Why Empowering Nonprofit Leadership is Vital for Impactful Change

Remarkable nonprofits often originate from a vision planted by a leader or founder?who saw an opportunity and a gap to fill through service. It takes tremendously caring people to want to serve people they don’t personally know. Nonprofit leaders must be celebrated for their willingness to tackle societal challenges that other sectors may shy away from.

However, this leader/founder also has a responsibility to shape the next generation of leaders, and it is your selection of these people as executive director of an organization that will make or break your initiative. Forming a co-founding or leadership team should be approached with meticulousness, as the wrong choice can seriously undermine what you've built along with your credibility. It's crucial to have team members whose values align with yours.

As an executive director/founder/leader, you don’t want compliant/non-assertive co-leaders; you want people who genuinely care and who will call you out when at fault, or who can share their own insights on critical organizational matters even if (but especially when) they differ from yours. An exceptional, fair, democratic leader has to have the openness to consider all perspectives, and not just rely on being liked or being the Executive to make the last call, while inadvertently dismissing team members. A top-down leadership approach is guaranteed to yield your organization: limited innovation, decreased morale, and lack of genuine and fruitful engagement.

All of this to say:

1) Choose your leadership team right; they are the building blocks of your organization and any action you choose to take in the future.

2) Fostering genuine engagement from your founding team in building together is essential. Without the opportunity to express their opinions, they will lack faith in the organization's mission and vision.