In today’s podcast, Candice Gottlieb-Clark from Dynamic Team Solutions and Stephen Halasnik from Financing Solutions discuss the importance of effective and dynamic leadership in running nonprofit organizations. Quality leadership helps nonprofits seamlessly navigate challenges to grow and develop.
Summary
Filling Your Nonprofit’s Leadership Gap
Leadership is critical in the development of every organization, including nonprofits. As a nonprofit leader, it’s important you find, fix, and fill your nonprofit’s leadership gap for effective management function. Developing your leadership skills is essential for creating a viable nonprofit that delivers its objectives. In addition, effective leadership helps make growth opportunities possible within nonprofit organizations.
Knowing the essential skills for nonprofit leadership will help you train your leaders into the leaders they can be.
Therefore, this article aims to help nonprofit leaders to identify and learn the most important skills for nonprofit leadership.
What is Nonprofit Leadership?
The performance of every nonprofit organization is largely dependent on leadership quality. Nonprofit leadership is defined as influencing nonprofit employees, volunteers, and donors to maximize their efforts toward the achievement of the nonprofit’s goals. Leadership in the nonprofit industry is replete with many challenges, which makes it unique. For example, the leaders of nonprofits are charged with directing the day-to-day operations as well as developing plans for a sustainable philanthropic motivation around the organization’s mission. 
Nonprofit leadership identifies the organization’s vision for the accomplishment of the nonprofit’s mission. Hence, nonprofit leaders should possess the requisite skills that will enable them to pilot the nonprofit’s affairs effectively.
Essential Skills For Nonprofit Leadership.
As a nonprofit leader, you understand that the best way to grow and develop your organization is by getting the necessary leadership skills. In other words, leadership skills are essential in creating a thriving nonprofit. As a result, every nonprofit leader should continuously learn to enhance their skills. Leadership skills, including public speaking, communications, relationship-building, strategic planning, delegation, budget allocation, and problem-solving, are crucial for effective nonprofit leadership.
Public Speaking
Every nonprofit leader should have the oratory prowess to speak face to face to a live audience. You should be able to change something in your audience’s hearts, minds, and actions. Plus, you should have the ability to reassure a troubled audience or awaken a complacent audience to do something important.
Communication
There’s no denying the importance of communication in every human relationship. So if you want to be effective in nonprofit leadership, you need to excel in communication. A nonprofit leader should be able to communicate his ideas and intentions in a very clear manner.
Poor communication can lead to low morale, missed opportunities, and a low-income generation. But effective communication helps rally people around a shared vision, empower employees, and build trust.
Relationship-Building
A nonprofit leader should be able to build networks or contacts with people who may be potentially helpful in achieving the nonprofit’s goal. This could be people inside or outside the nonprofit, including stakeholders, donors, employees, and more. Relationship-building entails recognizing each person’s contribution toward the actualization of the nonprofit cause. By building a relationship with your nonprofit’s constituent, you build their trust in your organization-and trust is important in the fundraising effort and growing support.
Strategic Planning
As a nonprofit leader, you should define your organization’s vision for the future and figure out your nonprofit goals and objectives. You should establish the sequence in which those goals should be realized so that your nonprofit can achieve its mission.
Delegation
Delegation involves entrusting work and responsibilities to subordinates. It enables nonprofit leaders to make the best use of their time and skills as well as help their subordinates grow and develop while performing specific tasks. In addition, it builds trust and confidence and increases the amount of expected work to be completed.
Budget Allocation
A nonprofit leader should be adept in the amount of funding allotted to each expenditure line. Knowing the allocation limit helps not to exceed revenues and suffer financial shortfalls.
Problem Solving
Nonprofit leaders should be able to provide ideal solutions to every problem. The solutions should be forward-thinking, meaningful, and transformative. In addition, nonprofit leaders should have an empathetic approach to solving issues in their organizations.
Why Do a Program in Nonprofit Leadership
In this period of rapid change, nonprofit leaders are continuously being challenged as never before-and the need for leadership training has never been greater. Consequently, nonprofit leaders should embark on leadership training to become better at running the affairs of their organizations.
A nonprofit leadership program helps leaders understand nonprofit leadership skills in order to improve their organizational capacity, manage their operational and financial control, optimize their fundraising and revenue generation efforts, and enhance their overall management, governance, and sustainability of the organization.
Why is Leadership Assessment in Nonprofit Important?
It’s important you routinely assess the impact of your leadership skills on your organization. Leadership assessment gives you an accurate idea of your abilities as a nonprofit leader. In addition, it helps you know the kind of person you are. Self-awareness is critical on the journey to becoming a better leader. In other words, it helps improves the way you lead your nonprofit and deal with others. Through proper evaluation of your leadership style, you will build on your strengths and tackle weaknesses.
Conclusion
The importance of effective leadership in nonprofits cannot be overemphasized. Every nonprofit that craves success must invest in developing its leaders for a better management function. Developing the skills of your nonprofit’s leaders should be your utmost priority if you want to reach your nonprofit’s objectives. Savvy nonprofit leaders can develop sound strategies and attract sufficient funding for the smooth operation of their nonprofits.
Learn More About Our Guest
Candice Gottlieb-Clark is a renowned Business Advisor, Author, Speaker, Coach, and Conflict Management Specialist. She founded Dynamic Team Solutions to help businesses strengthen their leaders and teams through enhanced communication, teamwork, leadership, and conflict management. Candice holds a master’s degree in Counseling and is a Board-Certified Executive Coach. She is a sought-after speaker and writer on topics including Leadership, Communication, and Team Dynamics.
About the Host, Stephen Halasnik
Stephen Halasnik is the host of the popular, The Nonprofit MBA Podcast. The Nonprofit MBA podcast’s purpose is to help nonprofit leaders and their teams. Stephen is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of Financing Solutions, a leading provider of loans for nonprofits in the form of a Line of Credit. Stephen is a best-selling Amazon author and is considered a leading authority on building great, purpose-driven businesses.
Stephen lives in New Jersey and his top life mission is to raise his two sons, Michael and Maxwell, to be good men.
