President | High Impact Nonprofit Advisors

Paul D’Alessandro, J.D., CFRE, is President of High Impact Nonprofit Advisors (formerly D’Alessandro, Inc.). In Paul’s 30+ year career, he has advised hundreds of clients on nonprofit management, organizational effectiveness and capital campaigns ranging in goals from $1 million to multi-billions of dollars.
He began his fundraising career as a Regional Director of Development for the University of Notre Dame. Paul is a recognized speaker and presenter in the fundraising arena and has spoken at various leadership conferences and workshops. He is also a member of the NonProfit PRO Advisory Board. Paul received his BBA from the University of Notre Dame and his Juris Doctor from St. John’s University School of Law. He is a licensed attorney in Florida, New York and New Jersey and a Certified Fundraising Executive. In 2017, he was awarded the Consulting Excellence award from the New Jersey Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

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Director of International Strategy | Faith Driven Investor

Bio:

Reuben Coulter is a Director of International Strategy at Faith Driven Investor and Entrepreneur. He is also a Trustee of Bristol City Funds, a pioneering investment fund in the UK. Prior to this, he was CEO of Transformational Business Network, a global impact investment network, and a Fellow and Associate Director for Africa at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. He was also the founding CEO of Tearfund Ireland, an international development organisation and Chair of the Irish Humanitarian Committee. He completed an Executive Masters in Leadership with Wharton, Colombia, London and INSEAD Business Schools and a Masters in Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

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• LinkedIn

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CEO | HABITAT FOR HUMANITY

Jonathan Reckford is CEO of Habitat for Humanity International, a global Christian housing organization that has helped more than 29 million people construct, rehabilitate, or preserve their homes. Since he arrived in 2005, Habitat has grown from serving 125,000 individuals each year to helping more than seven million people annually.

Jonathan graduated from the University of North Carolina where he was a Morehead Scholar. He was also the recipient of a Luce Scholarship, which enabled him to do marketing work for the Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee and coach the Korean rowing team in preparation for the 1988 Olympics.
 
He earned his MBA from Stanford before spending much of his career in the for-profit sector, including executive and managerial positions at Goldman Sachs, Marriott, The Walt Disney Co., and Best Buy.  Following his tenure as executive pastor at Christ Presbyterian Church near Minneapolis, Minnesota, he was appointed CEO of Habitat.
 
He serves on the boards of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Urban Steering Committee for the World Economic Forum.

Jonathan was named the most influential nonprofit leader in America in 2017 by The NonProfit Times. He is the author of Our Better Angels and he and his wife, Ashley, have three children and live in Atlanta, Georgia.

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• LinkedIn

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Founder | Leadership Edge, Inc

Since founding Leadership Edge, Inc in 1993, John has helped university students, young professionals and organizational leaders across America wrestle with the issue of developing a leadership lifestyle. John believes that this is essential for effective, long-term leadership of today’s complex organizations and corporations.

John earned degrees from Wake Forest University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. His professional development includes completion of the Master Class for Leadership Educators at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He has been published in numerous journals and publications including: Executive Excellence, Personal Excellence, The New York Times, Bottom Line Business, Student Leader Magazine, The Journal of the Service Industry Association and The Journal of Leadership and Management in Engineering. John’s book Leadership As A Lifestyle: The Path to Personal Integrity and Positive Influence was published in October 2001 by Executive Excellence Publishing.

More important than any of the above, John has been married to his wife Janet for over 43 years, the father of Laura, Gary and Will, and “Papa” to Shelby, Barrett and Sadie. It has been in their family that John has learned the most practical lessons on leadership.

LINKS

• Leadership Edge Inc.

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— by Greg Leith

 “[W]hatever you do, eating or drinking or anything else, everything should be done to bring glory to God.”

1 Cor. 10:31 (Phillips New Testament in Modern English) 

It’s soon to be upon us… Christmas! Christ is born. Christians will celebrate the birth of Jesus. It will be a “most wonderful time of the year” as the song goes. But wait a minute. If we ONLY focus on the birth or death of Jesus, we may forget that he lived about 33 years doing the everyday things of life just like you and me. He ran a company making things, he led a team, some of whom gave him grief and challenged or betrayed him. He was frustrated with his team at times and got cross ways with government leaders. He prepared talks given to small and large groups, he got mad and cried. He got tired, was under extreme stress, and his good accomplishments were misunderstood. He was finally killed at a young age.  

