
Each nonprofit is unique. Each executive transition will be different.
The grantmaking community has a saying, “Once you’ve met one foundation, you’ve met… one foundation.” I think you’ll agree that no two foundations are alike. I would argue that [...]
Nonprofit Leadership at a Crossroads
We are in a moment of seismic change. The fault lines are both generational and demographic. And nearly every organization has been hit by collapsing expectations and flying debris. [...]
Assuring the Staff has a Voice in Choosing the Next Executive
Most people know the choice of a new nonprofit executive lies in the hands of the board of directors. I believe, along with many others, that the choice of [...]
A Management Minute: The Relief of Not Having to Know It All
More and more, I am assured that as a manager, I don’t need to know it all – or even act like I know it all. In fact, it [...]
Preparing Your Organization to Attract the Best Possible Candidates for Leadership
My goal when I begin an assignment as the Interim Executive is to leave the organization and the board of directors in a position to attract the best possible [...]
The Outside Interim Executive Director
Nonprofit A had a long-time executive director who resigned due to a health crisis. Nonprofit B had an executive director who moved to another organization after giving only one [...]
What Makes a Great Interim CEO
An interim CEO is ideally an experienced nonprofit executive director. For an IE, the executive role is like riding a bike. They have done it before, they know the [...]
Nonprofit community faces challenges as “baby-boomers” leave the field
The baby-boomer generation grew up in a period of social and political change, and many of them channeled their passions into mission-driven careers in the non-profit sector. As these [...]
Succession planning
Most non-profit organizations are familiar with the benefits of a strategic plan – the immediate benefit of mindful thinking about mission, goals and strategies, as well as the future [...]
Disadvantages of using someone in your organization to run things temporarily
(And the advantages of using an interim executive) When nonprofits face leadership transitions, they often resort to using someone already involved with the organization, such as a [...]
Managing a leadership transition
“I just sat down with my coffee to review my emails – and there it was – the email from the executive director giving the Board notice that she is [...]
Interim leadership can lead the way during a merger
The non-profit sector is finding it more and more effective to use interim executive directors during a period of transition. Usually, the trigger for a Board of Directors to hire [...]
Why an interim executive director is a good investment for a small budget
I have more than 20 years experience in non-profit and government management. Like the other experienced members of the DC Interim Executive Network, I have spent decades writing grants, generating reports, [...]
Yes, your organization is unique, and yes, an interim executive can help
Many Boards, as they consider the possibility of interim leadership during a transition, express concerns about an interim executive director’s lack of experience in working with the unique concerns [...]