Finding a New Path: Advice From a Veteran Charity Leader

For 26 years, I led nonprofit organizations and helped them grow. I loved the executive leadership role.

The challenge of aligning staff, board, and volunteers around a shared vision and the excitement of orchestrating strategic growth were stimulating to my professional skills, and I was fulfilled by the ability to work every day to advance important charitable missions.

But two years ago, at age 57, I reached a point where my soul was yearning for something else. For six years, I had been the leader of a group that helps people with physical disabilities, and I had spent half that time helping the organization deal with government spending cuts. That felt more burdensome than the exciting and creative leadership post I had sought when I took the job. Intellectually and emotionally, I longed for a new vision and inspiration for the next phase of my life.

So I left both the rewards and demands of a well-paid nonprofit executive job. I had no intention of disappearing from the philanthropic world. But I also walked away without a road map to my professional future. Despite the risks, I was determined to embark on a new adventure and hoped I could embrace both the process and the ultimate outcome.

Now, two years later, in a new role of consultant to nonprofit groups, primarily in Seattle and Minneapolis, and with a new home on Bainbridge Island, Wash., I still thrive on contributing to social justice and building effective organizations — but in a completely different role and a style of living that is more attuned to nature.

The story of my transition begins in the 1960s. As with many baby boomers, my values were shaped by the events of that era: President John F. Kennedy’s summons to “ask what you can do for your country,” followed by the enormous social upheaval of the Vietnam War, the civil-rights movement, the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

I entered college intending to chart a business career. But after working for a year on an M.B.A. at Stanford University, I jumped at the opportunity to become a Vista volunteer, helping low-income people develop business plans — and the experience was transformational.

I switched gears and got a graduate degree in early education. In 1979, that led me to the Minneapolis area, where I was executive director for 20 years of St. David’s Child Development and Family Services. During my tenure, we expanded programs, increased the staff from 15 to 300, and conducted two successful capital campaigns.

In early 1999, I became chief executive of the Courage Center, a large, respected rehabilitation center in Minneapolis that serves people with physical disabilities. There, too, we pursued a number of exciting projects, including a $17-million capital campaign that allowed us to build accessible fitness centers and introduce new technologies to make life easier for residents of our skilled-nursing facility.

But in 2002, we faced a significant loss in state aid — the fallout from a recession, a massive state deficit, and new conservative budget policies. After three years of cuts and more cuts, I felt demoralized.

The things that had turned me on about nonprofit leadership were becoming overshadowed by the unpleasant tasks of trimming budgets, eliminating programs, and laying off staff.

This wore on me, and I became increasingly irritable and frustrated. In June 2004, on a vacation to France with my wife and close friends, I began to think about leaving. Over the next four months, through more reflection and conversations with board leaders and trusted colleagues, I made the decision to resign. The process was not easy. But I decided to trust that my talents and experience would enable me to land on my feet.

One of the most important, and hardest, lessons I had learned is that leaders need to take time away from the intense workload for reflection and renewal or they can get run down and lose perspective. So, upon leaving my job in early 2005, I planned a three-month sabbatical to decompress, reflect on my future, and explore the possibility of a consulting career.

First, I talked to dozens of trusted friends, colleagues, and mentors, who served as sounding boards and helped me clarify my options.

Second, I attended a three-day retreat on Bainbridge Island conducted by the Center for Courage & Renewal. The organization, founded by Parker Palmer, helps people in education, health care, and human services reignite their passion about their work. Its tag line: “Reconnecting who you are with what you do.”

It was just what the doctor ordered. The retreat combined time for personal reflection, keeping a journal, walking in the woods, and sharing reflections in small groups. The focus was less on planning action than on re-engaging with the values and interests that motivated us. Away from external distractions, I was able to affirm for myself that the 26 years I had spent as a nonprofit leader had given me many tools, skills, and experiences to draw on.

I also realized I wanted to be able to help people more directly after spending so many years administering large organizations. Building trusting relationships through consulting and serving as a mentor and coach to others would bring me closer to what had drawn me into this work in the first place.

I spent the next month developing a way to promote my services, and now I am working with nonprofit leaders to develop strategic plans and strong boards, rally their organizations around new visions, and create strong fund-raising programs.

I still work in Minneapolis on a limited basis. But my wife and I also decided to move to the Pacific Northwest because we love the outdoors and temperate growing climate. We built a house on Bainbridge Island, and we spend our spare time gardening, hiking, kayaking, and marveling at the natural beauty.

Looking back, it would be Pollyannaish to say it was easy. There were times we struggled and felt unsure, and we still miss familiar and comfortable things about our old life, particularly close friends. But I think that is the nature of risk and adventure, and with the anxiety comes excitement. Hardly a day goes by now without my thinking “I love living here and what I do.”

Now that I’ve made my own transition, I can offer some tips to the new generation of nonprofit leaders who will succeed the baby boomers like myself who are moving on:

• Leadership roles can be draining. You should regularly carve out time to renew your spirit, psyche, and body.
• Never stop learning. Invest time in continuing education or executive coaching, especially since your job involves complex landscapes and relationships.
• Start thinking about your next stage of life years before any anticipated transition. Pay attention to the things that you feel passionate about (both professionally and personally) — even write them down. Periodically take time to reflect on your goals, dreams, and aspirations and update them.
• When you are ready to consider a change, don’t go it alone. Surround yourself with trusted advisers.
• Be patient with transition. Starting over, especially at a later stage in life, is a huge, demanding, and stressful undertaking. It takes time to get around the corner.

Eric Stevens is a consultant at the Collins Group, in Seattle, and at a consulting company that bears his own name in Minneapolis.