On Monday, May 14, I attended the 5th annual Westchester Not-For-Profit Leadership Summit.  Hilary Clinton spoke at breakfast and Thomas Tierney of the Bridgespan Group presented during lunch.  I also attended sessions on the fragile relationship between nonprofit CEOs and boards as well as a nice review of online fundraising strategies.

Probably the most interesting insight was presented by Tom Tierney, who discussed nonprofits’ difficulties in recruiting and retaining executive talent.  With many nonprofit leaders approaching retirement age, this is becoming an even larger problem.  While there are no easy solutions, he offered a few observations:

1. Nonprofits can no longer rely on the system of ‘hiring a friend.’  New pools of talent must be found;  it’s not always necessary (or possible) to find someone from another nonprofit with a similar mission that is already a senior executive.
2. Executive Directors usually spend most of their time on fundraising, but this is not enough to insure a nonprofit’s continuing ability to achieve its mission.
3. Nonprofits often go outside the organization to recruit talent (while corporations often hire from within).  Nonprofits must offer on the job training and coaching, as well as job rotation to develop talent

He also commented that he considered work in the nonprofit sector to be more difficult than anything he has done in the private sector;  many who switch from for-profit to nonprofit mistakenly feel that their jobs will be easier and less stressful.

More on Bridgespan’s site on The Nonprofit Sector’s Leadership Deficit