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United Way of New York City to Train New Generation of Nonprofit Leaders The United Way of New York City has launched a program to train the next generation of New York's nonprofit leadership in light of a study that found 45 percent of its current executive directors of nonprofits would retire in five years. Anecdotal evidence that many senior nonprofit leaders were approaching retirement prompted the United Way chapter and the Clark Foundation to fund an in-depth study by the Baruch College School of Public Affairs in Manhattan. Based on focus group interviews and a phone survey of nearly nine hundred United Way grantees, the results show that more than half of executive directors and future prospective leaders say their organizations do not have professional development programs, and even fewer have a succession plan for executive leadership. Respondents cited five main reasons for the lack of professional training: cost, service obligations, difficulty in finding appropriate training, contract requirements, and a perceived threat to employee retention. The United Way has established the Leadership Fellows program to train rising nonprofit leaders at Baruch. Nonprofits, which nominate their prospective leaders to the program, are responsible for paying for books and other school fees if their applicants are accepted, and the United Way covers tuition costs. The United Way also plans to create an advisory council of volunteers to address volunteer and professional leadership development within the nonprofit sector. "Once we saw the results and realized we are witnessing a huge transition, the issue became 'Who are the next generation of leaders, what skill sets will they need, and how are we handling succession planning?'," said Lawrence Mandell, chief executive and president-elect at the United Way. "United Way has done a lot of investing in building capacity, but we weren't putting forth a similar effort for nonprofit staff. That is changing." The complete report, The Next Leaders: UWNYC Grantee Leadership Development and Succession Management Needs (20 pages, PDF), is available at the United Way of New York City Web site http://www.unitedwaynyc.org/pdf/the_next_leaders.pdf Applications (10 pages, PDF) for the first class of Leadership Fellows are also available online and are due by November 25 http://www.unitedwaynyc.org/pdf/UnitedWaySchoolPublicAffair.pdf . "New Study Says Nearly Half the Leaders Of NYC?s Nonprofit Agencies to Retire in Five Years." United Way of New York City Press Release 10/23/03. http://www.unitedwaynyc.org/?id=68&pg=102303 |