From Fear to Framework: Make Succession Planning a Normal Part of Nonprofit Life

This blog is estimated to take 4 minutes to read.

At the Foundation, we’ve been thinking a lot about how nonprofits prepare for change, especially when it comes to leadership transitions and preserving institutional knowledge. These conversations can feel uncomfortable, but they’re essential for building resilient organizations and ensuring missions thrive beyond any one leader.

To explore this further, we spoke with consultant Naomi Hattaway of 8th and Home, who helps nonprofits navigate change with care and intention through interim leadership, board development, and succession planning. She’ll lead our upcoming Succession Planning and Knowledge Transfer retreat on November 14th for our grantees, a hands-on session designed to help leaders see succession planning not as a reaction to change but as an investment in their organization’s future. If your organization is a current Weitz Family Foundation grantee and you are interested in participating in this retreat, please email me at diana@weitzfamilyfoundation.org.

WFF: What are some of the most common misconceptions you see when nonprofits start thinking about leadership transition or knowledge transfer and what helps shift that mindset?

Naomi: The biggest misconception is that succession planning equals disloyalty—like you’re planning someone’s funeral while they’re still very much alive. Leaders often believe having the conversation means they’re pushing someone out or admitting weakness, and boards worry they’ll offend a beloved Executive Director by even bringing it up. The truth is that succession planning is an act of love for the organization and respect for the leader’s legacy. Reframing it as building organizational resilience (rather than replacing a person) allows everything to shift. It’s not about a leader leaving; it’s about the mission continuing.

The second trap is believing that knowledge lives entirely in one person’s head and can be transferred through a binder or a slew of Google Docs. Knowledge transfer isn’t just documentation—it’s about relationships, institutional memory, and the invisible architecture of how decisions get made. What shifts this mindset is helping teams see that knowledge transfer starts now, not in the limited six months before someone leaves. When you’re capturing wisdom in real-time, spreading decision-making authority, and cross-training on key relationships, you’re moving past simply prepping for transition and into the realm of building a healthier, more sustainable organization… starting today.

WFF: What tends to make conversations about succession planning feel uncomfortable for leaders, and how do you help teams move past that hesitation to engage more openly?

Naomi: Leaders avoid succession planning because it forces them to confront their own legacy and longevity in the organization—and often their identity outside of it. Many founders and long-tenured Executive Directors have poured everything into building something, and succession planning feels like either fear that things will fall apart, or admitting the organization might be okay without them. There’s also the very real fear that once you name a transition, or begin talking about proactive succession planning, you lose leverage with funders, staff might look for other jobs, and board members either panic or mentally check out. These are real factors that need to be acknowledged and addressed but should not hold folks back from opening the dialogue.

I name the discomfort directly with my clients, normalizing that planning doesn’t automatically mean leaving. You can plan for succession five years out and still be fully engaged today. I help teams separate the “when” from the “how”—focusing first on what strong leadership continuity looks like regardless of timeline. When the conversation shifts from “who’s replacing me” to “what does this organization need to thrive,” leaders often relax. They can start thinking strategically rather than defensively. Honestly, sometimes it helps to have someone from outside the organization give that permission to have the conversations they’ve been avoiding.

WFF: For organizations that aren’t planning a transition anytime soon, what’s one concrete step they could take now to make future transitions smoother?

Naomi: Start sharing power and visibility right now, because not all transitions are planned. If your Executive Director is the only face of the organization, the only person in donor meetings, the only one presenting at board meetings, you’re building a single point of failure.

Consider these steps: rotate who leads staff meetings, bring senior staff into donor conversations, and let program leaders present their own work to the board. This isn’t just about preparing for transition, it also builds stronger leadership culture and develops your team’s capacity, starting today. When multiple people have been invited to speak about the organization’s work, and have been introduced to important community relationships, you’re building resilience that pays off regardless of the timing of the organization’s next transition.

A second step to consider is documenting decision-making processes, not just tasks. Write down how you decide. How do you prioritize when two urgent needs compete? What’s your philosophy on risk? How do you navigate board dynamics when there’s disagreement? The answers to these questions will capture the unspoken and invisible structure that makes your organization run. Future leaders won’t do things the same way, but providing insight into your thinking helps them understand what they’re inheriting so they can make intentional choices about what to keep and what to evolve. Readiness isn’t about perfection; it’s about willingness to do the messy, vulnerable work of preparing for change.