Leaving Well: nonprofit leadership guidance for workplace exits and transitions

Amanda Misiko Andere leads with love and disruption. She has spent over twenty years working in the nonprofit and public sector as a leader committed to racial and housing justice through advocacy for systemic change.

Prior to joining Funders Together to End Homelessness as their CEO, she served as the CEO of Wider Opportunities for Women, a national advocacy organization. Currently, she serves as board chair of the United Philanthropy Forum and board member of Equity in the Center, Bainum Family Foundation, Philanthropy DMV, and Leadership Fairfax.

Amanda is a founding member and on the leadership team for the National Racial Equity Working Group on Homelessness and Housing and the National Coalition for Housing Justice. She also serves on the Leadership Council for the DC Partnership to End Homelessness and is a volunteer advisor for Fairfax County on their racial equity task force.

Previously she served as an adjunct professor at George Mason University teaching Nonprofit Management, Executive Director of FACETS, and Vice President of Cornerstones; who have similar missions of preventing and ending homelessness and breaking the cycle of poverty.

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There can be comfort with change and transition because you discover things about yourself, your body, the people around you. It is truly the life learning mechanism to get you to a place of truer self to get us to justice and liberation.

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My purpose wasn't necessarily to lead the organization into its next iteration. I was very clear that my purpose was to lead a search and a process that was equitable and just and full of love and disruption. And to set things in place for this black woman leader to not only be successful and impactful, but transformational.

Leaving well means being absolutely aware of who you are in the moment and where you need to be and not be, and how to affect change for justice and liberation in a way that's uniquely given to you by whoever you believe in, God, world, the universe.

Learn more about Funders Together

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This podcast is produced by Sarah Hartley

Lacey Kempinski is a former in-house fundraiser, turned Mom, turned consultant. After more than a decade of in-house fundraising, Motherhood changed the trajectory of Lacey's career. In 2018, when she was due back to work after her second parental leave, Lacey took a leap and founded Balanced Good.

She's on a mission to better support parents and organizations in the non-profit sector. Balanced Good provides parental leave coverage – from the day-to-day hands-on work to big picture transition planning – Balanced Good believes that a supported transition to parenthood will benefit both our sector and the parents working in it.

Lacey has a bold vision that all parental leaves are viewed as a celebrated life milestone and not a feared employment gap.

She loves continuing to immerse herself in all things fundraising. While also balancing that with LEGO building, endless folding of laundry, and a love for hiking, canoeing, and all things outdoors.

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Leaving well to me is thoughtful. It's intentional. And it's critical for the missions that we serve to continue to grow, make impact, and create the change we want to see in our sector and the world.

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As an employer, just asking, how can I support you? What can we push forward? And how can we fill your role and get things done while you are focused on your number one priority. Isn't that powerful? How good would it feel if somebody asked you that when you were navigating these hard, hard pieces in life?

Our program goes through what needs to be done. Who is going to do it? What should be prioritized? What can be given grace and extended timelines? How can we push forward mission critical work and de-prioritize non critical work? And then how can we do all of these things thoughtfully to ensure that employees, not just the employee going on leave, but employees all around are satisfied? That's good staff retention. And we're being thoughtful about the humans that work in our sector.

To connect with Lacey visit the Balanced Good website.

LinkedIn: Lacey Kempinski

LinkedIn: Balanced Good

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Whether you are preparing for your own parental leave or a team member's, this handy workbook will help you walk through the steps to create a solid plan for the next! Parental Leave Planning Workbook

US Surgeon General's announcement: Mental Health and Wellbeing of Working Parents

Parental Leave in a Day Program: Helping employers and employees make a thoughtful plan as the navigate preparing for parental leave.

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This podcast is produced by Sarah Hartley

Camille E. Acey is a mom, a community organizer, a former tech support leader, and founder of the conscious nonprofit closures consultancy The Wind Down. As part of this work, she currently facilitates the Practices of Composting and Hospicing community under the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's Emerging Futures initiative. She was a co-founder of the Collective for Liberation, Ecology, and Technology (CoLET), a radical feminist tech collective. She also served as an advisor to The Ada Initiative, an advocacy group for women in open tech/culture, and was board chair for Whose Knowledge?, a global feminist NGO focused on elevating marginalized voices.

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Any chance I get when I can leave something and just say I'm not going to take on this kind of stuff for a while, I think is also really good. Not having to jump into whatever is next. And a sense of pride and not much regret. Letting go of that kind of stuff. I've definitely stepped away from things and then been so impressed by what the people that come afterwards have done, things that would have never occurred to me.

