#98 | Interims and Succession Planning for Leadership Roles
All organizations will experience a time when an ED, CEO, fundraising director, or another higher level role, makes plans to leave. Sometimes you have notice—a year, if you’re really lucky—and sometimes, you don’t. This can feel like a time that is hectic and scary, but if you have plans in place, it can, in fact, run smoothly.
In today’s episode, we’re talking about how to handle interim roles, what to do and what not to do, as well as what the real purpose of an interim. We’re also talking about the importance of having a succession plan in place, even if the CEO isn’t planning on leaving any time soon.
Shit happens, and you want your organization and your board members to be prepared so the interim transition does not cause chaos. We’ll share some actionable takeaways that you can implement to make sure you’re on top of things as well as spill some horror stories we’ve experienced.
What’s in this episode:
[04:29] How hiring an internal interim CEO can be to your detriment if you’re actively looking outside the organization, and how hiring an actual interim CEO before hiring someone long-term is beneficial
[09:44] How an interim’s main purpose is to do “clean up” work (not lead a strategic planning process, for example) after a long-term ED and before bringing in someone new
[14:58] What to address up front (and what to avoid) if you have a board member step into an interim position
[20:28] Why a succession plan is so important to have in place for decision-making and managing power dynamics
[26:00] The struggles in development and fundraising that have organizations relying more on interims, and the silver lining of being able to shake things up with someone new
[34:07] Actionable takeaways that will ensure that staff interim periods run as smoothly as possible
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Resources Mentioned
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A big thanks to our sponsors for this episode on year-end giving: Brittny Wilson Consulting and Mission Launch, and to Jake Walker Music for our theme song!
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Transcript:
[00:00:05] Brittny I’m Brittny Wilson.
[00:00:06] Nia I’m Nia Wassink. And you’re listening to the nonprofit Reframe, because we know that nonprofits and their staff.
[00:00:13] Brittny Are undervalued, under-resourced and unrelenting. Welcome back to the nonprofit Reframe.
[00:00:23] Nia Happy Monday, folks. We are actually coming to you on Tuesday, November eight. It is Election Day in America. As of this recording, we do not know how far democracy has fallen, but we are trying to stay hopeful.
[00:00:39] Brittny Yes, we are. I feel like there’s a lot of hype around these midterm elections.
[00:00:44] Brittny Yeah. Yeah, right. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m at a point in my life where I’m more aware of what’s going on or what, but I just don’t remember midterms being as electric. Maybe they were.
[00:00:58] Nia Well, I don’t know that we’ve had some of the threats to the country like we’ve had in the last couple of years. So it makes sense. Fair. I mean, I was definitely hounding my siblings this morning. My brother in Denver, I sent him all of his Dropbox locations after yesterday. I sent him his specific voter guide for his ballot to follow. Oh, like I went, good, sister. I know I am, like, the best, really. But if you’re my sibling and listening to this and you did not vote, coal for Christmas. Absolute coal.
[00:01:30] Brittny Truth is, she already has your Christmas gift.
[00:01:32] Nia I do.
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[00:01:54] Brittny We just finished. So just a reminder that our Patreon subscribers get a special episode on the weeks in between these where they hear updates about what’s going on with us. And we just finished one. So if you want to hear what we just talked about, you got to go to Patreon.
[00:02:15] Nia Awesome. And today, the main entree: interims and succession planning.
[00:02:22] Nia You’re already laughing.
[00:02:26] Brittny So exciting. So again, when we started talking about relaunching this podcast and we started up the same old habit that we had before of like, Hey, this would be a great podcast episode. Hey, this would be a great one. And this one definitely rose to the top.
[00:02:44] Nia Oh, my gosh. Interims are appear to be at an all time high right now.
[00:02:50] Brittny I was just gonna say there are plenty for sure.
[00:02:52] Nia Plentiful, plentiful positions, not necessarily plentiful people to fill those positions. They’re pulling people out of retirement. They’re doing all kinds of things because so many organizations are trying to hire interim roles. And primarily we’re talking like director and above C-suite type roles. I’ve seen interim CFO, lots of interim CEO, ED, lot of interim development directors. So the big roles with a lot of responsibility, which people are having such a hard time hiring for.
