Resourcing Rest Supports Succession
By Bianca Anderson, CEO, ProInspire
Community-based nonprofit leaders are often expected to do more with less, frequently understaffed and underfunded. Many are led by people of color who are deeply connected and accountable to the people they serve, and who lead from passion and conviction. This combination can leave leaders feeling as though they must always be available and push through exhaustion, which too often leads to unplanned exits and decisions made in crisis rather than with clarity. This cycle is not a personal failure. It is a structural inequity. With space to breathe, rest and reflect, leaders visualize what is possible and set boundaries for the sustainability of their leadership and their organizations. Rest and reflection should be resourced as a precondition for a healthy leadership transition.
When funders don’t invest in rest, they contribute to outcomes that disproportionately harm leaders of color, particularly those leading grassroots movements and community-based organizations. And this has become a sector-wide challenge. The share of nonprofit CEOs who say their own burnout is very much a concern jumped to 46% in 2026, up from 29% a year before, according to the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s State of Nonprofits 2026 report. According to BoardSource research, only about 34% of nonprofit chief executives have a written succession plan.
At ProInspire, we've seen this play out in the Fellowship for Liberated Futures (FFLF), a community that treats rest and well-being as core leadership practices. This leadership experience strengthens the health and leadership of grassroots, community-based, and national climate and racial justice organizations, focusing on women and femme leaders who often have the least access to rest. Kresge Foundation helped seed this fellowship when it saw the high rates of burnout among women of color leading climate and environmental justice organizations.
Through partnership with Dr. Chera Reid, this program was imagined more expansively to include what women of color needed for their well-being. Through early design spaces, both in-person and virtual, ProInspire convened climate and environmental justice leaders to co-create the fellowship concept. Since then, ProInspire, Dr. Reid, and The Chisholm Legacy Project have co-hosted two cohorts, with funding from Kresge, the Freedom Together Foundation (formerly JPB), the McKnight Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. These funders saw this as an effort to support what Black women and femmes name as their needs, rather than deciding on their behalf.
Through this partnership, we've seen a consistent pattern: when leaders are given real space to rest, they lead differently with more awareness and clarity. That shift helps make succession planning a joint endeavor, rather than something a leader feels the need to carry alone in secrecy, guilt, or shame.
Funding rest moves organizations from urgency to clarity. One fellow entered FFLF constantly putting out fires, with little space to consider her own long-term goals. The fellowship gave her space to slow down and build relationships with peers who understood her pressures. This helped her recognize she wanted to champion change on a systemic scale. When a significant public leadership opportunity emerged, she pursued it. "I realized I could care deeply about the work without allowing my role to consume all of me," she shared in fellowship evaluations. "Making space for myself helped me think about where I wanted my leadership to go next." Her transition wasn't driven by exhaustion. It was a decision made from clarity, on her own timeline.
Funding rest helps organizations build shared leadership. As one fellow said, "Rest has helped me ask what I need in order to keep doing this work without losing myself in it." Leaders, who build a sustainable pace, give their organizations the runway to plan a transition thoughtfully. Another fellow learned to practice boundaries and encourage others to hold responsibility. "Everything does not have to be urgent just because I am the leader," she said. "I can step away and trust that everything does not have to rest on my shoulders." By building shared leadership now, she's already reducing the disruption of any future transition.
Together, these examples show how rest doesn't just prepare a leader to eventually leave. It changes how they lead while they stay, and helps ensure they can leave well when the time comes. Funders who invest in leadership transition are well positioned to shape whether a transition season begins with clarity or with crisis.
Why this is an equity issue
Underfunding or deprioritizing rest has a disproportionate impact on leaders from marginalized communities who often lead grassroots or community-based organizations with less access to flexible, multi-year funding. The same funders who say they are committed to supporting grassroots and community-based organizations often create the conditions preventing these leaders from staying in the sector.
When rest is framed as an individual responsibility, the burden of preventing burnout-driven exit is placed on the leader, as a matter of willpower or time management. In reality, funding decisions determine whether their organization can even afford the spaciousness to move slower and prevent burnout.
Funding rest and well-being is a social impact strategy. It deepens leaders' awareness of personal, organizational, and community needs, and it redistributes decision-making across a team rather than concentrating it in one person. When funders don't resource rest, they are deepening organizational fragility. Funding rest supports longer runways, which means succession planning can be more thoughtful and transitions can be more intentional, transparent, and shared.
What Funders Can Do
Provide general operating support for rest as infrastructure, not as a one-time investment tied to an announced transition.
Fund additional staff, contractors, or software to redistribute the workload, which also builds collaborative leadership and transition readiness.
Fund protected time away, such as sabbaticals, extended leave, and fellowship participation.
Ask about leadership and succession plans in every regular check-in, not only when an organization is at risk, so a leader can name what's working, not just what's wrong.
Succession planning and leadership transitions are expressions of grounded, healthy leadership. When funders prioritize rest, they help ensure mission-driven impact, organizational sustainability, and continuity.
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Bio:
Bianca Anderson is CEO of ProInspire, a national nonprofit that helps leaders and organizations in the social sector build cultures where people, especially leaders of color, can thrive. She joined ProInspire in 2020, was Co-CEO from 2021 to 2024, and has served as CEO since 2025. Her work starts from a belief that how leaders develop as people shapes how their teams work and how their organizations create lasting impact.
