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...

I'm a book person, always have been. Over the years I've collected a list of reads that have genuinely shaped how I think about leadership, transitions, and the work of leaving well, and I finally pulled them all together in one place: naomihattaway.com/books These are books I return to, recommend in client conversations, and honestly just love. If you're a reader too — or you're looking for something to hand to a board member, a departing ED, or a leader in the thick of a transition — I...

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...