[00:03:22] Brittny Absolutely. Yeah. I was going to say, I mean, I think for some of them, they’re strategically choosing to hire an interim first. So whether it’s they maybe had a leader in for a long time who left. And so they want to have a little bit of time to reassess what the actual needs of the organization are. So they bring in an interim to kind of see, okay, what do we actually need to be looking for in our next full time permanent leader? But then sometimes it’s because they have no other choice, so they can’t find a permanent full time person for the position. I know particularly with fundraisers in the last year has been so difficult.
[00:04:07] Nia Mm hmm.
[00:04:08] Brittny Multiple clients of mine doing multiple searches. Right. They go through the whole search and they just can’t find the right person. So they go through it again. And then ultimately, hey, let’s just get an interim in place while we’re going through this so we don’t lose forward momentum in fundraising.
[00:04:29] Nia Yeah, totally. Well, let’s start and go back to our own working careers. Before, we were both elite consultants. Have you ever worked for an organization that had an interim and some kind of role.
[00:04:43] Brittny Before being a consultant?
[00:04:45] Nia Yeah. Where you were on staff.
[00:04:47] Brittny Yes. Ish.
[00:04:48] Nia Yes. Ish. Expand.
[00:04:51] Brittny Well, I was definitely I worked for an organization who brought in an interim while they were going to do a full search for a CEO and then ended up just hiring that interim.
[00:05:08] Nia Which seems to be a really common thing.
[00:05:11] Brittny Yeah. And didn’t actually even go through the whole search.
[00:05:13] Nia Yeah.
[00:05:14] Nia Mm hmm.
[00:05:15] Nia I mean, it’s almost like boards use it. I mean. Especially we’re talking CEO/ED as like a testing ground. Uh huh. They put somebody in who they’re like, Yeah, I’d be okay working with them long term, but let’s try it out.
[00:05:26] Brittny But I also think in I get it like they want to do their due diligence. Right. So I mean, yeah, this internal candidate seems like they would be good, but like we don’t really know what’s out there. So I don’t feel confident hiring this person internally until we see what our other options are.
[00:05:46] Nia Yeah, yeah, for sure.
[00:05:48] Brittny And depending on how that actually is played out and communicated, it’s not always like the fairest process. Yeah. To the, to the person that they put in the interim role.
[00:05:59] Nia 100%. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
[00:06:02] Brittny It’s like well go ahead and date you, but we’re not going to marry you until I see if there’s anybody else out there I like better.
[00:06:09] Nia Right, exactly.
[00:06:10] Brittny Right. It’s awkward. Yeah.
[00:06:13] Nia Well, and if they’re in that role as an interim, they don’t get to do some of the, like, clean up work that a true interim gets to do. I often actually recommend that to organizations who have had a long term leader, maybe even a founder, like hire a true interim before your next long term leader, because there’s going to need to be something cleaned up like there’s just no way around it.
[00:06:34] Brittny Right. Right. Well, and I think what also can happen from this, my gosh, have so many thoughts is that let’s say you have an internal candidate who is a true candidate. Right. And they’re they’re saying, okay, well, we don’t really know. So we’re going to put him in there and then we’re going to go look to see if there’s anyone better out there. And then we find somebody better out there. Yeah. The odds that the person that is acting as interim stays 1%. Exactly. Exactly. So you’ve taken them from another key position, otherwise they wouldn’t have been a candidate. Right. So whatever that is, let’s say it’s like development director to CEO or ED or program director, and now you’re going to have to hire the new person for the main role. You were looking for that head leadership CEO position, and then now you have to replace the other position.
[00:07:34] Nia Right. Right. And like you said, like a true candidate. I mean, there are definitely times where staff members are like, I don’t want this job long term. I’ll I’ll serve as interim till you can find somebody. But like, that’s not my goal and you have a better chance of retaining them. But somebody who really thinks like, I’m up for this job, I want it long term, you put them in there as interim, they get a taste even for what that job is really like. And then you expect them to go back to the job they used to have? Absolutely not. You got to be prepared that they’re going to leave.
[00:08:04] Brittny I know. And even the first example that you gave, the ones that are like, I definitely don’t want this job, but you like force them or talk them into doing it. But now they’ve gotten a pay bump, right? They should get a pay raise. And they probably even if they don’t like the job itself, they have a taste of of that decision making. Yeah, right. Like, oh, I’m at a level now where I can make these decisions and can I really now go back to a level where I’m getting paid less and don’t have that same authority?
