Dear Executive Directors
Posted on July 21, 2022 by Rachel Krinsky, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.
An open letter to nonprofit Executive Directors about what it's like to serve right now
Dear Executive Directors,
I see you. This is an incredibly challenging time to be sitting in your seat:
· If you weren’t already struggling to meet the competing demands of funders, boards, staff and budgets,
· and if you weren’t already trying and failing and trying some more to address systemic racism from within the nonprofit systems and your own limitations,
· and if the pandemic and the staffing challenges of the great resignation weren’t enough,
· now the Supreme Court has handed down a whole raft of decisions to make your clients’ and employees’ lives harder and accelerate the destruction of our planet.
So many things in our world are not as they should be. But, as of April, I am not an Executive Director anymore, so I am not sitting where you are – responsible for a whole staff and an organization looking to me for direction and solutions and the right words. You still are. I know what that feels like.
My heart goes out to you – also to each of your staff members, volunteers and clients and every member of the communities you are based in. But today, for this moment, mostly to you. Very few people understand what it’s like to hold the actual responsibility as well as the sense of responsibility you hold.
I also applaud you: your strength, your smarts, your creativity! You get up each day to face these challenges, to find solutions and – whenever you can – to find joy and purpose in the work and even to remember your sense of humor!
There are so many more words to say, so many ways that each of these troubles can eat at you and so many tiny ways that I hope you can find joy in the work nonetheless.
I served as an Executive Director for 22 years and in those years came through grief and back to joy and inspiration many times. In the last year I decided it was time for me to move on. I honor all those decisions, and I’m proud of my work then and now.
I send you hope, I wish you trusting people with whom you can share your truth, and I remind you to please take care of yourself.
With love and gratitude,
Rachel
