I'm Adam Jeske, The Nonprofit CEO Advisor.

I've spent 25 years in the sector, including years in Nicaragua, China, and South Africa, a long season at a $100M+ nonprofit, and as a board member and donor. 

I'm now focused on one thing: working with nonprofit CEOs on the decisions that define their tenures. Rebrands. Restructures. Leadership crises. Board dynamics. Executive team design. Revenue strategy. The decisions they carry alone because no one around them has the full picture but no agenda.

I've now had more than 240 of these CEO conversations. That number grows every week. And every conversation sharpens the pattern recognition I bring to clients.

What I've Learned

After 240+ conversations with nonprofit CEOs, a few things have become impossible to unsee.

The people leading nonprofit organizations are smart and passionate. That's not the problem. 

The problem is that CEOs are making their most consequential decisions alone. 

They can't be fully open with their board, because that's a governance relationship. And good board members are busy people.

They can't be fully open with their team, because they have their own horses in the race. 

And they can't always be open with other nonprofit leaders, because everyone is frying their own fish.

So nonprofit CEOs are carrying heavy decisions in isolation. Sometimes this is catastrophic, with costs of a bad decision carried over multiple years. In other situations, it’s a bit slower, less acute, but the costs compound. The team feels it. The CEO feels it. 

The pattern is consistent: when nonprofit CEOs get access to peers navigating similar weighty decisions—with intentionality, curation, and facilitation—decisions get better. Faster. More confident. The organization gets better leadership. And the people the mission serves get better outcomes.

What I Believe

The mission is too important for the person leading it to make critical decisions alone.

I believe nonprofit CEOs deserve the same quality of peer intelligence that Fortune 500 CEOs take for granted. 

I believe honesty, even when uncomfortable, serves the mission better than mere niceness. 

I believe that how a CEO makes decisions matters more than how hard they work. 

And I believe that what nonprofit CEOs carry deserves to be shared, not just endured.

What I'm Building

Everything I do serves one purpose: helping nonprofit CEOs make better decisions and carry them in less isolation.

Executive Advisory is for the moments that define a tenure. When a CEO needs independent judgment from someone with collective intelligence from across the sector, they hire me. I take on a small number of clients per year and size the engagement to the decision and its importance.

The Nonprofit CEO Circle is the peer intelligence network I've built for nonprofit CEOs. It’s the only offering of its kind in the sector. I curate the group, facilitate the conversations, and surface patterns from across 240+ CEO conversations, building collective intelligence for the leaders involved.

The Nonprofit CEO Briefing delivers pattern recognition and peer intelligence every week. The simplest way to see what nonprofit CEOs are navigating across the sector. Also, it says out loud what CEOs are thinking. Sign up here.

The Nonprofit CEO Podcast is where I interview nonprofit CEOs about the decisions they carry. Each episode surfaces patterns that help other leaders see their own situations more clearly. Available on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.

Peerless: Nonprofit CEOs and the Decisions They Carry Alone is the book I'm writing based on these 240+ conversations. It's the first book on what nonprofit CEOs actually navigate behind closed doors. Forthcoming 2028.

The Bigger Picture

When I help one CEO make a better decision, one organization gets better results. 

When I help hundreds or thousands of nonprofit CEOs make better decisions, the sector shifts: better decisions, better leadership, better outcomes for the people and causes that need change.

That's the long game, my 10-year plan. One decision, one CEO, one conversation at a time, building to a dramatically more effective sector.

Thank you for what you're leading.

The Nonprofit CEO Advisor