[00:08:34] Nia Totally.
[00:08:35] Brittny Yeah. It’s no good. No, it’s no good.
[00:08:37] Nia No. I mean, you got to be super careful if you’re putting a staff member into an interim. I worked under and with interims before, but the most applicable story is when I was executive director of a nonprofit. I came in after another ED, who came after a 30 year ED. That person was not meant to be an interim, but only lasted seven months. Uh huh. And they should have hired an actual fucking interim.
[00:09:07] Brittny Uh huh.
[00:09:08] Nia So then by the time I get in there, everything’s an absolute fucking disaster.
[00:09:13] Brittny Yeah, totally.
[00:09:14] Nia Things are, like, shriveling on the vine. I mean, it was just such a bad situation. And because that person wasn’t an interim, they weren’t doing, like, the heavy lift of reorganizing and fixing systems because they thought, oh, I’m going to be here for a long time. And then.
[00:09:28] Nia Well.
[00:09:30] Nia She ran off with a boyfriend, neither here nor there. But that board never should have put in their expectation of a long term executive director after that, that 30 year ED. They need an interim to clean it up.
[00:09:44] Brittny It’s so you keep bringing that piece up. And I think for good reason. I mean, it’s so important, the whole clean up aspect of it. When you have somebody who has been leading an organization for two or three decades, it is going to be so hard to find someone who can come in and quote unquote, fill those shoes. Right. First of all, you’re not going to want somebody to fill those shoes because you’re probably going to want, like, new energy not to discredit the work of the person. They might have been the best leader in the whole world for 30 years, but it’s just. The evolution of an organization’s the life cycle of an organization that you need to bring in somebody who’s going to infuse it with new energy, potentially some new ideas. And you have a staff that is so used to the way the last person led.
[00:10:35] Nia Mmmhmm.
[00:10:35] Brittny That anybody that you bring in that’s going to be different from that is going to shake things up, right? So that’s like the big part of it too, with leadership changes is this like attrition, this natural attrition that happens.
[00:10:49] Nia Yeah.
[00:10:49] Nia Well, I think the power of an interim is that you can actually, like, have them be the sacrificial goat.
[00:10:55] Brittny Yes.
[00:10:56] Nia Sacrificial lamb.
[00:10:57] Brittny LAMB with a farm animal.
[00:11:00] Nia Like have them do the changes, have everybody be pissed at them. And then when the new person comes in, they can build relationships back.
[00:11:09] Brittny Yeah, absolutely. I think what’s tough, though, what you have to understand is that when you bring in a true interim and know that that’s the expectation, there cannot be an expectation then that that interim is going to move the organization forward. Grow it. Right, right, right. It is stabilized. Exactly. Shake it up maybe a little bit, then stabilize it and get it to a place that it can be handed over to someone who can then lead it forward.
[00:11:42] Nia Yeah. And, like, really cast the next vision for the organization. Yeah, you’re exactly right.
[00:11:48] Brittny I mean, have you ever seen a board who has an interim and then tries to do, like, a strategic planning process?
[00:11:55] Nia Oh, my fucking God.
[00:11:58] Brittny I can’t even get it out. This the most ridiculous thing. It’s so absurd. It’s absurd.
[00:12:08] Brittny It’s absurd. And yet it happens. And you’re.
[00:12:11] Brittny Like.
[00:12:12] Brittny You like. What are you. Well, it doesn’t happen, is what happens. But it’s like, what are you even spinning your wheels for? This is not the time.
[00:12:23] Nia No, no. For any of you who are like, wait, why would that be a problem? Your chief executive, your leadership team is probably providing the most input to any strategic planning process. They’re really giving you the sense of what’s happening, where there’s opportunities, where there are threats, like where can this organization go? If that person is an interim, they’re not going to have their finger on the pulse of that. Like they might have identified a few areas for improvement, but not like a strategic vision for the future. And your board certainly cannot hold that. I’ve never once seen a board that is equipped to do that.
[00:12:58] Brittny No.
