Change is hard for organizations. It can lead to disruption, anxiety, and low morale. Change holds the promise of improvement but often—in the throes of transition—that can be hard to discern. Minerva has had our share of changes this year and I can tell you: it’s not been easy.
Change at nonprofit organizations is a special kind of challenge, and transitions in leadership can be particularly difficult. That’s because nonprofits are funded by donors who often don’t like to see change. It can make them suspicious that an organization is unstable or fundamentally unhealthy. Some donors get so tied to the strengths of a particular leader that it overshadows their commitment to an organization’s overall mission, and when that leader leaves, they are thrown off balance.
But, as the old axiom goes, the only thing constant is change. For any organization, including nonprofits, it’s inevitable that their leader will someday leave. According to the Nonprofit Leadership Center, the average tenure for an executive director or CEO is about six years.
And most nonprofit leaders shouldn’t stick around much longer. Nearly a decade ago, Curtis Welling and John H. Vogel, Jr made a timeless observation in Nonprofit Quarterly: “There are rare individuals… who can lead an organization through all the stages of growth from a raw start up to a large, multidimensional nonprofit organization. Most leaders, however, have more limited skill sets that work best during a specific stage of an organization’s growth.” In short, organizations need different leaders at different times. Transitions are a normal part of any group’s lifecycle.
Leadership transitions should prompt funders to lean in and help nonprofits emerge stronger and healthier. But too often funders do just the opposite. That’s why it’s heartening to work with the Cricket Island Foundation, a family foundation that supports youth-led, grassroots nonprofits pushing for social change. In 2020, the Foundation decided to do something different. Instead of hesitating or pulling back from nonprofits facing a top-level transition, they started an experiment of leaning way in.
The resulting Leadership Transition Fund provides a multiyear program of grantmaking (Each organization receives $45,000 per year for three years.), technical assistance, and peer support. The Fund recently welcomed its third cohort of grantees and published a report about what it’s learned so far. The report includes a set of recommendations for funders, such as recognizing and funding the full lifecycle of a transition—before, during, and after a leader departs; allowing nonprofits to figure out the transition model that’s best for them; and normalizing conversations with grantees about transitions so that they’re not perceived as scary or intimidating.
I was privileged to work on the report with the Foundation and Minerva’s friends and frequent collaborators at Asibey Consulting. It was particularly meaningful to amplify the voices of grantees—all youth-led organizing groups—who have both benefited from and shaped the Fund. Their experiences reveal the extent to which funders can make or break nonprofit leadership transitions—if only they have the courage to lean in.
