Dream with me a bit ... your sabbatical is coming. Maybe it's in 8 weeks, maybe 8 months. You've started planning: ✓ Identified interim leadership✓ Created coverage plans✓ Communicated with your board✓ Blocked your calendar Here's what you probably haven't planned: Your return. I see this constantly in my work providing interim leadership for nonprofits—thoughtful (and in rare cases, meticulous) departure planning, with a hellacious and chaotic re-entry. Leaders return on their first Monday...

The Independent Sector National Summit — one of the largest gatherings in the nonprofit sector — finally put succession planning on their 2026 agenda. After years of watching this topic get sidelined by conference after conference, I was genuinely thrilled. It's progress! It's beyond time that we bring the reality that People Leave to stages where our decision makers and funders gather. Then I read the speaker terms. No honorarium. No travel. No hotel. A 50% discount off registration for...

Netflix's Queer Eye just did something most nonprofits aren't so great at: they ended well. Their final season features five episodes—each concluding with a different cast member reflecting on their decade-long journey. They announced the ending six months in advance, which allowed them to leave from a position of strength instead of crisis response. Most nonprofits treat leadership departures as emergencies to manage, but the Queer Eye crew treated their ending as part of their legacy to...