The panic is over. The policies are written. The staff are experimenting. And yet, for many of us, nothing fundamental has changed. That's the paradox we tackled in our April Leadership Lab: not whether to use AI, but what it actually takes to move from scattered experimentation to meaningful organizational impact.
Leadership in the nonprofit sector has always demanded resilience, but the current landscape, marked by economic uncertainty, increased demand for services, and the pressure to do more with less, has pushed many leaders to what at times feels like a breaking point. In our March Leadership Lab, we tackled a topic that doesn't get discussed enough in leadership circles: the emotional toll of this work and what it costs us to keep showing up when we're running on empty.
There's a peculiar contradiction at the heart of nonprofit leadership: we are operating in one of the highest-risk environments most of us have witnessed in our careers, yet we perceive the sector as fundamentally risk-averse. This month's Leadership Lab explored that tension head-on, exploring the idea that the greatest risk many nonprofit leaders face isn't taking a bad risk … it's not taking enough good ones.
This post marks the beginning of “Lab Notes,” a monthly series where we share the discoveries and outcomes from our high-level cohort discussions to benefit the broader nonprofit community. This month, we explored the practice of choosing a "Word of the Year,” and why high-achieving executives, now more than ever, can benefit from a single anchoring theme to strengthen intentional leadership.
Management Essentials is a training and interactive program to support mid-level managers with best practices. In the nonprofit sector, talented individual contributors often advance to management roles without formal leadership training. Management Essentials bridges this gap, providing the specific skills needed to successfully transition from doing to leading people.
