When the Board Pipeline Runs Dry | Nonprofit Quarterly | Civic News. Empowering Nonprofits. Advancing Justice.

Almost half of the board was scheduled to roll off, and no succession plan existed. The existing board had exhausted networks and contacts, leaving limited ability to fill upcoming seats. As a relatively new executive director who was not originally from Atlanta, personal networks were also insufficient. The organization needed new perspective, creativity, and innovation, along with greater awareness of who they were both within the room and beyond. The organization’s small size meant minimal capacity to conceptualize and execute a thorough search. Early recognition led to the decision to seek help through a board search process because it was not internal expertise and could not be owned end to end.

"Very simply put, we were facing the moment where almost half of our board was about to roll off, and we did not have any kind of succession plan in place. We were at the point where the existing board had exhausted their networks, had stretched their contacts, and then all the faces turned to me, and I'm a fairly new ED in the organization. I'm not originally from Atlanta, so even just stretching the network I had was not going to be enough to really, honestly, just fill the seats that we knew were going to be opening up."

""Our networks are stretched-what are we going to do?" But also for me as the ED, I was looking for...not necessarily a culture shift, I'm not sure what to call it, but I needed new perspective in the room. I needed new creativity and innovation, and, honestly, an opportunity to raise more awareness about who we were, even inside this room, and also going into this idea of okay, well, our networks are stretched, what are we going to do?"

"Well, the capacity as a very small organization was minimal to even conceptualize how we were going to do this well and do it right and give it the time and energy it needed. So we acknowledged pretty early on...that we were going to need help in a board search process, because this was [not] our expertise, nor was there capacity to really own it from start to finish."

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