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Rewarding Leadership

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Daring to Lead 2006

Relentless fundraising pressure, weak boards of directors, low salaries, and lack of management support are causing many executive directors of small to mid-sized nonprofit organizations to leave their jobs.

Interesting Facts:

  • 3 out of 4 executive directors plan to leave their job within the next five years.
  • Citing lack of adequate compensation, burnout, and a sense of overwhelm at amount of time and resources dedicated to fundraising.
  • Only 29 percent have succession plans in place.
  • Most will stay in the sector – 70 percent.
  • Only 26 percent have ever negotiated a raise.
  • Nearly 2 in 3 executives believe they have made a significant financial sacrifice to do this work.
  • Despite being 33 percent of the executive population overall, men are overrepresented among large organization and make more than women in every budget size.
  • Only 18 percent of e.d.s under 45 are people of color.

Rewarding Leadership is a three-year, $2.2-million initiative launched in 2006 to stabilize and strengthen the executive leadership of the Meyer Foundation's grantees. Although Rewarding Leadership will conclude as a formal initiative in 2009, its components are integral to the foundation's work and will continue.  The Foundation remains strongly committted to the initiative's goal of increasing the voice and visibility of the Greater Washington region's most effective nonprofit leaders and to helping them attract additional resources to their organizations.

Components

  1. Increasing the quality and availability of training, networking, and professional development opportunities for executive directors in the region.
  2. Expanding support for executive coaching, transition planning, and other activities that strengthen executive leadership through Meyer's existing Management Assistance Program.
  3. Launching a new award program, The Exponent Award, to recognize five outstanding executive directors annually. The award includes a two-year grant of $100,000.

Strategic Partnerships Support Executive Directors

Beginning in 2006, the Meyer Foundation increased its grant support and expanded its parnterships with the Center for Nonprofit Advancement and the Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington, two membership organizations that work to strengthen Greater Washington's nonprofit sector and support executive directors. With support from Meyer and others, these organizations have expanded the leadership development opportunities available to nonprofit executive directors throughout the region. Programs created since 2006 include fellowships and training programs for executives, a boot camp for new executive directors, and two programs for nonprofit staff who hope to become executive directors. Hundreds of nonprofit leaders and staff have taken advantage of these opportunities.

Expanded Availability of Grants

Through Meyer's existing Management Assistance Program, which provides grantees with grants to strengthen their management and leadership so they can serve the community more effectively, the Meyer Foundation will increase the availability of grants for executive coaching, transition planning and other support for executive directors.

The Meyer Foundation

The Meyer Foundation believes that strong and effective executive leaders are essential to the success of our grantees, the health of our communities, and the visibility and influence of Greater Washington's nonprofit sector. For more than sixty years, the Meyer Foundation has identified supported visionary and talented nonprofit leaders and has supported their work by providing management assistance and capacity-building support.