This report offers funders an up-to-date, data-driven snapshot of nonprofit health: what’s working, where capacity is most stressed, and how external pressures are reshaping nonprofit operations.

This report from Schusterman Family Philanthropies captures key lessons from leadership transitions in the gender equity field. It highlights how funders can strengthen nonprofits by showing up (even early on) with trust, resources, and long-term partnership during times of change.

This podcast episode features leaders from the Open Society Foundations sharing why investing in new executive directors is essential to strengthening the nonprofit workforce. It explores how funders can shift their practices to better support leadership transitions and long-term sustainability.

This blog post, featured on the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project website, urges funders to reexamine their approach to nonprofit leadership transitions. It advocates for viewing these transitions as opportunities for renewal rather than risks, emphasizing the importance of trust and proactive support for incoming leaders.

Discover valuable insights from two decades of the Durfee Foundation’s sabbatical programs, emphasizing how structured rest can empower leadership, enhance organizational resilience, and facilitate long-term systems change—essential strategies for impactful funding decisions.

This Open Society Foundations report offers powerful, first-hand reflections from nonprofit leaders navigating leadership transitions, highlighting the emotional, strategic, and organizational realities of stepping into executive roles. It outlines how funders can better support leaders through these high-stakes moments of change.

This podcast episode features leaders from the Open Society Foundations sharing why investing in new executive directors is essential to strengthening the nonprofit workforce. It explores how funders can shift their practices to better support leadership transitions and long-term sustainability.

This Nonprofit Sustainability Initiative report highlights how funders can strengthen the nonprofit sector by proactively investing in leadership transitions. It showcases the impact of the Executive Transitions Fund in helping organizations not only survive change but grow through it.

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.

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.

Effective organizations make their purpose clear. Externally, there is a vision statement, a stated mission, and a set of guiding principles. Internally, an organization may be working on how they model equity and uphold the values of ethical fundraising, storytelling, and programming. Change has never happened overnight (especially in our sector), but if there ever was a time to look at internal and external practices, it is now.

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.

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”.

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.