[00:13:00] Brittny And another thing about boards with this is, again, recognizing kind of the stages of the lifecycle of the organization and recognizing that when you go into having an interim and you’ve lost a leader for one reason or another, and you have this time of potential shakeup and then hopefully finding your way back to stability, that you have to still be actively involved with that interim during that time.
[00:13:32] Nia Yes. Yes.
[00:13:34] Nia Absolutely.
[00:13:35] Brittny How many times have you seen a board who is just like, oh, my God, what are we going to do? So-and-so’s leaving. They’ve been here forever. Okay, let’s just hire this person as an interim, okay? We’re good. Yeah. Wash our hands of it. We’re good. We’ve got somebody else in there. We can relax now and, like, pretend like everything’s okay.
[00:13:54] Nia No, no. When? Actually, the opposite should be happening. Like during an interim, board engagement needs to increase because you’re getting now, like, different intel, right? You’re hearing from this person with fresh eyes about what’s really going on and what you’re going to need to know before you can hire the long term leader, whoever it is.
[00:14:18] Brittny Yeah. And like, that’s a crappy job for an interim to come in, especially if there’s things that they’re going to be if they’re the sacrificial farm animal like you need to be able to support that person. Like, hopefully they knew what they were getting into. Probably not nearly as much as they would have liked.
[00:14:38] Nia Beca.
[00:14:38] Use the board never knows.
[00:14:39] Brittny The board never knows.
[00:14:40] Brittny And then they get in and they’re like, Oh shit, this is an absolute shit show. And nobody told me. I knew it was going to be difficult. I had no idea it was going to be this bad. So that person is going to need support through that time and not just like, here you go. Good luck.
[00:14:58] Nia Right. So you talked about like the dangers of having staff, existing staff as interims. What about current board members who walk into interim roles?
[00:15:09] Brittny Oh, it happens all the time.
[00:15:12] Nia I know it’s wild.
[00:15:14] Brittny It’s so wwild. And you know, I know of one organization where a board member did that and then became the CEO.
[00:15:20] Nia Yeah.
[00:15:21] Brittny And I know somebody who did that. I worked for an organization down in Denver, and that’s how the CEO became the CEO. And she’s been there like 25 years now.
[00:15:32] Nia My first development director job, I was hired by an interim who was a board member. And so not to say that like it can’t work, but I feel like there are some important things to avoid. Number one, if you become interim, you no longer can sit on the fucking board.
[00:15:50] Brittny No, not a board member.
[00:15:52] Nia This just came up recently. And when I say I was flabbergasted. Flabb or fucking gasted. How how? How is this organization paying this person for daily work and they are still showing up in a governance role and voting on measures for the organization. How is that possible?
[00:16:09] Brittny Yeah, it’s not. It’s not. And I think that we talk all the time on this show about those blurred lines, which really are not that blurry, but they get blurred all the time between roles. What is the role of staff? Versus what is the role of the board. And this is such a prime example, this situation not just of a board member coming in as interim, but just losing the leader in general. So board now having to move past governance and really try to figure out what is going on. And I’ve seen it. I worked for this organization where they had a longtime leader leave. They brought in someone full time, did a full search, paid a ton of money for him. It was a disaster. Disaster. That person lasted nine months. If that. So then they had to do a whole new search. And meanwhile, the internal culture has just dissolved. Yeah, right. Like it’s just a wreck. It’s a mess. And then they hire a new one. And so they’ve been like their hands deep into the goings on of the operations and everything. And it’s like, okay, now we’ve got a good leader in place, and that person needs to establish trust with the staff and needs to be given the autonomy to lead. Okay, now you need to retreat board members. And they’re like, Wait, what?
[00:17:40] Nia I think that’s such a good point and it’s so under appreciated. Like we do ask boards to step up, whether it’s a search, whether it’s an interim, etc. And then when they hire the new leader, they don’t step back.
[00:17:53] Brittny Right.
[00:17:54] Nia They don’t reassess their role.
[00:17:56] Brittny No.
[00:17:57] Nia And it always ends up so fucking messy.
[00:18:00] Brittny So you can imagine that if somebody becomes is a board member, you already have the power dynamic. Oh, my. Right, right. Like this weird power dynamics. But then if you have a board member who becomes the leader of the organization and then let’s say they go back to being a board member.
