76: Ingrid Kirst on Interim Executive Director Engagements and Leaving Well
Ingrid facilitates smooth leadership transitions for nonprofit organizations. Ingrid has built a consulting practice that focuses on strengthening nonprofit leadership, especially during transitions.
Over the course of five interim executive director appointments, Ingrid has seen a variety of ways leaving well can be implemented.
She also offers executive search services and guides organizations to develop comprehensive succession plans that promote leaving well.
Over the last twenty-five years, Ingrid has served in a wide variety of roles in nonprofit organizations. This includes eleven years as the executive director of a food system nonprofit, where she built the fledgling organization to be a community institution.
Main quote:
There’s a lot of great work being done but people are burning out because they're doing too much. If we can get organizations to work together, they can cut down on some of that and really improve their efficiencies.
Additional Quotes:
Leaving well is really being intentional in how you go, and not burning bridges, not taking a lot of knowledge with you that other people don't have. But really intentionally transferring that knowledge, those relationships, so that that work can continue.
To connect with Ingrid:
Learn more about the Interim Executive Academy
Take the Transition Readiness assessment
To learn more about Leaving Well
This podcast is produced by Sarah Hartley
Transcript:
As interim leadership starts to take more and more of a front and center stage in the world of nonprofit leadership, it is crucial that we have networks. It's crucial that we have people that are aligned and in the work with us. And Ingrid Kirst, today's guest is right in that space with me. Ingrid is a fellow interim executive director, and I hope that you enjoy this chat as we talk about engagements and the different ways that Leaving well can be implemented in this work of interim leadership.
Enjoy the episode. Ingrid Kerst facilitates smooth leadership transitions for non profit organizations. Ingrid has built a consulting practice that focuses on strengthening non profit leadership, especially during transitions. Over the course of many interim executive director appointments, over the last 25 years, Ingrid has served in a wide variety of roles in non profit organizations, which include 11 years as the ED of a food system non profit, where she built the fledgling organization to be a community institution.
Ingrid, I'm excited for a conversation. For those of you listening, we're going to just see where it goes in a conversation around interim leadership. So I'd love to first ask you to tell me a little bit about your overall experience of serving as an interim ED. Great. Yeah, thanks for having me on today.
I am somebody who has experience as an executive director and after that really thought I want to try this idea of an interim. I'd heard about it from some other people and happened into an organization that just knew they needed an interim and took it from there. That was a pretty easy assignment.
Pretty well established organization, good shape. From there I went to one that was more in crisis and needed a lot of help transitioning from just a whole range of challenges and then transitioning to a permanent executive director. So I learned a lot from both of those assignments. Then after I, I got more training and read more about being an interim and just exploring it as a profession and continue to serve as an interim, just wrapped up my fifth interim assignment and each time I feel like I learned something new, bring something new and Just really enjoy that process of taking an organization from maybe a challenging point to thriving.
Yeah. Do you have a, do you have a preference or one kind of style of interim that you're, that you lean more towards, you know, thinking about like maybe a new nonprofit or one that doesn't have staff yet, where you're kind of getting them going versus the crisis versus one where it's maybe a little bit more planned, but still has a need for interim.
Probably overall the organization that's got a good plan is always the easiest. Although it can be fun to come in in the crisis and kind of really help everybody take a big sigh of relief and move on. So I guess I say I enjoy a variety of Yeah. Well, and the thing that I love, so we both have in common third sector, and I love about third sector that they talk about the transformation that can be, um, that can come about when an interim is in place.
And I think that's one of the things I love the most about the opportunity is being able to come in from the outside, but with the mission and the staff held very close, um, as important to be able to really help them through transformation and being able to see maybe what they haven't, because they're so close to the work you just finished.
An engagement. How did it go for you? And I think one of the things that I'd love to talk about today is. Maybe what we've heard from our clients, but then also, how is it for us? So I just wrapped up an engagement that was a new project for me as an interim in that this organization had never had staff.
They've been around for 14 years and been very successful, um, repairing bicycles and giving them out in the community. But they were just getting to that point where they were burning out board members who just didn't want to do that administrative back end and They were getting ready to make a big move and realized, okay, we've got to switch.
We need to have staff now. And honestly, it was a ton of fun. It was a great group of people all very passionate about biking and getting people involved in biking. And I could just kind of come in and say, okay, well, let's get a donor database in place. Let's get QuickBooks set up. Let's get some policies and procedures going.