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I would like people to begin with the end in mind. I think that's really critical. One of the things I'm trying to push forward is to get foundations thinking about this, fiscal sponsors thinking about this. As part of the work of the wind down, I offer a free hotline for anyone who's closing or in discernment around closing.

To connect with Camille:

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Blog Post: A Good Day To Die: Some Reasons To Call It Quits

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This podcast is produced by Sarah Hartley

Kamilah specializes in interim solutions, serving as a successful interim executive to nonprofit organizations with budgets of $10+ million. She is a nonprofit executive consultant with two decades of experience in the areas of organizational and relationship effectiveness; change management; interim leadership solutions; and program design/project management, both domestically and internationally with NGOs and Foundations focused on advancing humanitarian and conservation/environmental efforts. She is currently Founder & CEO of Katalyst Consulting Group.

Her firm works selectively with nonprofit organizations who are serious about advancing equity. She also recently served in a senior leadership role with the Jane Goodall Institute where she led the U.S. operations of the organization's global humanitarian program and led efforts to grow programmatic scale and impact with a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion; identified and built partnerships to amplify underrepresented voices in the space of conservation and youth activism; diversified the funding portfolio; and provided strategic direction to a high-performing remote team. Kamilah has strategically and successfully managed within complex global organizations to repair and strengthen critical board, cross-department, and founder relationships and interests resulting in heightened trust, engagement, and collaboration.

Kamilah has successfully led and stabilized internal teams during several CEO and Executive Director transitions and is known for her innate ability to heal fractured teams and lead from a space of humanity. Specializing in supporting nonprofits and foundations, she also has experience working with and leading projects with DoSomething.org, New York Cares, National Urban Fellows, Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce's Southern California Leadership Network, Thomas J. Watson Foundation, and Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.

Kamilah was a World Economic Forum US Stakeholder Council Member for the Trillion Tree Initiative, an NGO Representative to the United Nations, an NYU Public Service Leadership Fellow, a National Urban Fellow, and a National Wildlife Federation Leadership Fellow. She holds a Master's Degree in Public Administration (City University of New York, Baruch College) and a Bachelor of Science in Business Management (University of Maryland, College Park).

She is also a mother to two young children, a photographer and, through Katalyst, leads executive women's leadership retreats and a nonprofit consulting mastermind community centering the needs of Black and other women of color.

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I think the biggest soapbox that I'm on these days is understanding that we can operate outside of the ways we've done business and that it's okay, that it's fun. You get to be an innovator of creating this new pathway of working in this ecosystem that's outside of the way that we think it's supposed to be and that it's always been done.

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Find or build your community. I don't care who that is. I don't care if it's a handful of friends that are doing the same thing. I don't care if you're paying for a membership. I don't care if it's your church group. You need to have people around you that are going to be understanding of where you are, that are on the journey with you, that have been there and done that. That's make or break for the speed at which you can succeed in your consulting practice.

To connect with Kamilah:

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After nearly fifteen years of fundraising for arts and education organizations, Katie Mendez launched Built to Raise in 2023, providing interim director of development and short-term fractional fundraising services specifically for small and mid-sized nonprofits. She is an artist on the side, loves to explore the world, and her favorite way to spend an afternoon is snuggling on the couch with a kid, a dog, and a cup of hot tea.

Main Quote: With my work, I'm not there to form relationships with your donors. That's not my job. My job is to help sustain the operations, make sure things aren't falling through the cracks, make sure that the team that's there is connecting and talking to the right people and asking people for their support. But it's not about me connecting with donors.

Additional Quote: Leaving well looks like making sure that when you're gone, because eventually you will leave, eventually you will transition on to something else, that the mission is greater. And I think especially in nonprofit work. It's just really centering that idea.

To connect with Katie:

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Best place to find your next nonprofit partner

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This podcast is produced by Sarah Hartley

Kemi Ilesanmi is a cultural strategist, coach, and connector with over 25yrs of experience in the arts sector. She has been executive director at The Laundromat Project (The LP), and previously Creative Capital Foundation and Walker Art Center. A graduate of Smith College and NYU, she also serves on several boards and advisory councils. In December 2022, she "left well" after 10yrs at The LP and traveled the world for a year with her husband. Now back in Brooklyn, she sees the world with fresh eyes and renewed hope.

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Leaving well means to me a sense of satisfaction, a sense of joy, a sense of doing one's best to leave in a state of respect and intention with the communities and people that you are involved with.