[00:18:19] Nia Yep.
[00:18:21] Brittny Like, how does that. It’s like they. They peek behind the curtain.
[00:18:24] Nia Yep.
[00:18:25] Brittny Right.
[00:18:27] Nia Well, and now they’re also, like, in this role of supervising somebody whose job they just did.
[00:18:33] Brittny Right.
[00:18:33] Nia Like, oh, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t have done it that way. Well, you know, last month with Suzy, we decided to do this instead. Like, no board member should be able to have a position on a board. And those conversations at the same time. Exactly.
[00:18:50] Brittny I know. So it’s just ripe with possibilities of things going south.
[00:18:55] Nia Right. And again, not to say that it can’t go well, but it’s like you have to address that shit up front. You have to be really overt and transparent about the power dynamics. Like, let’s talk about the fact that your interim is also one of your major donors. How is that going to impact relationships with staff?
[00:19:12] Brittny Yes. Oh, my God. It’s so fucked up. It’s like, oh, talk about an absolute, like, fund raisers nightmare. So now your major donor, one of your major donors, is your boss. What’s it like questioning what you’re doing? And, oh, that’s just a nightmare. And then how do you go back to that? You know, it really just reminds me of what we talked about in the last episode of committees and how I was working with that organization, who created a whole matrix of roles and responsibilities. Yeah, I was like very specific and wrote out like, who has decision making power, who does this, who does that? And I feel like if you’re going to do any of these things, then you need to do the work of writing down what each person’s role was, what the new role is going to be.
[00:20:17] Nia Mm hmm.
[00:20:18] Brittny And then. And how that changes. Yeah.
[00:20:21] Nia And just have those conversations constantly, right. Like that can’t just be a document that you create once and it sits on a shelf.
[00:20:28] Brittny Well, so let me ask you, between the two of us, we probably worked for. What, like a dozen or more organizations?
[00:20:37] Brittny 20.
[00:20:38] Brittny 20 organizations. How many organizations that you’ve worked for had a succession plan?
[00:20:50] Nia Well, one of them had a document with the passwords in it. So that.
[00:20:54] Brittny Huh? Uh huh.
[00:20:57] Brittny Yeah. I’m talking none. Not a single one. And even organizations. This is what I don’t understand.
[00:21:04] Brittny Who have.
[00:21:05] Brittny The. What do I want to say? Like. Like I worked for this organization. We knew for over a year that the leader was leaving.
[00:21:14] Nia Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
[00:21:16] Brittny And yet, you still would have thought we found out we were given 24 hours notice.
[00:21:21] Brittny Like.
[00:21:22] Brittny Like nothing was.
[00:21:24] Brittny Done.
[00:21:25] Nia Yeah. Yeah.
[00:21:26] Brittny It just blew my mind of, like, why do you not want to have these conversations?
[00:21:33] Nia Yeah. I mean, I think there’s, like, there’s so much emotion wrapped up in all of that, and it gets lost. Like, the work that needs to be done gets lost because of that. And again, ideally, you’d have a board of directors that would be like, okay, you’re leaving in a year. We want the draft of your succession plans in the next three months. Right. Like, we want to review this, we want to have these conversations, but boards aren’t doing that.
[00:21:55] Brittny How about this? How about I worked for an organization where we knew for a year that the leader was leaving. There was a internal candidate that was a likely internal candidate, and they were told as such by the board or some of the board members, not in a formal way and an informal, hey, we think you would be great to step in line to be the next one to come in. And so it was kind of that trickled down to staff. So staff just assumed that this internal person was going to be the next leader. Yeah. And then as we’re getting closer to the leader leaving, the actual leader leaving, there becomes this power dynamic between the one who’s in office and the one who may or may not be moving into that office.
[00:22:50] Nia Oh, gosh.
[00:22:52] Brittny And where there was a lot of work being done to like future work, like there was like a really robust strategic plan and the organization was growing and there were a lot of decisions that had to be made. And so it was like, well, who has the decision making power? The one who’s leaving or the one who’s coming in? But because it was never formalized that the one was actually coming in. They were never given that authority. Does that make sense?
[00:23:19] Nia Oh, 100%, yeah. What a mess.
[00:23:23] Brittny And so it just got so muddled and it created internal power grossness.
