How Boards Can Support New Charity Leaders

Map out a direction for the new CEO.

A board should have a clear sense before a search begins of where the organization is headed and what the priorities are for the new executive, says Lisa Walsh, a partner at the Bridgespan Group, which helps other nonprofits with executive transitions.

Collaborate with the new chief to set an agenda.

How will the new executive stay in touch with the board? What is the CEO going to accomplish in the first 60 days, 90 days, or year?

Clarify roles.

How does the board want to be involved in decisions? How will the CEO be evaluated? What is the role of the departing leader? Any confusion on this last point, Ms. Walsh says, can create divided loyalties and halt the new CEO’s momentum.

Give the new leader room to breathe.

The worst-case scenario, Ms. Walsh says, is that by the time a new boss starts, there’s a backlog of problems that immediately demand full attention. “For many nonprofits, fighting fires is a way of life,” she says. “Make sure there’s some thoughtful pushback on that.”

Set up a continuing process for managing the leader’s performance.

It’s natural for a board to feel spent after completing a long search and finally hiring a new CEO, Ms. Walsh says. But she suggests resisting that urge to step back and instead be vigilant about supporting the new executive.

Ask about the new leader’s needs and try to accommodate them.

Annie Leonard, executive director of Greenpeace USA, says early support and flexibility from her organization’s board of directors was critical. She is the single mother of a teenage daughter, and when Greenpeace first approached her about the job, “I said, ‘I don’t think I can make this work,’ ” she recalls.

Discussions about support and flex time followed. “I will put in way more than eight hours a day,” she remembers saying, “but I have limits on what those hours might be.”

The board agreed to let Ms. Leonard work out of Greenpeace’s San Francisco office and honored her request that serving as executive director not undermine her duties as a single parent. “They said, ‘Let’s figure out how we can make it work for you.’ ”

—Libby Sander