Capacity Is Tested in Transition: Interim Leadership as Nonprofit Infrastructure
Author: Nancy Bacon
Publisher: Nonprofit Quarterly
Resource Type: Article
Principle: Leadership Transitions are Healthy and Necessary to Build Resilience; Embrace Experimentation and Innovation during Transitions
Drawing on the 2025 Interim Leadership in the Nonprofit Sector report by Third Sector Company — informed by more than 100 practitioners across the United States and Canada — Nancy Bacon makes the case that interim leadership is not a stopgap measure but a core component of nonprofit infrastructure. The article argues that as nonprofit instability intensifies, the interim leadership field is organizing around shared standards, methods, and principles that guide organizations through leadership change, and that transition is not neutral — it either weakens an organization or strengthens it. Bacon outlines an emerging common framework — assessment, stabilization, preparation, and handoff — and calls for the sector to build shared evidence about what works, including studying the relationship between interim leadership and successor success as a measure of long-term organizational health.
Funders can use this resource to:
Understand interim leadership as a strategic investment in organizational continuity and resilience — not simply a placeholder between permanent executives.
Learn about the emerging professional standards and common frameworks guiding effective interim leadership practice, and use that knowledge to better evaluate and resource interim leadership support for grantees.
Make the case for funding interim leadership as part of a broader, proactive approach to transition support that strengthens — rather than merely sustains — organizations during periods of leadership change.
