What’s Next? Baby Boom Leaders in Social Change Nonprofits
With its enormous size, the Baby Boom generation has and continues to make an important impact on U.S. society and history. Like many others, nonprofit sector leaders have begun to pay attention to the aging of this large cohort. Researchers and other observers have raised concerns about a looming leadership “crisis,” noting the number of […]
Nonprofit Service Organizations and Civic Engagement Addressing Challenges and Moving Forward
Nonprofit service organizations in the U.S. have contact with millions of people in need each year. As a result, local communities often view them as places where the neglected and forgotten can receive critical services. In March 2007, there was a national convening on how nonprofit service organizations can support client and constituent civic involvement. […]
Next Shift: Beyond the Nonprofit Leadership Crisis
Since 2007, there has been a rising sense of alarm in the nonprofit sector about the future of its leadership. Study after study pointed to an impending crisis, with roughly 75 percent of executive directors/CEOs reporting that they plan to leave their jobs within the following five years. Concerns about how to identify new leaders […]
From the Ground Up: Grassroots Organizations Making Social Change
Grassroots social-change organizations are a critical resource for progressive movement- building in the United States. They provide political education and sites for constituent engagement, and they are beginning to create networks across issues and/or communities; they promote home-grown leadership among groups that have been disadvantaged; they contribute to a shared understanding of the problems of […]
Social Service and Social Change: A Process Guide
This guidebook was developed for staff and board members of nonprofit service organizations who are interested in learning how to incorporate progressive social change values and practices into their work. Progressive social change aims to transform the underlying systemic problems that result in inequalities in the distribution of power and resources—inequalities that directly affect the […]
Up Next: Generation Change and the Leadership of Nonprofit Organizations
This monograph reports on the findings of a study conducted by the Building Movement Project on generational differences in leadership in small- and mid-sized social change organizations. The monograph also details follow-up sessions to discuss the study’s findings with young leaders ages 25-40 years old. In 2002, the Building Movement Project conducted in-depth interviews with directors […]
Social Service, Social Change: Lessons from Detroit
In the spring of 2003, the Building Movement Project brought together several nonprofit executive directors in Detroit to talk about the challenges they faced in their work. Their organizations covered a wide span – from health care for low-income children to food for the hungry to youth services for teens – but all had a […]
Generational Leadership Listening Sessions
In 2004, the Building Movement Project convened Generational Leadership Listening Sessions (GLLS) with young nonprofit leaders in nine cities to explore critical questions in the context of leadership transition from the Baby Boomers to a new generation. The Listening Sessions followed up on a 2002 Generational Changes and Leadership Study which examined the differences between […]
Generational Changes and Leadership: Implications for Social Change Organizations
The Generational Change project (© 2002) was conceived as a way to investigate and understand differences between older and younger people working in progressive social change organizations in the nonprofit sector. The project is a qualitative study of thirty-seven leaders and staff in sixteen nonprofits located in Boston and New York. All of the groups […]
Building Movement vs. Building Organization: Summary of Regional Discussions
In 2001, the Building Movement Project (at the time called “Building Movement In(to) the Nonprofit Sector Project”) held seven regional meetings in the spring and fall to explore the intersection between building movement towards social change and building social change organizations. These discussions—which took place in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Knoxville, New York, and Oakland—were […]