And it was all stuff I'd done before. And that expertise made it really quick to get those things implemented. Yeah, that's fabulous. I think I, I talked with someone earlier today about, um, operations. They needed someone for an interim on operations, the side of things. And we were going back and forth and talking about sometimes that is what you need.
And it may be the actual executive director role might not serve everything that's needed. And I, I'm curious how you feel about that. Cause I also know that some folks do interim for programs work. Do you think that there's a space for Interim leadership across different parts of a nonprofit. Yeah, definitely.
So this organization, they did not expect me to run the programming. They had volunteers who were doing that. I was able to offer some suggestions and help move them towards maybe using technology better, but they really knew that part of it. And that's been my experience in some of the other positions I've had.
One of the challenging interim positions I had, they had people who could run the operations right, which was good because I didn't have that level of expertise. They needed that administrative person so I could come in and bring that so that the programs people could focus on their programs. I recorded a podcast episode, um, back in season two, where I talked about my firm feeling, and I'd love to know if you agree or disagree, that board members that are actively sitting on boards and actively voting members, um, should refrain from stepping into interim roles when there is a crisis.
I'd love to know what you think about that, Ingrid. I certainly discourage it as well. I think for multiple reasons. One, the board just does not have any sense of how much work it is, and I, you know, I have friends who have gone from being a board member to being an ED, so that's one. I think it, it does a disservice to, especially if there are other staff.
to have somebody kind of half there and not really devoting their full energy to the organization. It also just blurs the lines. It's then challenging for that person to go back to being a board member because they have been so in the nitty gritty that it can be really hard to not say, well, we should do it this way.
We should do this. Yeah, I agree. I think that it's the thing that I hear the most of when I talk to an organization about proactively planning for interim needs that they might have, and so many times they'll say, well, we've got this board member that offered to do it, or when I see an organization that's in crisis because someone has left suddenly, whether it's death or resignation or what have you, and when they have a board member step in, it's like, oh, yeah, We could have told you that this would, that this would happen.
Um, so if you're listening out there and you're a board member and you are in the space of being able to make that decision, we, we both strongly encourage you to think twice about that. What are some of the things that you would offer an organization who may not think that they're in a position to need to have a plan for interim leadership, whether it's that someone's brand new in the role, and so they think they have plenty of time, or a lot of what I hear is, well, they don't have any interest in going anywhere else, so we don't need a plan.
What would you say, based on your experience and what you've seen, you would offer someone who might think they don't need to have that in place? So I work a lot with organizations on succession planning generally and planning for that eventual future and I'm in my community starting to really get people's attention and getting people to start doing proactive planning so that when a new ED comes in, they're saying, Okay, I want to plan for my eventual departure.
I want to think about what do I need to have in place? And along the way, as we're talking about that, Okay. Uh, interims are definitely one of the tools to have in the toolbox, so it helps them with implementing a succession plan policy for the board to have in place that talks about in these scenarios, here are some different things, and talks specifically about using an interim director.
It's not right for every organization. I helped an organization recently find a new ED who had somebody internal be the acting ed. It was a very specific skillset, one that as an outside interim, I would not have had. Hmm, I could have done it and had that acting person focus on the programmatic things, but it would've been very hard 'cause it was a very specialized skillset.
And so sometimes it is important to know you have somebody internally who can step into that role and be an acting, but. In general, yeah, I agree. Just talking about it, making sure the whole board is aware that that's a tool out there someday, that they need it, uh, can really be helpful. Yeah, I agree with you.
And I also think that there's space for the work that you and I do. We can also be successful outside of an interim, like a formal interim engagement. We can come in and do audits. We can help with organizational assessments, like you said, succession planning. There's so many other ways to bring in the skill set of someone who's prepared professionally as an interim executive director to also support the organization through other pieces of transition.
So I'm glad you brought that up. What would you say, and I've got something to add to this, but what would you say are the struggle moments or the harder parts of being an interim? I think one of the big things for me is I know it's a short period of time and so I've got all these great ideas of all these things I want to do and I just can't get to them all.
So I can get some little things done and sometimes they are pretty impactful so I shouldn't minimize them but I'm always thinking long term and oh well we need to do this with the board and oh this program we could do this and while I love being an interim it can be sometimes hard to then hand the organization off to the permanent person and just say well here are my ideas.