[00:23:32] Brittny That that’s.
[00:23:33] Brittny The technical term.
[00:23:36] Nia It was really ewwwy.
[00:23:37] Brittny It was ewwwy, yeah. And it was super confusing for the staff, particularly when the board then finally at the 11th hour was like, we’re going to do a search. And the staff is like, what are you talking about? For a year now, we thought it was going to be so and so like, why are you doing a search?
[00:23:57] Nia Oh, my gosh.
[00:23:59] Brittny Again, I, I think probably like becoming a consultant. I mean, it’s obviously stuff I’ve already known, but now to see it in quantity with so many different organizations like I’m working now instead of one organization a year, 15 organizations a year. And so I’m seeing the same dynamics at each one playing out.
[00:24:22] Brittny And I don’t know.
[00:24:24] Brittny I’m just struck by how boards have such an impact.
[00:24:31] Nia Yeah.
[00:24:32] Brittny On organizations and yet don’t know it.
[00:24:36] Nia Yeah. Yeah.
[00:24:38] Brittny It’s like the gravitas is lost. Like. Like, I don’t understand. Don’t you realize, like, what this is going to mean for this organization long term, and yet you’re not doing the homework that’s necessary?
[00:24:49] Nia Yeah. How about the opposite of that?
[00:24:52] Brittny Oooh, give it to me.
[00:24:53] Nia An interim who came on and basically went full elon Musk on the organization.
[00:24:59] Brittny Oh, just let everybody go.
[00:25:01] Nia Yeah. Basically turned over the entire board to friends of theirs. Let a bunch of the staff go, gutted the programs. And I really that to me all comes back to that original board. How the fuck did you let an interim do that?
[00:25:20] Brittny That’s insane.
[00:25:22] Brittny Insane. Is that organization still around?
[00:25:24] Nia Nope. She gone.
[00:25:27] Brittny The like the whole organization’s gone?
[00:25:29] Nia The whole organization’s gone.
[00:25:31] Brittny That’s. What I’m saying. Like this is the power that a board has that I don’t know I like. I want to rethink the whole board structure.
[00:25:44] Nia I know I want to get rid of them again, but.
[00:25:47] Brittny It just doesn’t make sense. I know that’s another. I just don’t think it’s like the job description. It’s like they come in at an ownership level, but they feel like it’s only a manager level.
[00:26:00] Nia Yeah. Yeah. We can’t end this without talking about fundraising interims, developmental interims.
[00:26:05] Brittny Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think.
[00:26:11] Brittny I’m, like, technically the interim for three different organizations.
[00:26:14] Brittny Right now. Hmm. Amazing. Which sounds.
[00:26:22] Brittny Really irresponsible, but it’s not, I promise you.
[00:26:25] Brittny Like one.
[00:26:27] Brittny Sunsetting, two more just starting. Like, it’ll all be okay.
[00:26:32] Nia She says to herself every night.
[00:26:33] Nia I know. But I’m like, Yeah.
[00:26:36] Brittny They need.
[00:26:37] Brittny Help. They need so much help.
[00:26:38] Nia I know. So the context for this, I think, is important, and I actually shared this article on our Facebook page already, but the Chronicle of Philanthropy just did a bunch of research on what’s happening in fundraising right now. Like, why can’t anybody hire? They say nine in ten fundraisers said that unfilled fundraising positions have significantly increased their workload. 89% agreed that their nonprofit didn’t employ enough people to raise as much as they had the potential to attract. And we know, I mean, the front range right now is awash. Awash with all of the openings. I don’t know what I can come up with that word.
[00:27:18] Brittny That’s right. That’s right. Yeah, I was searching for it too. Yeah. I mean, there’s a kajillion openings right now. For sure. For sure. I mean, again, I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. I think that the great resignation just took a little bit longer for our sector because we felt a duty to stay in it, because in the midst of the pandemic, we were helping those that were the most vulnerable, not taking away from frontline workers. You know, I’m just saying, like, we were already dedicated to the mission and then we were seeing what especially for human service organizations and like food banks and that sort of thing. Like, people needed us more than ever. So we’re like, we got to double down. And now it’s like, I’m tired.
[00:28:02] Brittny Like, yeah.