The apostle Paul writes about Jesus in the book of Philippians in chapter 2: 

“When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process.” (The Message) 

In her magnificent little book, A Theology of the Ordinary, Julie Canlis writes:  

“Jesus is not just going through the motions of being human in order to fast forward to the cross. Jesus is being fully human in order that I might become, in him, fully human once again. Jesus took on my humanity in order that I might, like Adam, live in communion with God in my ordinary life. When Adam was created, being human was part of his daily worship. As we are made human once again in Christ, this too is part of our worship, and to be frank, much of this is very ordinary.” 

It’s clear that Jesus participated in the ordinary things of life. That means when you create a spreadsheet, hire or fire a team member, write an article, give a talk, create a strategy, execute a plan, shred a document, sell a product or service to a customer, manage a process, fix a broken system, or praise an employee, you can do it to the glory of God.   

You are not just an ATM machine to write checks to missions organizations, and God does not ONLY smile upon you when you help homeless folks or sing in church. Besides, do you really think God would have created your 40 plus hours of work Monday to Friday to be an irrelevant exercise, so you could really worship him for one hour in church or one week on a missions trip? Unlikely.  

Work has been around since before earth was created. God worked to create earth. Adam and Eve worked in the Garden of Eden. In the Old Testament book of Leviticus, the priests worked to build a place of worship. Today, you are working in God’s temple. It’s called your work. What would it be like to see it as worship? Might it be time to reclaim Monday to Friday for the glory of God? Clearly, Jesus was born and died. But he also lived 33 years between his birth and death. It’s time to not just put Christ back in Christmas but time to put him back into your everyday ordinary business life and place your work before God as an offering (Romans 12:1). 

This article was originally published here by Greg Leith

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[ Photo by Eduardo Soares on Unsplash ]

— by Peter Greer

Recently, I’ve seen several organizations that I care about misstep in the succession process, sometimes unraveling years of progress and positive impact. These situations prompted me to question what more I could do to help HOPE International prepare for this moment. While there are no plans for my departure, I know that I am one day closer to succession than I was yesterday.

Over the past few months, Doug Fagerstrom, Brianna Lapp, and I partnered together to better understand how to effectively plan for succession. In our research, we interviewed dozens of leaders and board members from a variety of sectors who experienced a succession. We’re grateful for the candid ways they shared their successes, but even more significantly, their regrets, failures, and lessons learned. Their courage allowed us to learn from their wins and even more from their missteps.

We compiled our research in our new book, Succession: Seven Practices to Navigate Mission-Critical Leadership Transitions, where we discuss both the heart postures and practices necessary for healthy transitions. Our hope is that this book would be a concise, biblically grounded, actionable resource to help board members and leaders prepare now for inevitable successions down the road.

We were surprised to learn that just 17% of organizations have a documented succession plan. This is shocking, given that 100% of leaders will eventually transition!

Every leader is an interim leader. One day, we will all leave our roles, and the question is whether or not we will be prepared when that moment arrives. If you are not planning for this critical juncture, this moment of transition can derail an entire organization.

If you are a board member, planning and preparing for leadership transitions long before that moment arrives is one of your most important roles.

Phil Clemens serves on the board of a dozen organizations and summarizes, “The board has two primary roles: protecting the mission and hiring the CEO. Succession planning is one of the two critical roles of a board, yet we often don’t spend sufficient time in this significant role.”

Leaders have a central role to play in preparing for transition, but it is ultimately the responsibility of the board to own the succession planning process—even if the leader is doing well in his or her role and even if there are no immediate plans for transition.

What actionable steps can board members take now to plan for a successful leadership succession?

• Make space for the conversation. At least annually, are you engaging the entire board in candid discussions about mission stewardship and a leadership contingency plan? Every year, the HOPE board of directors asks me for the names of five people—internally and externally—who could take over the president & CEO role in my absence. If you are a board member, are you actively and openly talking about succession planning?

• Invest in leadership development. Even if succession is not on the immediate time horizon, is there a clear plan in place for staff to grow and develop into more senior leadership positions? Succession planning is ultimately about the habits and practices of leadership development.

• Create an emergency succession plan and a long-term succession plan. Instead of waiting to plan for a succession until the moment it’s required, take the time to develop, refine, and discuss both emergency and long-term succession plans each year. These plans should include a clear communication plan for all stakeholders.

It takes courage to look beyond the confines of the current priorities, the strategic objectives, and the current leader, but if we care about the mission, we will actively and intentionally plan for the moment of succession. Let’s work to ensure more than 17% of us are prepared to pass the baton well.

This article was originally published here by Peter K Greer

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[ Photo by Dane Deaner on Unsplash ]