Resources from the Field
We have curated this collection of resources to support your work before, during, and after a leadership transition.
Search by topic, filter by audience, or explore the full collection below.
Thriving Leaders & Communities (TLC): Recommendations from Nonprofit Leaders of Color
Author: ProInspire
Publisher: ProInspire
Resource Type: Report
Leading Forward Principle: Center & Support Leaders from Community
This report highlights the essential conditions needed for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) leaders to thrive. Engaging 58 senior leaders across 39 U.S. cities, it identifies scalable strategies that foster growth and success for individuals, organizations and communities.
This report provides actionable ecosystem recommendations for:
Funders
Leaders
Organizational teams
Board members
Government
Nonprofit sector at large
How Foundations Are Supporting Grantee Staff Well-Being
Author: The Center for Effective Philanthropy
Publisher: The Center for Effective Philanthropy
Resource Type: Report Snapshot
Leading Forward Principle: Cultures of Belonging & Wholeness
This CEP Research Snapshot offers insight into foundation leaders’ perspectives and actions related to the well-being and burnout of staff at the organizations they fund.
Use this report snapshot to:
Explore how foundation leaders understand the state of well-being among their grantees and what they do to support it.
Access resources about assessing and supporting well-being practices in the nonprofit workplace.
Avoiding the Glass Cliff: Advice to Boards on Preparing for and Supporting New Leaders of Color
This study reflects the insight of BIPOC leaders navigating positions of power in social change organizations as they succeeded white predecessors. Through a partnership between Ericka Stallings of Leadership Learning Community, Bianca Anderson of ProInspire, and AiLun Ku of BIPOC Leaders Network and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, we spoke with BIPOC leaders from across the country, who shared a wide range of experiences related to their transitions, their strategies for navigating these transitions, and specific recommendations for how to make these transitions better.
The Push and Pull: Declining Interest in Nonprofit Leadership
This study reflects the insight of BIPOC leaders navigating positions of power in social change organizations as they succeeded white predecessors. Through a partnership between Ericka Stallings of Leadership Learning Community, Bianca Anderson of ProInspire, and AiLun Ku of BIPOC Leaders Network and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, we spoke with BIPOC leaders from across the country, who shared a wide range of experiences related to their transitions, their strategies for navigating these transitions, and specific recommendations for how to make these transitions better.
Executive Transitions & Succession Planning
This tool, shared from RoadMap and Strategies for Social Change’s Leadership Transition Toolkit, maps out five primary stages in the leadership transition planning process. This tool helps organizations anticipating leadership transitions have a sense of what to expect through each part of the process.
Communicating a Planned CEO Transition
This study reflects the insight of BIPOC leaders navigating positions of power in social change organizations as they succeeded white predecessors. Through a partnership between Ericka Stallings of Leadership Learning Community, Bianca Anderson of ProInspire, and AiLun Ku of BIPOC Leaders Network and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, we spoke with BIPOC leaders from across the country, who shared a wide range of experiences related to their transitions, their strategies for navigating these transitions, and specific recommendations for how to make these transitions better.
Making (Or Taking) Space: Initial Themes on Nonprofit Transitions from White to BIPOC Leaders
This study reflects the insight of BIPOC leaders navigating positions of power in social change organizations as they succeeded white predecessors. Through a partnership between Ericka Stallings of Leadership Learning Community, Bianca Anderson of ProInspire, and AiLun Ku of BIPOC Leaders Network and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, we spoke with BIPOC leaders from across the country, who shared a wide range of experiences related to their transitions, their strategies for navigating these transitions, and specific recommendations for how to make these transitions better.
National Council of Nonprofits: Network Directory
Visit BMP's leadership transition hub on the web.
Transitions in the top leadership of nonprofit organizations can be times of crisis or opportunity. Intergenerational and racial dynamics inevitably impact leadership turnovers.
As more Baby Boomers consider leaving long-term jobs and even organizations they founded, other long-term leaders will look for new ways to contribute while making space for new leadership.
Their resources provide information on how to facilitate just and equitable leadership transitions to better serve your organization and mission.
