Charity Leadership and Turnover

Nearly three-fourths of all nonprofit executives will reach retirement age over the next two decades,

and charities will be hard pressed to replace them, according to a new survey.

The survey of 2,200 executive directors, commissioned by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, in Baltimore, found that 73 percent of the people who now lead charities are members of the baby-boom generationthose born from 1946 to 1964. Twenty-three percent of the nonprofit leaders said they would leave their jobs before 2007, and another 42 percent said they expected to leave their positions by 2009.

The high number of departures planned for the next few years is a sharp contrast to the recent past, the survey found. From 1994 to 2004, 75 percent of the executive directors reported that their organizations had only one or two executive directors. Thirty-four percent of the nonprofit leaders said they had been in their job for more than 10 years or were the founders of their organization.

A free copy of the survey, “Change Ahead: Nonprofit Executive Leadership and Transitions Survey,” is available on the Annie E. Casey Web site at http://www.aecf.org/publications/browse.php?filter=20.

Age of Nonprofit Chief Executives
Under 30	2.0%
31 to 40	13.1%
41 to 50	28.8%
51 to 60	43.7%
Over 60	11.3%

Years CEO’s Expect to Stay in Their Jobs
Less than a year	7.1%
1 to 2 years	15.9%
3 to 4 years	22.5%
5 years	19.2%
More than 5 years	33.8%