SHAREToday’s nonprofit leaders face unprecedented challenges as they strive to meet the needs of their communities and constituents. At the Haas, Jr. Fund, we hear from nonprofit leaders that they are called on to:
- Play multiple roles well – including organization builder, change maker, spokesperson, fundraiser, issue expert, brand maker, networker, supervisor, talent scout;
- Identify core strategies (and make cuts) while remaining nimble and meeting daunting fundraising goals;
- Manage constrained resources on the one hand, while seizing extraordinary opportunities on the other;
- Become more externally focused – for example, by spending a large amount of time on fundraising or collaborating with others on advocacy goals;
- Build and manage a senior team where one might not have existed before so the executive can delegate key operational responsibilities to others;
- Work in increasingly diverse communities, and across differences of geography, class, race, ethnicity, religion, political persuasion, and issue preference;
- Integrate social media into the organization’s work, not just as a new strategy, but as a fundamentally different way of operating;
- Stay steady in the face of conflict and ambiguity, motivate and lead the board, create alignment across the staff, create new partnerships, make tough decisions … and, through it all, maintain energy and balance.
This is a tall order for even the most talented leaders.
A Response
Over the past five years, the Haas, Jr. Fund has been working alongside many others – including nonprofit leaders, consultants, researchers and funders – to understand what makes leadership development effective. The following are some of the core principles that we have developed and refined (and continue to refine) in the course of this work:
- Organizations should first identify the impact or social change goals they seek to achieve and, from there, determine what they will be demanding of their leadership.
- Effective leadership development must include long-term and flexible approaches that honor differences in the tenure and experience of nonprofit leaders, the complexity, size and “life cycle” stage of their organizations, and the movements of which they are a part.
- Nonprofit leaders must be allowed to identify the type and timing of the leadership investments that will help them most.
- This is not just about developing executive directors, but also senior staff, teams and board leaders. It’s about including leadership development strategies that address the needs, roles and interrelationships of all leaders.
- Grantmakers should invest in leaders in a manner that combines rigor, respect and appreciation.
We are hopeful that the leadership support we provide allows leaders to step back from their daily demands to rethink, recharge and reinvent. We believe leaders should have opportunities to explore expansively their personal and organizational visions and values, understand the larger contexts in which they work, and expose themselves to new ideas and ways of working.
