Four Practices To Support Grantees During Leadership Transitions
By: Jessica Williams-Szenes , Director of the Gender and Reproductive Equity , Schusterman Family Philanthropies
“We want to know what grantees need to thrive—and how we can be proactive.”
- Julia Kohn, Senior Program Officer
Leadership transitions in the reproductive equity field are happening more frequently as their organizations face constant threat and leaders grapple with burnout and isolation. Incoming leaders – particularly women of color – face additional barriers stepping into their roles and need intentional and sustained support from funders, particularly in this political moment. Our recent report, “Funding Through Change”, documents these leaders’ experiences with executive transitions and explores how funders can best partner with grantees in transition. The report found that leadership transitions are a signal of organizational health and growth, but are also multi-year projects that require sustained investment. When outgoing and new leaders are able to leverage transitions to take a fresh look at organizational structures and strategies, they are able to strengthen their impact, advocacy and programs.
In this article, Schusterman’s Gender and Reproductive Equity team members share some of the specific practices they use to support partners before, during, and after executive leadership transitions – echoing some of the strategies also shared in Leading Forward’s Action Guide for Funders.
“It is our priority to create relationships with grantees that foster candor and establish that we’re on their team,” Senior Director Brook Kelly Green explained. “Ideally, we are their advocates, within our organization and with other funders, and see that as our responsibility through leadership transitions, as well.” Here are four key practices that we find necessary to build mutual knowledge and trust between funders and grantees.
Expanding Relationships Beyond Leadership
Leadership transitions can challenge funder-grantee relationships, as executive directors (EDs) often hold the primary relationship with funders and are uniquely positioned to share the organization’s vision and impact. When an ED departs, that relationship between the organization and funders can become fragile or ambiguous.
To mitigate this challenge, we build relationships beyond the ED and development staff throughout our grant partnership. “A standard practice for me is to ask grantees to bring policy or program staff to meetings,” shared Senior Program Officer Krithika Harish. This approach helps us understand the organization more deeply while also supporting our grantee partners to develop an effective bench of internal leaders who can engage confidently with funders.
Opening Lines of Communication
We are intentional about creating and maintaining open lines of communication with grantees. Program Officer Eesha Bhave proactively asks grantees whether there are any upcoming staffing changes that would be helpful for her to know about, adding: “I ask this in a spirit of being your advocate.” Raising this topic before any changes take place “can take the anxiety out of the conversation and open the door for grantees to share any important information.”
Once a transition is underway, we build relationships and signal continuity by having our senior director and program officers attend meetings with both outgoing and incoming leaders to contextualize the transition process and gain multiple perspectives. To encourage grantees to share key information in a timely way, Eesha asks EDs to “please consider me a thought partner and keep me in the loop in real time as much as possible.”
Asking the Right Questions – Ahead of Time
Trust-based relationships thrive with honest dialogue. We ask grantees about organizational structure, capacity, and needs — outside of the context of transition or crisis. These conversations normalize changes, making it easier for organizations to surface challenges before they become crises.
“We want to know what grantees need to thrive—and how we can be supportive proactively,” said Julia. In addition to grantmaking, we offer ongoing opportunities for grantees to opt into organizational strengthening and resilience programs. This commitment to grantees’ operational and capacity-building work demonstrates our dedication to the organization’s development, ultimately creating space for grantees to share their needs.
We believe it is incumbent upon funders to ask ourselves how we might foster deeper, more trusting relationships with grantees so that they feel comfortable bringing us into consequential organizational decisions and trusted to make the right choices. Asking the right questions ahead of time can help create this kind of relationship.
Resourcing Leadership Transitions
Leadership change is not a failure — it’s an expected part of an organization’s life. “Transitions happen. Let’s talk about it,” said Krithika. Julia agreed: “We do not punish change.” Perhaps more than other organizational phases, transitions can be costly and require careful resourcing. We have recently started offering some additional funding during leadership transitions. Additional funding is key during transition years to ensure leaders, staff, and board can access critical resources, such as executive coaching, a values-aligned search firm, consultants to hold a supportive role for staff, and more.
While leadership transitions are normal, their exact contours and possibilities for transformation can look very different. Regardless of form, it’s important to remember that organizational processes like leadership transitions rarely go exactly to plan. But by utilizing the strategies here, we can establish reliable, trust-based relationships with grantees that help us support and champion their important work and sustain broader movements.
