The Cricket island Foundation’s new report, Supporting Nonprofit Leadership Transitions: A Foundation's Journey, examines how funders can best support nonprofits before, during, and after leadership transitions—offering suggestions for how philanthropy can support the people, planning, and processes involved in all aspects of transitions.

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

The Takeaway: Funders will explore importance of continuous leadership support and development, rather than viewing it as a one-off, transactional effort.

This briefing offers foundations a strategic approach to investing in nonprofit leadership development. Foundation leaders will find this resource insightful for developing long-term strategies that align leadership development with broader philanthropic goals.

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.

Take away: Why you should loosen grant restrictions to end the nonprofit starvation cycle.

In this essay, part of the Leap of Reason Ambassadors Community's, authors Jeri Eckhart Queenan and Jeff Bradach depict the pervasive pattern of ingrained funding practices that undercut nonprofit financial health and effectiveness.

In this essay, part of the Leap of Reason Ambassadors Community's, authors Jeri Eckhart Queenan and Jeff Bradach depict the pervasive pattern of ingrained funding practices that undercut nonprofit financial health and effectiveness. Their hope is that recent funder pledges to loosen grant restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic mark a turning point in the long-running conundrum of how to end the nonprofit “starvation cycle”.

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.

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.

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.

In this essay, part of the Leap of Reason Ambassadors Community's, authors Jeri Eckhart Queenan and Jeff Bradach depict the pervasive pattern of ingrained funding practices that undercut nonprofit financial health and effectiveness. Their hope is that recent funder pledges to loosen grant restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic mark a turning point in the long-running conundrum of how to end the nonprofit “starvation cycle”.

In this essay, part of the Leap of Reason Ambassadors Community's, authors Jeri Eckhart Queenan and Jeff Bradach depict the pervasive pattern of ingrained funding practices that undercut nonprofit financial health and effectiveness. Their hope is that recent funder pledges to loosen grant restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic mark a turning point in the long-running conundrum of how to end the nonprofit “starvation cycle”.

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.

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.

In this essay, part of the Leap of Reason Ambassadors Community's, authors Jeri Eckhart Queenan and Jeff Bradach depict the pervasive pattern of ingrained funding practices that undercut nonprofit financial health and effectiveness. Their hope is that recent funder pledges to loosen grant restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic mark a turning point in the long-running conundrum of how to end the nonprofit “starvation cycle”.

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.

Over the years, staff at Community Wealth Partners, they've spoken and worked with hundreds of Black, Indigenous, and other BIPOC nonprofit leaders. They’ve consistently heard that current capacity-building approaches often miss the mark—or worse, contribute to inequities in the sector.

While capacity building is a critical part of our work, traditional models of capacity building tend not to account for culture, systems and power in their design, too often “rendering them inadequate for communities of color.” The limitations of models that do not consider dynamics of power and issues of equity have never been more apparent than they are now.

As anticipated leadership transitions continue to accelerate in the nonprofit sector, groups are looking internally at who leads and how to make leadership more equitable, effective, and impactful. Rather than replace a single executive director or CEO with another, boards are looking at alternative leadership structures: hiring co-directors, implementing leadership teams, and experimenting with new ways staff members can perform leadership functions. These nontraditional structures can be both rewarding and challenging for funders to support, both during the transition and moving forward.

Notions of leadership are evolving, particularly as the nonprofit and philanthropic sector considers what it takes for individuals, organizations, and communities to drive systemic change in pursuit of racial equity and more effective outcomes for all. Leadership is not static, and it doesn’t sit with one person. Instead, leadership is about building collective power to influence and change organizations and systems to operate in just and liberating ways that enable all individuals to thrive.

Building Movement Project (BMP) presents Move The Money: Practices and Values for Funding Social Movements, a set of resources geared towards grantmaking institutions eager to expand and deepen their support of organizations, networks, and leaders involved with social change movements. Move The Money consists of four videos and accompanying discussion guides with reflection questions that highlight the perspectives and experiences of movement leaders and funders, and builds on the wave of ongoing efforts that encourage the philanthropic sector to invest in movements.