[00:28:03] Brittny I can’t do this. People can’t keep that kind of schedule and pressure, and. And so they’re just opting out.
[00:28:12] Nia Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And they’re finding better paying jobs elsewhere, whether in the sector or not. You know, we got a lot who are just leaving entirely and fundraising jobs are hard to fill. So what do they do? They find interims instead.
[00:28:29] Brittny Yeah.
[00:28:30] Brittny It’s true. And you know, I do think I want to shout out to the state of Colorado.
[00:28:37] Nia Oh, all right. Rare government shout out. Let’s do it.
[00:28:40] Brittny Well, for finally passing, that was that that bill, that law that makes it so that employers have to list the salary.
[00:28:49] Nia Oh, yeah. The pay transparency.
[00:28:50] Brittny Yeah. Because I think that that has done a lot or is doing a lot too for the sector of like you’re going to have to pay these people if you want a full time fundraiser now like you gotta pay them what they’re worth.
[00:29:04] Nia Yeah.
[00:29:05] Brittny And because there is, there are so many openings, there’s a real kind of, for lack of a better term, like bidding war for people, right?
[00:29:15] Nia Yeah.
[00:29:16] Nia Totally. Well, and I think it’s interesting, too, like the organizations, I mean, this has been happening for years, but it’s just even more now the organizations that are like, well, I’d rather bet on a newer, greener fundraiser who I can train. Yes. And really like develop them in this position because I either can’t afford or cannot can’t find somebody who already has the skills in place.
[00:29:41] Brittny And that’s hard because nobody’s got time for that.
[00:29:44] Nia Nobody’s got time for that.
[00:29:45] Brittny I mean, this is another thing.
[00:29:48] Brittny Well I think I talked about it in the last episode, but people don’t have full development departments much anymore, like all those positions filled. That’s why they’re hiring third party event contractors and they’re hiring third party grant writers, and they’re contracting out the positions that they can because they can’t they don’t have them in house. So who’s training the development director?
[00:30:13] Nia Oh, exactly. Yeah. I mean.
[00:30:14] Brittny You hire green development director. Who? Who’s training them?
[00:30:18] Nia Mm hmm.
[00:30:19] Nia Well, they’re hiring us as like interim above that, whatever it is to, like, do the training and strategy so that the actual staff member can implement it. Right. Which I think is an interesting concept, too. Like, you know, when you think about interims and fundraising, my biggest concern always is who’s going to do the donor development, because an interim should not be developing relationships with donors because they’re not going to be there long term.
[00:30:43] Brittny Exactly.
[00:30:44] Nia So you have to have somebody to do that.
[00:30:46] Brittny Exactly. Yeah, I know. And it’s tough. I mean, I’m all for people entering into the sector. Right. We need you. You’re the future of the sector. But I think that’s scary, too, right? Because while finding permanent fundraiser right now is hard, those that are still in it for the most part are fairly committed to the profession. Like that’s what they do. So it’s hard to hiring someone who’s brand new, hoping you can develop them, like, are they going to stay? I don’t really know. I mean, I think it’s a gamble either way, but.
[00:31:23] Nia Yeah.
[00:31:24] Brittny The pros and cons.
[00:31:26] Nia Mm hmm.
[00:31:27] Nia I mean, I do see the silver lining, though, on the fundraising interims is the opportunity to really shift how fundraising is done. Like how we’re talking about executive director interims who come in, shake things up, stabilize. Fundraisers who can come in and like upend fundraising practices and be like, we are going all in on community centric fundraising. The donors can be pissed at me. I’m the interim, but we’re going to set up systems that really are anti oppressive, that are based in equity, that align with the organization’s values in fundraising. And then the organization can hopefully hire somebody who will continue to live that out.
[00:32:04] Brittny It’s so. Well, I said that not exactly, but I said something similar to a client today. Who was complaining about lack of board engagement and that she had sent out an email three times to board members asking for help on something and have gotten no response. And I think that there’s something nice about when you come in as an interim and you they hire you because of your experience. Right. So when you’re talking to them, you have this experience behind you. And so I say, like, that’s not right.
[00:32:35] Nia Mm hmm.
