Leaving Well: nonprofit leadership guidance for workplace exits and transitions

Navigate voluntary departures, involuntary exits, and long tenures that have lasted too long. Understand transition obligations, severance negotiations, and how to leave well without leaving everything. Get the article --- The Off the Hook Framework: A Leadership Series on Accountability, Delegation, and Leaving Well You're exhausted. You're the only one who knows how the donor database works. Boa...

Address the guilt, shame, and fear keeping you on hooks you should release. Learn to distinguish between healthy disengagement and abandonment, and discover what you actually owe when you step back. Get the article --- The Off the Hook Framework: A Leadership Series on Accountability, Delegation, and Leaving Well You're exhausted. You're the only one who knows how the donor database works. Board m...

Map every major organizational function across strategic, operational, and governance domains. Identify dangerous gaps, problematic overlaps, and the accountability vacuum threatening your next leadership transition. Article Link ----- The Off the Hook Framework: A Leadership Series on Accountability, Delegation, and Leaving Well You're exhausted. You're the only one who knows how the donor databa...

Discover why staying on every hook diminishes your accountability to mission, and learn to audit your own indispensability before it becomes an organizational crisis. Article Link ----- The Off the Hook Framework: A Leadership Series on Accountability, Delegation, and Leaving Well You're exhausted. You're the only one who knows how the donor database works. Board members text you on weekends. Your...

The Off the Hook Framework: A Leadership Series on Accountability, Delegation, and Leaving Well You're exhausted. You're the only one who knows how the donor database works. Board members text you on weekends. Your team escalates every decision to you. You haven't taken a real vacation in three years. And everyone tells you how dedicated you are. How committed. How essential. Here's what they're n...

Beth is passionate about making missions happen. Throughout her consulting career, Beth has helped nonprofit leaders connect people and programs to mission and goals. Her MapMoveMeasure™ framework is a guide for elevating stewardship and increasing supporter engagement.  Beth's customers say working with her introduces fresh perspective and new ways of thinking about their work. And they always ga...

Laura Gouin is a director, writer, and actress who got tired of starving and essentially created the company she wishes would have been around when she was starting out. She loves leveraging her experience in theater and film casting to custom match clients with their most ideal support, drawn from the creative arts. These Artful Admins are taken through her systematic training program, founded on...

Austen Smith (they/them) is a spirit-led creative with decades of community advocacy and organizing, program evaluation, intersectional qualitative analysis, and community participatory research. Their work addresses national housing disparities, racial inequity, disability justice, gender inclusivity, and the metaphysical impacts of racialized oppression. Currently, Austen is stewarding Imaginati...

An award-winning expert on organizational storytelling, Thaler Pekar works with visionary leaders to build and sustain cultures of excellent communication – cultures in which people can effectively speak and listen to each other, and to their audiences. For 20 years, she and her team at Thaler Pekar & Partners have advised leaders on strengthening trust, alignment, and influence through speaking,...

The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders have choreography for the kick line—but not for the goodbye. In this episode, Naomi unpacks the Netflix docuseries and explores what it reveals about leadership transitions, legacy traps, and the danger of having no plan for "what's next." Whether you're leading a nonprofit or sitting on a board, you need to hear this breakdown. Learn about: Why "churn" is not the s...

Katya Fels Smyth is an advocate / activist for shifting power and perspective so we all have a fair shot at wellbeing. She is the founder and CEO of the Full Frame Initiative, now in its final stages of winddown after more than 15 years of national social change work; and is the founder and former Executive Director of On The Rise, a 30 year-old community of and by women who are unhoused and who h...

Nani Jansen Reventlow is an international human rights lawyer. She is the founder of Systemic Justice, an organisation that advocates for marginalised communities across Europe through strategic litigation. Previously, she founded the Digital Freedom Fund. Nani is the author of the book Radical Justice, a collection of nine essays on how to build a better world, published in Dutch in 2024 with an...

It took 40 years but Kate finally figured out how to embrace change instead of run from it. After all, it's the only constant and there's some comfort in that. She loves all things salty - the ocean, margaritas, and even your saltiest board member. Kate can really get behind a lazy afternoon, a home improvement project, and teaching her dog useless tricks.    Quotes: "When we use scary words like...