Leading with Intent: BoardSource Index of Nonprofit Board Practices
This study reflects the insight of BIPOC leaders navigating positions of power in social change organizations as they succeeded white predecessors. Through a partnership between Ericka Stallings of Leadership Learning Community, Bianca Anderson of ProInspire, and AiLun Ku of BIPOC Leaders Network and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, we spoke with BIPOC leaders from across the country, who shared a wide range of experiences related to their transitions, their strategies for navigating these transitions, and specific recommendations for how to make these transitions better.
Council of Nonprofits: Succession Planning for Nonprofits
Visit BMP's leadership transition hub on the web.
Transitions in the top leadership of nonprofit organizations can be times of crisis or opportunity. Intergenerational and racial dynamics inevitably impact leadership turnovers.
As more Baby Boomers consider leaving long-term jobs and even organizations they founded, other long-term leaders will look for new ways to contribute while making space for new leadership.
Their resources provide information on how to facilitate just and equitable leadership transitions to better serve your organization and mission.
Brilliant Transformation: Toward Full Flourishing in BIPOC Leadership Transitions
This study reflects the insight of BIPOC leaders navigating positions of power in social change organizations as they succeeded white predecessors. Through a partnership between Ericka Stallings of Leadership Learning Community, Bianca Anderson of ProInspire, and AiLun Ku of BIPOC Leaders Network and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, we spoke with BIPOC leaders from across the country, who shared a wide range of experiences related to their transitions, their strategies for navigating these transitions, and specific recommendations for how to make these transitions better.
Three Nonprofits Share Their Approaches to Co-Leadership
More and more nonprofits are diverging from the traditional “executive director” hierarchy and exploring co-leadership as an opportunity to share power and plan for their organizations’ futures.
The Five Phases of Leadership Transition
This tool, shared from RoadMap and Strategies for Social Change’s Leadership Transition Toolkit, maps out five primary stages in the leadership transition planning process. This tool helps organizations anticipating leadership transitions have a sense of what to expect through each part of the process.
Building Movement Project: Leadership Transitions
Visit BMP's leadership transition hub on the web.
Transitions in the top leadership of nonprofit organizations can be times of crisis or opportunity. Intergenerational and racial dynamics inevitably impact leadership turnovers.
As more Baby Boomers consider leaving long-term jobs and even organizations they founded, other long-term leaders will look for new ways to contribute while making space for new leadership.
Their resources provide information on how to facilitate just and equitable leadership transitions to better serve your organization and mission.
What Is An Equitable Leadership Transition?
While the field has been tracking the dearth of Black leadership at the top for quite some time now, we have not looked enough at how we do executive leadership transitions, which is overdetermined by what we call “best practice.”
NPQ’s Webinar Series on Executive Transitions
This is an archive of many webinars presented by Nonprofit Quarterly on this topic.
Transition Planning Checklist For Executive Directors
Are you and the organization ready for transition? Use the list below to assess the transition readiness of both the organization and yourself, plan and prioritize next steps.
Practices that Center BIPOC Leaders
Nonprofit staff leaders, boards, consultants, and funders continue to struggle with the question of how to design and execute executive transition processes that:
reflect equity and justice values
engage staff and community beyond the board of directors
attract and support incoming BIPOC leaders
allow for emergent interpretations of how executive leadership looks and acts
Watch the recording of this conversation that interrogates executive transition "best practice." Which practices might we keep and reimagine? Which can we let go of? What should we add to the transition model to center the needs and realities of incoming BIPOC leadership especially?
Love Notes to Our Social Justice Leaders
This workbook introduces key leadership concepts, reflective leadership questions, inspirational and thought-provoking quotes, as well as resources you can use to deepen your leadership practice.
Structuring Leadership
For the past ten years the Building Movement Project has addressed leadership in the nonprofit sector by focusing on generational shifts, multigenerational leadership and new ways of leading. In each of these areas, the question we are most often asked by younger generations is whether we can provide them with new models of how to run/lead organizations that do not concentrate authority and responsibility in one top person. We believe these models exist but they are either unrecognized or embedded within traditional looking hierarchies. We also believe that highlighting different leadership structures will offer organizations examples for effective ways to operate that can increase impact.
Search our collection of resources to support your work before, during, and after a leadership transition by:
Topic
Our guiding principles
Resource types: Website, Article, Report, Webinar, Podcast, Toolkit
If you’re not finding what you need, feel free to reach out to us for additional support.