How to Assess Your Nonprofit’s Leadership Pipeline: A Practical Framework

Suppose your program director gave notice tomorrow. Who would finish the grant reports due next month? Who would supervise the program staff? If the answer is the executive director, on top of everything else, your leadership pipeline is one person deep.

Sector data points the same way. When the Bridgespan Group surveyed 438 nonprofit senior leaders in 2015, only 30% of senior roles had been filled by internal promotion in the previous two years, about half the rate at for-profit companies. The assessment below shows you where your own bench stands before a resignation does.

What Is a Leadership Pipeline in a Nonprofit?

A nonprofit leadership pipeline is the set of people inside your organization who could take on a critical role in the next one to three years, plus the experiences that get them ready. In a small nonprofit with two layers of management, the pipeline works as a coverage map: who can step in, for which role, and how soon.

The term comes from corporate talent management, where a pipeline has many rungs between first-line supervisor and chief executive. Most nonprofits have far fewer rungs. Bridgespan found that smaller, flatter organizations offer fewer promotions but more stretch, because many responsibilities sit with a few people. Stretch work develops people, so a small organization can grow leaders well when it assigns that work on purpose.

The pipeline reaches well below the executive director: program managers, the finance lead, the development director and the operations manager all belong in it. For training and coaching options, see our nonprofit leadership development guide.

How Is It Different From Succession Planning?

A leadership pipeline assessment scores the whole bench below the executive director: who could grow into each critical role, and what is helping them. Succession planning prepares for the departure of specific leaders, most often the executive director. An executive director evaluation is the board's annual review of the executive director's own performance. The three use different data.

They feed each other. The assessment tells the board whether an emergency plan has a real name in it, and where succession planning for nonprofits will need an outside search. A strong executive director evaluation asks whether the executive director is developing people, and the scorecard gives the board something concrete to review. Organizations building succession planning and leadership development together should work from one shared list of critical roles.

If you have none of the three, start with the pipeline, which needs no board vote.

How Do You Run a Leadership Pipeline Assessment?

Run a leadership pipeline assessment in five steps: list your critical roles, name the people who could fill each one, score five dimensions from 1 to 3, review the scores with your leadership team and board committee, and choose two or three actions. Plan one 90-minute meeting and an hour of preparation for each manager.

1. List the critical roles. A role is critical if a sudden vacancy would stop a program, put a funder relationship at risk or leave staff without a supervisor. Include program, finance, development and operations leads.
2. Name the candidates. For each role, write who could step in now and who could be ready in one to two years. An empty cell is useful information.
3. Score alone, then together. Each manager scores the five dimensions before the meeting, so the loudest voice does not set the number.
4. Discuss the gaps. Where two scores differ by two points, ask why. Share totals with the board's governance committee and keep candidate names inside the leadership team.
5. Pick two or three actions. Write each one as a person, a development step and a date.

What Does the Pipeline Scorecard Measure?

The scorecard measures five dimensions: coverage (candidates per critical role), readiness (the skills and experience the next role needs), development (stretch work, coaching and feedback underway), retention (whether emerging leaders stay) and visibility (whether the board sees the picture). Score each from 1 to 3, for a total between 5 and 15.

Score the organization as a whole. For coverage and readiness, look across every critical role and drop a point if any critical role has no candidate at all. Where managers' scores differ, settle on one number in the meeting, then add the five scores. The scorecard is a practical tool we suggest, and its bands are guidelines. A score of 5 to 7 means the organization depends on a few people and should act this quarter. 8 to 11 means candidates exist but their development is left to chance. 12 to 15 means the pipeline works and needs upkeep.

Watch one trap when you score readiness. The strongest performer in a current role is often the first name written down, yet a program manager who runs excellent programs may never have built a budget, managed a manager or sat across from a board chair. Score readiness against the work the next role demands.

Why Do Nonprofit Leadership Pipelines Run Dry?

Nonprofit leadership pipelines run dry because promising people leave before they are ready to move up. In Bridgespan's 2015 survey, one in four nonprofit senior leaders had left their position in the previous two years, and half of respondents named a lack of development and growth opportunities as a reason leaders leave.

Low pay was cited more often (57%), and pay is slow to change. Development is something an organization can act on this year. More than half of respondents rated their organization below 6 out of 10 at developing staff, yet only 16% said it lacked the capability to offer the right training and experience. Respondents pointed to missing talent-management processes and a low priority on staff development, and 58% had received no funding earmarked for talent development in two years.

Our coaches see the same pattern from the other side of the intake form. Team and staff management is the most common reason nonprofit leaders apply for coaching at CNPC: 82 of 152 applicants named it. What they ask for is clearer delegation, better team communication and a way to manage staff performance, and each of those is a pipeline skill. In small organizations the executive director often wears every hat, which leaves little time to develop the next person.

How Can a Small Nonprofit Build Its Bench?

A small nonprofit builds its bench through stretch work it already has: leading a program launch, presenting to the board, owning a budget line. Bridgespan cites the Center for Creative Leadership's 70/20/10 model, a widely used rule of thumb: adults learn about 70% on the job, 20% through coaching and mentoring and 10% through formal training.

That ratio suits small budgets, because the largest share comes from work the organization already has. Give each candidate one stretch assignment a year that belongs to the next role, and pair it with feedback, such as a short debrief after each milestone. Then write it down. Our leadership development plan template turns a low score into a goal, a stretch and a date.

A nonprofit whose executive director wears every hat is one resignation away from a crisis.

Cross-training is the cheapest coverage you can buy. If only one person can run payroll or file the federal grant report, document the steps and have a second person do it once a quarter. Emerging staff and middle managers need different things, so see our guides on developing emerging leaders and middle management development.

Where Does Coaching Fit in a Pipeline?

Coaching supports the 20 in 70/20/10, alongside mentoring: it turns stretch assignments into learning by giving a leader a regular, confidential place to think through what is working. At CNPC an engagement is six sessions with a volunteer coach matched to the leader's situation and priced by the organization's operating expenses.

It helps most at two points: when someone has just stepped into a bigger role, and when a manager is learning to develop others. Over six sessions a leader learns to see their own patterns, such as how they delegate or how they sort urgent from important, and to act on them. Coaching has limits. A coach will not write your development plan or tell you whom to promote, because those decisions stay with the organization.

Individual executive coaching costs $300, $400 or $600 for six sessions, depending on whether operating expenses are under $250K, under $500K or above $500K a year. To coach several people on the bench at once, organizational coaching costs $500 per person for 3 to 5 people, $400 for 6 to 10 and $300 for 11 or more. Our coaches donate their time, which is why fees run 85%+ below market rate. More on how it works: executive coaching for nonprofit leaders.

What Should You Do First?

Spread the first round over four weeks. In week one, list the critical roles and the names beside each. In week two, each manager scores the five dimensions alone. In week three, the leadership team meets to agree on scores. In week four, take the lowest score to the governance committee with one action and an owner.

If the lowest score is development and the fix is a developmental relationship for one or more people, you can apply for coaching online.

Frequently Asked Questions