Last month, a board member from a Lawyer’s Association contacted me because their president was set to retire. They hadn’t managed a transition like this before and weren’t sure how to find a new president. She asked if I could share any advice to assist her association with the process.
Over the years, I’ve talked with many board members about how they plan for succession and put all the advice I’ve gathered into one big list. I shared it with the Lawyer’s Association, which used it to find an excellent candidate in a place they hadn’t considered (their own members). They also used the tips to develop a strong transition plan. Now they feel ready for their current president to retire and the new one to step in.
I thought it would be a good idea to publish the tips I’ve learned for anyone else looking to improve their board’s succession planning process. Here they are:
50 Practical Tips For Nonprofit Succession Planning
- To help the new leader, compile a list of all personal/professional connections that the board has and what information/projects they’re experts in. This will help the new leader know who to contact when executing projects.
- Bring the new leader in for a training day with the current leader a month prior to the transition.
- Have a new leader start early so there’s an overlap between roles.
- Create a volunteer position specifically to help with succession planning.
- Have an “emergency” contact that a new leader can call any time with any question (some boards call theirs, “Succession Planning 911”).
- Conduct an exit interview with the previous leader. Often this can be an emotional experience, but you will learn information about the role and processes that you might not find out otherwise.
- Assign each task in your succession plan an estimated amount of time needed, so you know when to begin and how far through you are.
- Nominate a temporary head of the board between succession.
- Have the current leader rewrite their own job description based on their experience of the work involved. If you need some help writing out a job description, follow the guidelines offered in this guide on how to recruit a board.
- Give your new leader some room to fail in the first six months, suggests the Peel Leadership Centre.
- Transitioning into a new leadership position, culture, staff team, and organization is not easy. Do not expect the new leader to get everything right from the start.
- Define the culture of your organization so everyone is clear on what a good candidate will possess.
- Introduce a new leader by going on a team retreat to make them more comfortable with the transition and to build excitement within the team.
- Seek the help of a consultant or adviser.
- Call the board of a similar organization and ask if they have any tips or strategies.
- List out all the current challenges of the board and the leadership qualities needed to overcome them.
- Keep the old leader on call as an adviser.
- Read succession planning case studies.
- Consult this Nonprofit Executive Succession Planning Toolkit.
- Use this free Organization Chart Builder to formalize your board and give the new leader a reference guide to who does what.
- Use this template to craft an Emergency Succession Plan.
- Archive the current leader’s email account and make it available for the next leader.
- Have the new leader, re-establish relationships with all the past leader’s connections by calling/emailing them to introduce yourself. Better yet, have the past leader reach out and introduce the new leader him/herself.
- If you need help finding a new leader for your nonprofit (or other organization), utilize the reach of your board and members by asking them to post on social media that you’re searching for a candidate.
- Send an email to all connections and members explaining the transition and introducing the new leader.
- Always have an idea of a potential candidate who can step up to the board in case of emergency.
- Give performance feedback and appraisals to current team members to determine who might be a good leadership fit among them.
- Give the new leader a trial period in which they have to prove their decision making skills before you fully hire them.
Store all succession planning documents in a shareable folder, such as Google Drive, so anyone can easily gain access. - Have the board conduct an interview with the new candidates as a group to see how they function in a team environment.
- Audit the leadership role by creating a tally of every single task the last past leader was doing. Often a leader will take on more responsibility than they can handle. Divert some of this work to your board or volunteers so the new leader can focus on the vision and direction of the organization instead of the administrative work.
- Ensure the organization has a very clear vision, so business objectives don’t drastically sway from one leader to the next.
- Have a speech prepared in the event of a sudden emergency to communicate with members/the public.
- When interviewing candidates, focus on the soft skills and personality fit with the board rather than the hard skills. Hard skills can be learned, while soft skills will help them succeed in your organization.
- Encourage risk taking, experimentation, education, and training to help cultivate leaders from within your current team.
- When searching for a new leader, post a job description on LinkedIn/Indeed/Monster/Workopolis, or one of many other job boards.
- Be patient. Rushing into hiring a new leader can backfire in the long run.
- Evaluate the age of your board. Many Baby Boomers are retiring, so preemptively looking for leadership roles can save a lot of time if multiple positions retire at once.
- Develop a culture of shared information among the board so information doesn’t leave with the last leader.
- If you’re not attracting the right candidates, consider offering a higher compensation package. A more successful leader may be worth the extra expense.
- Have an exit strategy if things go awry with a new leader.
- Create a handbook of all your nonprofit’s knowledge that is easily accessible to anyone in the organization, so information doesn’t get lost from one role to the next.
- Facilitate a mentorship program between your executive director, board, volunteers, and members. This can help nurture members into board members and board members into leaders.
- Have board members, employees and volunteers conduct 360-evaluations to keep ongoing communication between leadership and staff.
- Assess which individuals will make the organization most vulnerable if they leave and develop contingency plans specifically around them.
- In your contingency plan, budget for extra time and expenses should something happen.
- Create a document of FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions ahead of time to give out to members during a succession.
- Approach other similar organizations to yours in other cities and States when searching for a candidate.
- Be transparent about your succession planning. Secrets can create politics within your board and members.
- Evaluate your organization’s values and business goals. In the case of a dispute among board members, you can always refer back to your organization’s purpose to guide the correct decision.
- As a caution, ensure you know what to do if a legal situation arises.
I hope you find this list helpful when creating the succession planning process for your board.
This post originally appeared on the Wild Apricot blog.