[00:32:35] Brittny Yeah, like, that’s not right. And that’s really up to your board president to be setting the expectation for board engagement. You can’t do that as development coordinator. Your boss can’t even do that. It needs to come from the board president. And so I told her I was like, look, let’s see how many people respond to your third email. And if we don’t get the response we need, I will talk to your board president tomorrow. And I was like, I’ll be the bad guy. I don’t care. I was like, I’m not here for that long.
[00:33:06] Nia Mm hmm.
[00:33:07] Brittny So I can at least come in. And that’s kind of what I see. My role as interim is coming in because allegedly they’re hiring me because I know best practices, right? So I can come in and say this isn’t best practices or this is best practice, or you really need to be doing this, or you need to be doing that. And you can make you can shed some light on some of those areas that they need to kind of step it up a little bit, so to speak.
[00:33:36] Nia Yeah.
[00:33:37] Brittny And hopefully they respect your opinion. Right. And they listen to you because I think it’s so hard. You know, you’re a brand new person who comes in. Even if you’re brand new, you come in and start saying, well, you can’t be doing this. You could be doing that. There is. Well, you just got here. Yeah. Since like our role is for such a short time and we’re considered like a quote unquote expert, we can come in, have the hard conversations, hopefully set the next permanent person up for better success and then peace out.
[00:34:07] Nia So it sounds like the moral of the story for all of this is like interims really being used from a change management perspective to shift things in the organization, get it on solid footing, and then hand it off to the next person who can do the next level change management, which is much more relational and and deeper to make sure that it is maintained.
[00:34:28] Brittny I love that. I think that’s exactly right. I think the other takeaways that we talked about today is you gotta have the bigger picture in mind and you have to start planning, right. If all of a sudden somebody says, well, you know what, so-and-so would be great, they’re on the board. Why don’t they do it? Okay, let’s stop and let’s write out all the implications of that. Like, what are the pros? What are the cons? How would this shift dynamics? How long would this be for who it you know, what would they do after it? You know, like have the bigger picture in mind and go through all of that before you just like, whoo! Okay, great. We’ve got someone who can fill in. We’re done.
[00:35:06] Nia Yeah. And have those conversations transparently. Yes. Like the power dynamics we talked about all the way down to, like, the actual policies and, like, bylaws, implications. You need to have that conversation early and often.
[00:35:20] Brittny Yes. All right.
[00:35:22] Brittny All right. And put a succession plan in place. Holy.
[00:35:26] Nia Right. Yeah.
[00:35:27] Brittny I mean, like, you know, things are going to change. You never know what life is going to bring. So how do at least it. It started. Right.
[00:35:37] Nia Exactly.
[00:35:37] Brittny And if you have an ED, this last thing, I would just say, I’m sorry I could go all day I know. If you have an ED or CEO who comes to the board and says, I think we should put a succession plan in place, don’t freak out thinking that means they’re leaving.
[00:35:53] Nia Right. It just means they’re thinking about the future of the organization. Which you should be doing anyway.
[00:35:57] Brittny Exactly. So look at it as a good sign of like a sign of a good leader.
[00:36:03] Nia Exactly.
[00:36:07] Brittny I will.
[00:36:07] Brittny Step off my.
[00:36:08] Brittny Soapbox now.
[00:36:11] Nia Oh, my gosh. Well, with that, make sure you’re following us on Facebook and Instagram at nonprofit Reframe. Email us. NonprofitReframe@gmail.com. Got a couple more episodes planned out, but then we’re going to need new topics. So tell us what’s going on.
[00:36:24] Brittny We’d love to hear from you.
[00:36:26] Nia Thanks, folks.
[00:36:27] Brittny Take care.
[00:36:30] Nia Don’t forget to become a Patreon subscriber for behind the scenes content starting at only $3 a month. Learn more at Patreon.com/NonprofitReframe. We would like to thank our sponsors. Brittny Wilson Consulting helps nonprofits raise even more money through fundraising coaching, training and event production. Learn more at BrittnyWilson.com. That’s B R I T T N Y wilson dot com. Mission Launch is a Colorado based consulting firm working toward social good in all sectors through fundraising, board governance, strategy and planning and equity support. You can learn more at MissioLaunchCo.com. And Jake Walker Music, who provides our theme music. You can find him at JakeWalkerMusic.org. Thanks for listening.