Burned out from years of number-crunching as a corporate accountant, Gina Rieves went looking for a change. She soon landed an executive role with a nonprofit - and quickly found that making the most of the job called for sharpening her leadership skills. That's when she encountered a startling truth: Leadership training is a luxury for many of the nonprofits that need it most.
"In the corporate world, you take things like training for granted," says Rieves, chief financial officer for Pace of the Triad, which provides alternatives for older adults in the Piedmont who do not want to live in nursing homes. "That is not the case in the not-for-profit world."
Indeed, an absence of leadership development is a growing threat to the long-term viability of nonprofits in North Carolina and beyond.
A national study of executive leadership in nonprofits issued this year by CompassPoint Nonprofit Services and the Meyer Foundation reached some troubling conclusions. Even with the recession squeezing the job market, 67 percent of nonprofit executives still expect to leave their jobs within five years. Making matters worse, their organizations are not well-prepared to replace them. According to the study, only 17 percent of nonprofits have documented succession plans. Just 33 percent of executives felt very confident that their boards will hire the right successors when they depart.
The new study confirms the findings of a 2009 report by The Bridgespan Group, which highlighted a large, growing leadership deficit in the nonprofit world. That report posed a critical question: "What avenues are available for nonprofits seeking to develop new leaders from within?"
For Rieves, an answer came several weeks ago with a scholarship to a training program held exclusively for nonprofits by the Center for Creative Leadership (an organization with which both of us are affiliated). There, Rieves honed her influencing and communication skills, which are crucial for aligning the clinical and administrative sides of her nonprofit.
"Those two sides don't always necessarily coincide," Rieves says, as Pace's mission of providing the best possible care continually exists in tension with the resources needed to pay for it. Effective leadership, she says, is crucial for bridging that gap when funding sources are increasingly scarce and the pressure to demonstrate impact is growing.
"Things are getting more complicated out there," says Mary Tschirhart, director of the Institute for Nonprofits at N.C. State. "We need a higher level skill set than we used to for nonprofit leaders."
In response, more options are emerging throughout the state for nonprofits trying to build capacity and for professionals, from all backgrounds and at all levels of their careers, who want to help fill the sector's leadership gap.
N.C. State, for example, offers an undergraduate minor in nonprofit studies. It emphasizes key themes in the field, including earning the public trust and driving systemic change. These lessons are reinforced through intensive internships and service projects further preparing students for leadership roles. At the same time, as many nonprofits shift toward external training partners instead of trying to run their own development programs for staff, the Institute for Nonprofits is finding ways to support existing professionals in the field. For instance, it has joined with Habitat for Humanity International on an annual program that helps Habitat affiliates throughout the United States, including several in North Carolina, build stronger talent pipelines.
The Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation in Winston-Salem recently launched an innovative initiative to create a more diverse pool of young nonprofit professionals in the state. Twenty North Carolina college students from disadvantaged backgrounds received stipends of $1,600 to work in summer internships with nonprofits that are grantees of the foundation. "The universality of unpaid internships in the nonprofit sector creates a barrier for low-income students, who are disproportionately students of color," the foundation noted. "Because of the inequitable access to internships, these students are less able to explore potential careers in the nonprofit sector."
Meanwhile, an array of educational opportunities exists for current nonprofit professionals or those, like Rieves, who want to transition into the field from other careers. Duke University, UNC Greensboro and UNC Charlotte are among the institutions that offer certificates in nonprofit management. Several universities also offer the opportunity to concentrate in nonprofit studies while earning a master's degree in public administration.
But even as these training and educational opportunities grow in number and quality, a serious obstacle remains: the need to better integrate these valiant but widely dispersed efforts to develop a robust and professional leadership pipeline for the state's nonprofit sector. It's work that will require intentional investment and slow, steady coalition building, and it won't make many headlines. But it's crucial for the sector's overall sustainability, and its impact could be felt for generations.
Christopher Gergen is founding executive director of Bull City Forward, on the faculty of the Hart Leadership Program at Duke University, and co-author of Life Entrepreneurs. Stephen Martin, a former business and education journalist, is a speechwriter at the nonprofit Center for Creative Leadership.
