Nearly three out of four nonprofit leaders plan to step down within the next decade. Yet seven out of ten organizations have no written succession plan.
When you ask executive directors why, the answer is rarely indifference. It is exhaustion. Between managing payroll, grant cycles, and board meetings, planning your departure feels like an impossible luxury. Yet essential institutional knowledge stays locked in your head: key donor histories, unwritten operating habits, and critical community relationships.
Jim Morgan, on the problem you can already hear coming:
“Don’t be like the person who gets in the car and hopes that odd engine noise will just go away. It won’t.”
A succession plan is stewardship. It protects the mission from a disruption that nobody had scheduled.
Questions to consider:
If you had to take an unexpected thirty-day leave tomorrow, which three operational decisions could completely stall your team?
Does your board chair know where your key funder relationship notes and major vendor agreements live?
Next step:
If this describes an organization you care about, forward it. The free Applied Wisdom booklet is there if you want more. It’s free, and it always will be.