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I really wanted to expose [my team] to all of the parts of doing this work because I wanted to make excellent leaders of color for the field. And not just for my organization. My thinking around that was that I was feeding the field. I was strengthening the field by making them well rounded leaders at my organization.

Learning how to navigate our own emotions as well as the needs and demands outside of us was a big learning that we carry through. And was a really important muscle and skill set that we learned as an organization, because it always allowed us to say yes to other things.

To connect with Kemi:

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The Art of Gathering

The Art World Podcast Episode

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Nonprofit leaders often have too much on their plates, and not enough time or capacity to effectively choose what task or projects are important vs. urgent vs. should be delegated. In this episode, I'm sharing the well-known concept of the Eisenhower Matrix and how it can be applied to workplace transitions. Listen in to learn how to identify which tasks associated with leaving can be postponed, prioritized as urgent, or left entirely for someone else to do.

To share your thoughts with me on this episode, please leave me an audio message on SpeakPipe!

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Rita Sever has worked as an HR Director, and HR consultant and a trainer. She has worked with social justice organizations throughout the country. Rita has an MA in Organizational Psychology and is a certified professional coach. Rita has taught "HR in a Nonprofit" to graduate students at University of San Francisco and Sonoma State University in California. Rita has also written two books: Supervision Matters and Leading for Justice.

Rita is a fan of Matt the Electrician (musician), loves a good book and her favorite way to spend an afternoon is playing a low-competition game with family and/or friends.

Main quote: Tying the job responsibilities to the mission, vision, and values grounds the job description and helps people understand why it matters.

‌Additional Quote: Be as intentional as you can, as a whole organization, of enlivening your values to support the culture.

To purchase Rita's book, visit either Amazon or Bookshop.

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Sherrell Dorsey is an award-winning data journalist, entrepreneur, speaker, and author teaching the world to redefine who gets to create and participate in the future. She founded The Plug in 2016, the first Black data-driven tech news publication to syndicate on the Bloomberg Terminal, which was acquired in 2023 by ImpactAlpha.

As the TED Tech podcast host, Sherrell provides her in-depth analysis and commentary on technologies changing society, and how these advancements can provide opportunities for more underserved Americans to participate in an increasingly automated and digital world.

Her first book, Upper Hand: The Future of Work for the Rest of Us, published by Wiley in 2021, connects everyday people and communities to opportunities and resources to upskill or retrain for in-demand careers both present and future so that they do not get left behind in the sweeping changes technology is bringing across industries.

She has graced the stages as a keynote speaker, host, and moderator at some of the leading companies in the world, including Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Accenture, Bloomreach, Cisco, and others.

Her work has been featured in Vice, The Washington Post, Seattle Times, The Information, Columbia Journalism Review, and more. She earned her stripes working for companies like Uber and Google Fiber. She holds a Master's degree in data journalism from Columbia University and a bachelor's degree in international trade and marketing from the Fashion Institute of Technology.

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I think once you start to not be as in love with the work, it's time. It's your own life telling you there's something else out there. You did a great thing and now you can transition out with dignity, with respect to your team and those who helped you build. I think once you start to get that inkling, you just can't ignore it. It taps on you over and over.

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I was brave and I didn't take any shit and I cried and I fought and I grew and I learned and I sacrificed. I had to become a very different person through this process and I'm grateful for it. But it wasn't always easy. It wasn't always kind, but it definitely refined me in many ways.

To connect with Sherrell:

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This podcast is produced by Sarah Hartley

Tatiana O'Hara is Team & Leadership Development Consultant that helps successful, yet overwhelmed online business owners create the structure needed for their team & daily operations, so they can focus on scaling sustainably.

As a corporate leader turned business coach, she's helped dozens of leaders optimize and build their team, and learn essential leadership skills that have yielded hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales growth. Tatiana puts the focus on the things that matter most in our business- the people that run it!

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If we have an efficient operation and a strong company culture, you're already opening yourself up to improve your capacity a lot without hiring more people. A lot of times we think we need more people to have more capacity, but sometimes more people can actually shrink your capacity because you're bringing more people into chaos.

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When you can build your own personal leadership and build that thought leadership within yourself, it allows you to show up as who you really are. And that's what we want to see. We want to see who you really are, not you fitting the mold of who you think you need to be.

Streamlined operations and strong company culture, those two things together is 100 percent the gateway to you being able to accomplish big things.

To connect with Tatiana:

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To learn more about Grindaholics Rx

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To take the Workplace Transition Archetype Quiz

To learn more about Leaving Well

This podcast is produced by Sarah Hartley