Nonprofit Leadership Books: What to Read at Each Stage of the Job

The best nonprofit leadership books are the ones matched to your stage of the job. Here are nine, on four shelves, each checked against its publisher’s page or a Library of Congress record.

All nine were written for nonprofit or social-sector leaders. Corporate development advice assumes a training budget and a steady planning year; in a nonprofit, the development budget is often whatever is left after programs.

Which Nonprofit Leadership Books Made This List?

Books made this list if they were written for people who lead nonprofits, give practical help with a real part of the job, and could be checked: title, author, publisher and year confirmed on the publisher’s page or in the Library of Congress catalog. There are no star ratings, no retail links and no affiliate links.

The shelves follow stages that show up in applications to the Center for Nonprofit Coaching: new leaders who feel out of their depth, mid-career leaders losing the spark, founders who no longer recognize what they built. Reading is one part of nonprofit leadership development; our guide covers the rest.

What Should a New Executive Director Read First?

A new executive director should start with a book that lays out the whole job. Joan Garry’s guide covers the board, fundraising and your own commitment to the mission. Mim Carlson and Margaret Donohoe, both former executive directors, break the role into parts you can work on one at a time.

Joan Garry’s Guide to Nonprofit Leadership by Joan Garry (Wiley; first published 2017, second edition 2020). Garry led GLAAD before founding the Nonprofit Leadership Lab. She pairs real stories with concrete strategies for building a strong board, raising money that lasts and renewing your own commitment. The second edition updates the book for the sector’s upheavals of 2020.

The Executive Director’s Guide to Thriving as a Nonprofit Leader by Mim Carlson and Margaret Donohoe (Jossey-Bass, second edition 2010). The book takes the job apart into pieces, including accountability, financial literacy, measuring effectiveness and avoiding burnout, with practical tips throughout. Its first edition, The Executive Director’s Survival Guide, came out in 2002. Read it next to the full list of executive director responsibilities.

First time in the role? Read these alongside our guide for first-time nonprofit executive directors.

Which Books Help Founders and Seasoned Leaders?

Founders and long-tenured leaders need two kinds of book. One treats a leadership transition as something to plan, so the organization keeps moving when the leader changes. The other is about lasting in demanding work without burning out. Tom Adams covers the first; Beth Kanter and Aliza Sherman cover the second.

The Nonprofit Leadership Transition and Development Guide by Tom Adams (Jossey-Bass, 2010). Adams, a cofounder of TransitionGuides, argues that a well-managed transition gives an organization a rare chance to change direction, keep its momentum and build capacity. Read it well before you plan to leave, alongside our guide to the founder executive director transition. If the organization no longer feels like yours, start with founder syndrome in nonprofits.

The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit by Beth Kanter and Aliza Sherman, with a foreword by Vu Le (Wiley, 2016). A handbook for finding the trouble spots in your organization and fixing them, with staff wellbeing weighed alongside performance. Pair it with our guide to executive director burnout, or with nonprofit leadership challenges if you cannot yet name what is wearing you down.

The right book is the one that changes your next decision.

What Should Board Members Read?

Board members need one book on what a board is responsible for and one on how a board thinks. BoardSource’s Ten Basic Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards covers the first, from setting the mission to hiring and supporting the chief executive. Governance as Leadership covers the second, adding a generative mode to fiduciary and strategic work.

Ten Basic Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards by Richard T. Ingram (BoardSource, third edition 2015). Ten duties, from determining the mission to protecting assets and building a competent board. BoardSource lists all ten, with a short description of each, on its free board roles and responsibilities page. If your board is still sorting out who does what in a nonprofit, start there.

Two of the ten concern the chief executive: select one, then support and evaluate them. A board that is hiring can add our executive director interview questions; a worried board can start with the signs that an executive director is struggling.

Governance as Leadership by Richard P. Chait, William P. Ryan and Barbara E. Taylor (Wiley with BoardSource, 2005). It adds a third mode, which the authors call generative governance, to a board’s fiduciary and strategic work. Written for trustees and executives alike, it suits a board that wants to spend less time on detail and more on the big questions.

Which Books Cover Fundraising and Strategy?

For raising money, Fundraising for Social Change is a how-to guide for small and mid-sized nonprofits. For deciding which programs the budget can carry, Nonprofit Sustainability offers a tool called the Matrix Map. Jim Collins’s Good to Great and the Social Sectors argues that the distinction that matters, in any sector, is between good and great.

Fundraising for Social Change by Kim Klein and Stan Yogi (Wiley, eighth edition 2022). A hands-on guide to building a broad, diverse donor base, focused on groups working for racial, economic and climate justice. It also covers hiring a development director, budgeting and what to do in serious financial trouble.

Nonprofit Sustainability by Jeanne Bell, Jan Masaoka and Steve Zimmerman (Jossey-Bass, 2010). Written for executives and board members, it puts the financial and program picture on one tool, the Matrix Map, and sets out five broad strategies to choose among. It pairs naturally with nonprofit strategic planning.

Good to Great and the Social Sectors by Jim Collins (2005). A monograph written to go with Good to Great. Collins swaps the economic engine in his Hedgehog Concept for a resource engine, since a mission runs on time and commitment as well as money. His subtitle, Why Business Thinking Is Not the Answer, also bears on whether to call the top job executive director or CEO.

How Do You Get More From What You Read?

Read one book a quarter, chosen for a decision you have to make, and try one idea from it on that decision within two weeks. Then talk through what happened with a peer, your board chair or a coach. The decision is where you find out whether an idea fits your organization.

The plan in four steps, which we call The Quarterly Shelf:

1. Name the decision. Pick the one you most need to get right this quarter, and the book above that fits it.
2. Read with one question. Write it on the first page.
3. Try one idea within two weeks, even in a small way.
4. Talk it through. Say what you tried, what happened and what you would change.

The coaching applications we receive are full of requests for advice and strategies. What many need is clarity about their own judgment. A book cannot ask why you keep putting off a hard conversation, or notice the same problem coming up three times.

When you want that kind of feedback, a coach to turn reading into practice is the next step. Six sessions with a Center for Nonprofit Coaching volunteer coach cost $300, $400 or $600 for operating expenses under $250K, under $500K or over $500K a year. Our coaches donate their time, which is why fees run 85%+ below market rate. Six sessions are a bounded piece of work: enough to see your own patterns, such as how you delegate, and to try changing one.

This week, if you lead the staff, pick this quarter’s book and put the first try on your calendar. If you chair the board, put one board book on the next agenda. When you want support with the decisions themselves, start an application.

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