When a Grantee Board Member Calls for Advice
Tips on being helpful without being intrusive:
- Pull together and share resources on the latest executive transition and leadership succession theory and practice, and the services available
- Provide contact information for other nonprofits that have undergone successful executive transitions
- Assist the board chair in seeking appropriate legal help if the CEO is leaving under circumstances that could pose legal problems
- Assist the board chair in locating human resources assistance if the board needs advice on different exit strategies or severance options for the outgoing CEO
- Help the board chair avoid the temptation to make a hasty new hire; explain that organizations sometimes hire interim leaders
- State your commitment to continue to provide support, if that is your foundation's policy
- Explain how to apply for transition-related funding, if your foundation provides that assistance
- Advise an examination of the financial situation, particularly cashflow, as well as financial systems and personnel
- Encourage strategic thinking about an external communications plan, covering what needs to be said about the transition, to whom, and by whom
Takeaways are critical, bite-sized resources either excerpted from our guides or written by Candid Learning for Funders using the guide's research data or themes post-publication. Attribution is given if the takeaway is a quotation.
This takeaway was derived from Executive Transitions.
