Guest Blog Author: Beth Jacobs, President of vChief

The COVID-19 pandemic delivered a significant blow to the overall sustainability and operational productivity of many nonprofit organizations. As lockdowns disrupted the business models and fundraising cycles of organizations all over the world, many nonprofits had to implement budget cuts to avoid closing their doors at a time when their communities needed them more than ever. 

In fact, just a few months into the pandemic, 53 percent of Wisconsin nonprofits surveyed by researchers across the Universities of Wisconsin in summer 2020 said they were “slightly to greatly concerned” about discontinuing some non-core services.

While the pandemic highlighted the importance of sustainability in the nonprofit sector, many nonprofit leaders are so entrenched in the day-to-day operations of their organization that they don’t have time to step back and evaluate the long-term viability of their organization or develop plans to become more sustainable. 

One of the best investments a nonprofit can make in its own sustainability is to hire a chief of staff. This key role is a member of the senior leadership team who can wear a lot of hats in a nonprofit. Their primary responsibility is to make the leader more effective by helping them delegate, managing communications and special projects, and serving as a thought partner.

With their excellent facilitation, project management, and leadership skills, the chief of staff is perfectly poised to take on many projects that can help a nonprofit become more sustainable. 

Here are five key areas where a chief of staff can provide critical support and leadership to drive long-term sustainability for a nonprofit.

Developing a Strategic Plan 

Planning for the future is a key element of developing a more sustainable nonprofit. Bridgespan notes that effective strategic planning clarifies the path forward for leaders and stakeholders, informs resource allocation decisions, and identifies new strategic initiatives.

Engaging in a formal strategic planning process requires careful planning and facilitation, which can be a significant drain on the leader’s time. However, a chief of staff is well-positioned to support a strategic planning process from start to finish. A chief of staff can take the lead on organizing and running a strategic planning process, setting up a process to track performance metrics, and holding team members accountable for making progress toward the goals outlined in the strategic plan. 

Improving Financial Sustainability

The National Council of Nonprofits found that many nonprofits keep less than three months’ worth of operating reserves on hand, making them particularly susceptible to economic shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Financial sustainability, or the capacity to weather major economic disruptions to operations without reducing services, is a key component of nonprofit sustainability — and for most nonprofits, becoming more sustainable means doubling down on fundraising.

“A strong fundraising culture and mindset starts at the top and ideally is embraced by all within the organization,” says Barbara O’Reilly, principal of Windmill Hill Consulting. “A Chief of Staff can serve as an organizational lynchpin, ensuring that all senior leaders participate in fundraising-related discussions and helping to identify where to best leverage leadership to advance philanthropy.”

To effectively direct fundraising efforts, organizations often begin with a fundraising assessment. This comprehensive audit of an organization’s current and past fundraising efforts aims to identify strengths and weaknesses. It involves three main steps:

• Evaluating donors’ behavior and giving patterns
• Analyzing the return of fundraising costs
• Gauging the level of engagement from the organization’s leadership

Typically, an organization’s Chief Development Officer (CDO) and/or outside fundraising counsel will lead the fundraising assessment, but a chief of staff can provide key support. As a member of the senior leadership team with visibility into the whole organization, a chief of staff is well positioned to identify the staffing, systems, and resources required to take on the many tasks involved in a fundraising assessment, from surveying donors to calculating the ROI of fundraising activities. And once the assessment is finished, the chief of staff can serve as a thought partner to the CEO and CDO as they use the assessment to make revenue projections and plan out their strategy to improve the organization’s financial sustainability.

Improving Nonprofit Board Relations

A nonprofit’s board is designed to be a source of support to the leader and an asset for the organization. But oftentimes, nonprofits fail to fully tap into the potential of their boards. Managing board meetings, collecting data, and creating presentations can drain an executive director‘s energy, making board meetings feel like a tedious task rather than a chance to gain new insights on challenges and discover innovative solutions to problems.

But a chief of staff can help make the leader’s relationship with the board more productive, helping the organization leverage the board as fundraising champions. A chief of staff can manage the scheduling and agenda of board meetings, prepare slide decks, and oversee special projects or action items. They can facilitate communication between board members and the internal team and ensure the board follows through on fundraising commitments. 

Preventing Executive Burnout 

One of the biggest threats to a nonprofit organization’s sustainability is the potential for executive burnout. Burnout in general, and especially executive burnout, is a pervasive problem within the nonprofit sector. The loss of a visionary leader can jeopardize a nonprofit’s partnerships, funding sources, and ability to recruit capable and passionate staff, ultimately forcing it to shut down operations. 

To prevent burnout, nonprofits should invest in providing adequate support staff for the leadership team, to ensure their workload is manageable. As a leader’s right hand, a chief of staff has a huge role to play in preventing executive burnout. As a high-level strategic doer, a chief of staff can take tasks off the executive’s plate that don’t fit neatly into anyone else’s job description and require strategic input and thoughtful execution. A chief of staff can also help the leader decide which tasks to delegate and can support the team members to make sure they accomplish delegated tasks effectively. 

Leadership Succession Planning

The departure of any member of the senior leadership team of a nonprofit can hamper its ability to achieve its mission if it takes too long to backfill the role. Organizations that have a succession plan in place are in a better position to handle planned and unplanned executive departures. 

A nonprofit’s succession plan should include a plan for backfilling all of the critical leadership roles, not just the executive director. A thorough succession planning effort can take three to six months and involves many steps, from identifying which positions need a succession plan to creating a plan to grow future leaders from within.  

A chief of staff can take the lead on a succession planning effort, setting parameters on how to choose new executive directors, board members, and other nonprofit leaders and putting systems in place to train and equip future leaders. 

Advance Your Mission by Investing in Sustainability

Investing in the sustainability of your organization will help ensure you are able to withstand economic shocks and disruptions to your operations, and it can also help you grow your donor base. Funders want to invest in organizations that they are confident will still be operating effectively in three to five years. Hiring a chief of staff to design and implement a sustainability plan is an effective way to increase your organization’s resiliency and advance your organization’s mission. 

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Guest Author Bio: 

Beth Jacobs is the president of vChief, a flexible executive staffing company that specializes in placing top-notch talent in senior-level roles such as chief of staff, chief operating officer, and chief financial officer. Beth has a track record of leading products and organizations through sustainable growth. Prior to her time at vChief, Beth supported startups and small businesses as a consultant specializing in strategic planning, sales, marketing, finance, and talent management. Preceding her time consulting, she spent 12 years primarily in the nonprofit sector working on external affairs, strategic and business planning, sales, marketing, and operations.