When a chief executive officer (CEO) leaves a nonprofit organization, most boards treat it as a vacancy to fill. Post the job, run the process, hire the closest match to the person who left. It is the fastest path to a decision and the surest path to repeating whatever went wrong the first time. Lori Clement Largie, an executive search advisor who works with nonprofit boards through leadership transitions, starts somewhere else entirely. Her opening question to a board is not about the candidate – it is about the board.
The Information a Boardroom Cannot Generate on its Own
Her next move is to look outside of the boardroom: revisit the strategic plan. What has changed since it was written? What is working that must be protected? What needs to change, and what is holding the organization back? Neither the board nor the search committee can answer those questions in isolation. Staff, funders, partners, and, where appropriate, the communities served all hold pieces of the picture. “Those conversations often surface things that simply aren’t visible from the boardroom,” Clement Largie says.
She does not pretend this is a light lift. Gathering perspectives, making sense of what comes back, and translating it into a coherent vision for the next chapter takes time and intentionality. It is a body of work, and one a capable search partner should be carrying alongside the board rather than leaving on a volunteer committee. All of it feeds the search itself: the narrative about where the organization is headed, the priorities for the next leader, and eventually the job description. The description is the output, not the starting point. Boards that begin by editing the old one have skipped every step that would have made it accurate. “The goal isn’t simply to find a great leader,” Clement Largie says. “It’s to make sure you’re building the organization, and the board, that will allow that leader to be great.”
Stability First, Then Speed
When a departure is sudden, what happens next matters. Three steps should be taken:
- Establish clear interim leadership and decision-making authority.
- Communicate with staff before the rumor mill fills the vacuum.
- Identify the external relationships needing immediate attention: funders, major donors, partners, and sometimes government agencies.
The boards that handle this well, in Clement Largie’s experience, share a common trait that has nothing to do with the crisis itself. Their members were present and known to leadership and staff long before the transition happened. When something breaks, those directors can step in without being strangers. They do not run the organization. They provide visible, steady leadership. They meet with the executive team, join all-staff meetings, communicate what they know, and acknowledge what they do not know yet.
“The goal isn’t to convince everyone that nothing has changed,” Clement Largie says. “Something has changed. The goal is to demonstrate that the organization has leadership, a process, and a path forward.” Once that stability exists, she wants boards to slow down. An interim leader is sometimes exactly right because they create breathing room. “You don’t want urgency to push you into hiring the next permanent CEO before you’ve figured out what you’re actually hiring that person to do.”
The same honesty applies to funders. Boards often assume donors want certainty, but they do not. “People think donors want you to have all the answers. You don’t. But donors want to know that the board is leading, there’s a thoughtful process underway, and the organization is being well stewarded through the transition.” Going quiet or concealing challenges is the worst available option, because close funders understand what a transition means and they have the same questions. Ask them what concerns they hold, what opportunities they see, and what will matter in the next leader. You do not hand donors the search. You treat them as trusted partners whose perspective sharpens it.
The Job May be the Problem
Here is where Clement Largie’s argument turns sharpest. The sector talks constantly about a leadership pipeline shortage. She thinks a significant share of it is something else. Consider what one person is now asked to hold: chief fundraiser, board manager, strategist, staff leader, culture builder, operations overseer, public face, crisis manager, and community relationship keeper. Always available. Technology and constant access have produced a role that, for many leaders, never turns off. “I’m not surprised when talented senior leaders look at the CEO role and say, ‘I don’t want that life.'”
Her conclusion follows plainly. “Some of it is a job-design problem.” Boards should be asking whether everything currently sitting with the CEO needs to sit there. The alternatives are within reach:
- An externally focused CEO paired with a president or chief operating officer who genuinely owns internal leadership.
- Responsibilities distributed differently across the executive team.
- Co-leadership, where there is real clarity around authority, accountability, and decision-making.
She is not selling a model. She is attacking an assumption: “boards should stop assuming the model they inherited is the model they have to keep. If we want a stronger leadership pipeline, we may need to build better leadership jobs.”
That pipeline is also built well below the CEO line. It is about giving capable people throughout the organization meaningful responsibility, decisions to make, initiatives to lead, and real exposure to strategy, fundraising, and financial management. Let them stretch, and sometimes fail and learn. Boards should know the entire leadership bench, not to circumvent the CEO, but because the strength and development needs of that team are a direct read on organizational health. The cost of ignoring it is simple: “If talented people have to leave your organization to get real leadership opportunities, you’re losing your pipeline. And if you’re burning out your strongest senior leaders, you’re doing the same thing.”
Follow Lori Clement Largie on LinkedIn for more insights on nonprofit executive transitions, board effectiveness, and leadership succession.
