Why We Are Here
The nonprofit sector does critical work, giving food and water and care and hope to people who are hungry and thirsty and needy and sick and despairing.
This is the sector of love. And it is huge: 5% of the US economy, $1.5 trillion.
I have spent two years in conversations with 230+ nonprofit CEOs, with deep advisory engagements with dozens.
Here is what I have found.
The hardest decisions are the ones they can't talk about.
Nonprofit CEOs are constantly making high-stakes decisions, sometimes literally life and death. Every year, each of them makes a handful of decisions that can define not just that year but their tenure and even their career.
And they almost always carry these decisions alone.
They cannot fully process them with their board. They cannot be completely honest with their team. Their peers in the sector are navigating their own crises. So the decision, the real one, the hard one, gets carried in isolation.
It's hard to make good decisions under these circumstances. The downstream cost is not abstract: more hunger, more need, more suffering than there would have been if the person leading had access to the perspective and honesty they needed.
The results are slower decisions, weaker organizations, and less impact for the people we serve.
Nonprofit CEOs need outside perspective, applied to what they are actually navigating. They need to see more than the pressing problem in their immediate context.
They need to see the terrain. They need gauges to locate themselves.
They need peer connections with ironclad confidentiality, kindness, and depth. The decisions CEOs carry are so consequential that they need to have invested in those connections well before the next big decision arrives.
They need to find their crew before they are in flight.
They need honest judgment, on tap. The board can sometimes help beyond its governance lane, but many boards do not have expertise in nonprofit leadership. Executive teams have their own horses in almost every race. Nonprofit CEOs rarely have someone who is accessible, discreet, knowledgeable, and willing to be direct.
They need someone who is not on the plane. They need to be able to radio for help.
In all my conversations, only five CEOs have told me they have the connections they need to make their most critical decisions correctly and quickly.
Five. Out of 232.
Nonprofit CEOs know what they need. But no one is focused on their need.
That is what we are here to change.
My vision is that the nonprofit sector, the sector of love, is led by CEOs who do not burn out, who do not flame out, who do not opt out. Because they are not carrying these decisions alone anymore.
For courage when it matters most.
For the people counting on us.
For less suffering.
For more flourishing.
For more love.
If you see yourself in this, start with The Nonprofit CEO Podcast. Every episode is a conversation with a nonprofit CEO about the decisions they carry. Apple, Spotify, YouTube.
And if you want my synthesis and reflections on what I'm noticing in hundreds of conversations with CEOs, you need The Nonprofit CEO Briefing. Sign up here.
Finally, if you lead a nonprofit and you're carrying something heavy right now, I work directly with CEOs on their most consequential decisions. Whether it's a question or a story you can't share anywhere else, contact me here.
Thank you for what you're leading.
Adam Jeske The Nonprofit CEO Advisor