In the May 15 Not-for-Profit News, we offered an article on the recurring theme of next generation leadership. Some people don't think there will be a noticeable impact while others feel that the nonprofit sector will forever be changed - what are your thoughts?

Shortage Decade: Where Will the Next Generation of Nonprofit Leaders Come From?

There are half as many Generation X'ers as there are baby boomers. This is why demographers and policy analyst talk about the impact of retiring baby boomers on Social Security and Medicare and why we hear about impending shortages of leaders and managers in every sector from government to big business to the nonprofit sector. This major demographic change is headline news regularly across the country and was acknowledged by the Chronicle of Philanthropy in their January edition with a front-page story on succession planning.

The less frequently told story is the impact of this societal sea change on leadership of the third or not-for-profit sector. For our critical social and community institutions—our local nonprofits—these demographic trends and their potential consequences are more critical for a number of reasons. First, because nonprofits have a social welfare mandate as opposed to a profit mandate, they often allocate a higher percentage of their resources to providing services than to building infrastructure or supporting management functions. Thus they have thin management structures; according to a recent survey released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, fewer than 15 percent of small nonprofits with zero to five staff have deputy director positions, and under half even have program manager or director positions. These numbers translate into few people "waiting in the wings" to take on leadership. Further, many senior nonprofit managers (in the organizations that do have them) are baby boomers over age 40. Again, the recent survey notes that 70 percent of deputy directors are over the age of 40, meaning that many in this second tier of leadership will also be leaving their positions and will be unavailable as new leaders.

Full article

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