By Janine Vanderburg, President/CEO, Joining Vision and Action
Three books to help you with your nonprofit succession planning
The exit of a nonprofit or social enterprise leader—founder or longtime executive director—is a critical turning point for an organization.
In our experience, the biggest problems that occur when transitions are not successfully managed include:
- Disruption in, and loss of, funding
- Key staff leaving
- Decreased programming in the year following the transition
- Arguments and confusion about the future direction of the organization
You can mitigate these problems with careful succession planning.
Succession planning is a fundamental responsibility of the executive director and board of directors of a nonprofit organization and critical to a successful transition. But where to start? Most of us will only have to do this once in our lives, either as the exiting executive director or on the board of directors facing an executive director leaving.
Here are three books on our bookshelf at Joining Vision and Action that we consider must reads for the executive director and board members when an executive director announces a planned transition:
Need a comprehensive overview of how nonprofit succession planning works? Read:
If you don’t know much about succession planning in the nonprofit sector and have never been responsible for planning and managing a successful transition, this is THE book to start with.
I met Tom Adams some years ago on a committee for the Alliance for Nonprofit Management. He is the hands-down guru in nonprofit succession planning and this book lays it all out—everything that someone ought to consider, think about, plan for, etc. Tom’s writings on this topic are something I turn to again and again when JVA is working with a client on succession planning.
The combo of practical advice from the trenches, coupled with the case studies and stories will make you feel: I am not alone in my sheer panic about all of this.
If you think this is pricey on your nonprofit budget, consider the impact of one lost donor and the ROI of this book will become evident.
Executive director planning your exit and wanting to develop a successor? Read:
Why read this short “memo to the CEO” as it’s subtitled? Despite its corporate focus, this tiny book is full of great advice on selecting and coaching internal candidates, and how to personally let go. You’ll laugh or dismiss some of the corporate-focused advice about things like missing flying around in the company jet, but the underlying messages about how to think about what you are giving up and what you are gaining are important and not found in most of the literature geared to nonprofit executive directors. The final section on “Passing the Baton” is great advice for any exiting leader—whether of a for profit or nonprofit organization.
No internal candidate? Or your internal candidate is following a partner to another state? Read:
It’s Not the How or the What but the Who: Succeed by Surrounding Yourself with the Best
My latest favorite book on hiring! Wendy Silveira, JVA’s former hiring manager, and I have partnered on many searches for JVA’s nonprofit clients, and I’m proud of our success in bringing the right talent to the right organization. Immediately after reading this book, I called Wendy and said, “There are three things we need to add to our process.” It’s chock full of advice based on the latest research, nicely written up into chapters called “Teaching a Turkey To Climb a Tree.”
So if you and your nonprofit organization are planning to do a search for your next leader, read this book first. Then download our checklist What Do We Want in a Next Leader?” Facilitate that conversation among board and key staff and then launch a search process based on what works.
Still want help? Contact us! There is nothing that we love better than helping our clients position themselves for a bright future.
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