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A Guide for Planning Founding Director Transition
As seen in Tim Wolfred's article "Stepping
Up: A Board’s Challenge in Leadership Transition” in The Nonprofit Quarterly, Summer 2005.
Worlfred, Senior Projects Director of Leadership Services at CompassPoint
Nonprofit Services in California, had this to say about Following the Leader:
"In an excellent booklet on the departures
of nonprofit founders, Redington and Vickers frame the executive’s final two steps as 'letting go' and 'preparing the
way for a successor.' Often a critical board task, then, is to support their
executive director through these final duties."
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The departure of a founding director is no small matter. Founders, board members and potential successors have
legitimate questions and concerns that deserve attention. What is it that we know about this phenomenon of founding
executive succession? What can we say to those who experience it? In what follows we write for those founding
directors, board members, and successors who are having this powerful transition experience.
We also write out of the experience of others like you who know the power of long-term directorates and the issues
related to bringing them to a successful conclusion: Those individuals have also wondered what to do and worried about
how a new executive will fit. This report is for all of you, since long-term directorate transitions have many or all
of the characteristics and therefore challenges of those associated with the founding director. So while this document
refers to the "founding director," it is fair to read "long-term director" when the phrase is used.
(Excerpt
from the Introduction)
Emily Redington is
a Program Associate at NEW (nonprofit enterprise at work) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Emily assists with the operation
and expansion of the BoardConnect program. Prior to joining NEW, Emily was Assistant Director of The Jefferson Center for
Learning and the Arts. She received her MA in Arts Policy and Administration from The Ohio State University and her BA in
English from Marshall University.
Donn F. Vickers has been an executive
director in organizations religious, education, preservationsit and literary, and is the executive director of The Academy
for Leadership & Governance. He is also an adjunct professor in the graduate program of Arts Policy and Administration
at The Ohio State University.
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