Althea Seloover is a poet, a relational map-maker, a story teller, an advocate, an abolitionist, an investigator, an entrepreneur, a creative thinker, a hope holder, a griever, a dreamer, and a friend. She provides work in the realm of prisoner liberation, self-parenting & life history investigation work in the world. She lives in Eugene, Oregon with her fiancé, two cats & lots of books.  Find Alt...

A CEO steps down after a viral scandal, and within 72 hours, a new interim leader is named. While the world focused on the drama, we're focusing on what really matters: how Astronomer's board pulled off one of the fastest leadership transitions we've seen. Nonprofit leaders: this is your wake-up call. In this episode, Naomi breaks down: Why internal leadership benches matter more than dream candid...

Lauren Andraski is a collaborative community builder who champions equitable communities in every area of her life - from launching a community of nonprofit consultants to starting a string quartet in her living room. As the founder of Consultants for Good, she has created a thriving network of over 1,100 nonprofit consultants across 6 continents.   Quotes: "We've found that capacity building usua...

Known for her inclusive, humorous, and uniquely transformative approach to spirituality and the healing arts, Elizabeth DiAlto has been helping people tap into self love, healing, wholeness, and liberation since 2013. The Founder of the House of E, The School of Sacred Embodiment, and Wild Soul Movement™, Elizabeth's distinctive medicine weaves together mystical + erotic intelligence, sensual + em...

Wellesley Michael has the sweetest little rescue pup Petunia, and they do everything possible together. Always looking for a new Lego set, she will forever be a theatre kid, and enjoys taking in D.C.'s vast theatre scene. Wellesley formed a passion for community organizing purely out of a search for hope, support, and community after the murder of George Floyd. She then got trapped in the world of...

Brooke Richie-Babbage is a nonprofit growth strategist and social impact advisor. She is the founder and CEO of Bending Arc, a social impact strategy firm that supports the launch and sustainable growth of high-impact nonprofits, and the host of Nonprofit Mastermind Podcast. Brooke has spent the past 23 years working as a lawyer, nonprofit leader, and social entrepreneur. She has founded and led m...

Shannon Curtis has been a recording artist and songwriter for the last 27 years, and has carved out a unique, community-driven DIY music career with her husband and co-conspirator, Jamie Hill, for the last 19. Her new album — 80s kids, her first-ever covers album — is due out in April 2025, and was a great excuse for her to (re)acquire an Atari 2600. She lives in Tacoma, Washington, and is in love...

Vital Voice Training is a communication consultancy out to revolutionize the conversation about good public speaking and leadership presence — from stressing out about your "ums and uhs" to working creatively at the intersection of you and your context. Since 2014, they've been bringing game-changing public speaking and communication training to individuals and organizations, specializing in build...

It's time to reimagine workplace transitions and the way we say goodbye. Here's the truth: People Leave. We leave towns and cities, and we leave relationships. We leave projects, volunteer opportunities, and appointed and elected seats. People leave jobs too, whether high powered roles and barely paid gigs.  Another truth is that organizations are exponentially terrible at preparing for and naviga...

Ingrid facilitates smooth leadership transitions for nonprofit organizations. Ingrid has built a consulting practice that focuses on strengthening nonprofit leadership, especially during transitions. Over the course of five interim executive director appointments, Ingrid has seen a variety of ways leaving well can be implemented.  She also offers executive search services and guides organizations...

Jennie supports women who are ready to step into their legacy and maximize the impact they can have in the world. She has dedicated her life + career to building a more equitable world and supporting female founders and leaders at every stage of their journey.  🪩 At Wild Awake, she supports ambitious consultants who better the world through her signature program Consultant Catalyst, which centers...

Melanie is a 3x former Chief of Staff passionate about the profession, spreading awareness on how impactful it is, and helping others get into this career path. She's also a mom who loves watching her son grow (a 6'4 high school freshman - lots of growing going on). Her favorite way to spend an afternoon is reading a good book, when she has the time to do so.    Main quote: We're not just problem...