Over the last several years, the nonprofit sector has turned to leadership development as an important strategy for increasing the sustainability and the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations. However, according to William Ryan, senior fellow at Harvard University’s Hauser Center for Nonprofits, most leadership programs in the sector are limited in their focus. They set out either to build an organization’s capacity, without regard to leadership, or to invest in individual leaders, without regard to the specifics of the organizational challenges they face. The Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund is adopting a different model by helping grantees develop their leadership in an organizational context.

"The goal of the Fund’s work," according to Linda Wood, Senior Program Officer for Nonprofit Leadership and Governance at the Fund, "is to explore how leadership development — when undertaken at the board, executive director and senior team level — can further the missions and strategies of nonprofit organizations." To this end, the Haas, Jr. Fund has launched the Flexible Leadership Award pilot program, engaging fifteen well established local and national nonprofits whose work is crucial to the Fund’s program areas.

The Fund’s approach involves working with each organization’s leadership team (executive directors, senior staff and board members) to create a customized leadership program tailored to the organization’s unique challenges and strengths. “The intent of the program,” said Wood, “is to honor the complexity of leaders’ roles and the differences among their fields and organizations.” The award program begins with a leadership assessment and the development of a first-year plan, drawing from a menu of opportunities, from board development to leadership institutes, to executive coaching to senior team development. In addition to receiving ongoing general support from the Fund, each organization receives up to $100,000 per year over three years to implement its leadership plans.

The Flexible Leadership Award is intended to allow outstanding leaders to step back and think expansively about what their organization is uniquely capable of doing, what they aim to accomplish three years out, and the leadership challenges they must meet to get there. Consultants help them identify and deploy the appropriate resources to address leadership gaps, building a plan for their leadership grant award. “We want to make the kinds of investments the for-profit sector makes in its leader, while being responsive to the day-to-day reality of leading nonprofits today,” said Wood. “The three-year timeframe allows organizations to take the time to engage their boards, make decisions about strategic priorities, and address the gaps in staff and board leadership – and then phase the work over time. You can’t wrap this kind of leadership development into a 12-month grant cycle.”

The Fund looks forward to reporting progress about what we are learning with our grantees about what it takes to cultivate nonprofit leadership.

For more information, contact Linda Wood, Senior Program Officer for Nonprofit Leadership and Governance.