Why I wrote my book

I’m regularly asked why I decided to write my soon-to-be published book on nonprofit leadership. And I answer in two parts: ?why I chose to write a book, and why on this particular topic?

So here’s where it started. Until recently the only book I’d occasionally thought about writing was a (very niche) book on swimming pools around the world and what they told us about the cities they were in and the groups that used them. I’m a keen swimmer and seek out pools in cities I live in or travel to – and I thought there were some engaging stories to tell about their context and communities. So, the scenic Boy Charlton pool in Sydney, perched on the edge of the bay with glorious harbour vistas; the picturesque art-deco pool I used in Brussels surrounded by wrought iron pillars and colourful changing cabinets; the front yard pool in a 70s villa in Kabul that a group of expats filled from a water tanker truck for their parties; the hotel pool on the Europe side of Istanbul looking over the Bosphorus to the Asian shore;? swimming in the open air ponds on London’s Hampstead Heath in near zero temps, the Copacabana Hotel pool in Rio… And so on.

?But, of course, much as it was a pleasant diversion to dream about writing and photographing such a book, I quickly realised that it’s all too easy to have interesting (to me) ideas, and an order of magnitude different to actually write and publish something, let alone something of interest to a broader audience - and particularly when one has a full-time job and family.

So, I was deeply impressed when my dear friend Ellen Agler , CEO of the The END Fund , a hugely impactful organisation working to end neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), decided to write a book about the NTD movement. And she not only wrote it but then used it as an effective tool to promote the cause.

?That got me seriously thinking for the first time about writing a more practical book of my own. But the logistics were still pretty overwhelming. Then my organisation’s board encouraged me, after 8 years in the job, to take a sabbatical one summer. And that suddenly changed the logistics dynamics.

I had the time and the motivation, so the issue now became - what to write. The obvious topic was the modern anti-slavery movement, given I had set up one of the world’s leading anti-slavery organisations. But I thought that many others in the field were much knowledgeable and better equipped to write about the movement than me. And there was no shortage of commentary on the topic.

?As I cast around for ideas, I kept coming back to the challenges (and joys) I had experienced in setting up the Freedom Fund. I also thought a lot about nonprofit leadership more broadly, and how it differs in key respects from business leadership. It’s a topic I care about, and something about which there is a surprising dearth of good, practitioner-focussed books. So not only did I have something I was passionate about, but I also had a potential gap to fill – providing of course that I executed well. And also a way of telling some of the story about the Freedom Fund and our mission, along as well as highlighting to work of many other outstanding nonprofits and their leaders.

?I went ahead and prepared a proposal for a book on nonprofit leadership, fleshing out my ideas, and then reached out to some publishers. I quickly got an offer from Columbia Business School Publishing – which gave me no end of confidence. I ended up receiving offers from three more publishers, from which I chose my current publisher, Matt Holt Books, largely based on its reputation of working closely and supportively with its authors. All I then had to do was write the book. I did the bulk of writing the first draft during my sabbatical in the summer of 2022, and then spent the next 18 months finishing the draft, revising it extensively and getting it ready for publication.

?So, there you go – that’s the origin story of this book.

?The final product will be published on 16 July. You can find out more about the book on my website at www.leadnonprofits.org – and please consider pre-ordering if the topic appeals to you – links on the website.