That's up to them as to whether they implement. Yeah yeah I would agree with that. And I also am finding that it's challenging to navigate relationships because you are coming in at a time often when there's crisis or healing that needs to happen or stress. So you're, you know, you are establishing a trust bridge in a relationship right away, and then knowing when to start pulling back on that so that You can make space for the next person that's coming in to, to build those relationships.
I think that's been one of my, not struggles necessarily. And I don't hear you really saying that yours was a struggle either. It's just one of the, maybe the downsides of serving an interim leadership that is, is different than if we were more long term executive directors. Yeah, and I'm lucky in that some of those relationships are relationships I'll have, whether I'm the interim or not.
So, like our local funders, they just have to keep track of which hat I'm wearing these days, but yeah, there's definitely that among staff or board or partners. Yeah, I'm building up a, you know, I come in really focused on building relationships up front, but then, yeah, having to step that back and pass that on and help that organization grow with that relationship rather than me being involved can be hard.
And you mentioned earlier, just to give clarification, you mentioned earlier your community, you said my community, your Nebraska, Iowa is your kind of realm of where you provide services, right? Yeah, I focus on in Lincoln. Nebraska, um, but I've done work in Omaha and across the state and have really built a network through that with a lot of different people.
Yeah, that's amazing. And one of the things I also wanted to talk just a little bit with you, and maybe the person listening is interested in becoming an interim, maybe, um, you know, there's some interest there, so I'd love to talk just a little bit about Even the, the life cycle of the work that we do. I currently really rely on referrals.
Um, you know, one organization might do some work with me and then they tell their buddies, you know, you really should, should try this. Um, there's also the benefit of being partnered with third sector. Um, so I'd be curious, um, from your vantage point, are you finding that your, your clients come to you through mostly referrals, word of mouth?
Is there another form of marketing that you're needing to do for your services? Yeah, most people come to me through referrals. When I first started out thinking about being an interim, I just pulled some of the local funders and that's how I got my first couple of assignments. And there's some local non profit membership organizations where they know that I'm one of the places they can refer to.
So, yeah, it is definitely word of mouth. I've had a website, but that's not how people start out finding me. Yeah, isn't that funny? Everyone tells us you need to have a website and social media presence, and then it's, maybe it's helpful for like, making sure that we are who we say we are, but otherwise. And I think you, you hit on a good point that I would really encourage folks, maybe someone is listening who is Uh, at a foundation or a part of a community foundation or family foundation.
I am starting to have conversations with folks around providing access to the services that you and I provide to their grantees. And I think that is a really wise, whether it's through workshops or more one on one opportunities to learn or direct referrals for when that's needed. I think that's The next thing that I'm hoping to see more of is that funders will take the responsibility, not, not to make the succession plans and not to create the interim plans, but to make sure that resources are available to their grantees.
Are you finding that in the Lincoln area? Yeah, we've definitely had a lot of support from local funders wanting to actually do that. I talked to somebody at a family foundation recently who Very interested in the idea of interim leadership and they're pretty significant funders. So they said, yeah, we would love to present this to our grantees as a resource.
And have them explore these concepts as well. That's so good. Yeah, more of that please. And it'll be fun to see it happening and spreading across the country as well. Something that I would love to also chat with you about is the challenge, maybe, of when an organization is facing closure or sunsetting.
There's a couple of organizations in the UK that are doing brilliant work around closures and decelerators, which is what they often refer to it as. How do you navigate that conversation, and maybe it's not come up in the organizations you've worked with so far, but in succession planning and those kind of conversations, how do you navigate that potential that it might need to be time to sunset an organization?
Well, a couple things I think about. One is, I think it's really important to have that conversation when coming in as an interim or when talking about hiring a new executive director. Just to explore it, like, okay, is this organization still relevant? Are we still doing important work in the community?
And are we the best people to be doing it? I did recently work with an organization that needed to close. There was a lot of resistance around that. They, they had been around for over 20 years, but there was some really important work in the community. And when they were founded, they had some real value.
But now it's 20 years later, their founder and executive director who had done amazing work passed away and there wasn't anybody to pick up the mandolin, do the amazing work he was doing on a part time salary. So we really went through a community process of going and talking to community partners about the impact of this organization in the past and what it could do in the future and what the resources were as well, you know, was there really money to keep this work going?
And it took a while, a lot of conversations, but finally we were able to pull together all this data and everybody in a room together talks through the data, talk through planning for what's next. And it really helped, I think, everybody to see this information as a whole rather than just little things they were hearing here and there.
Um, and they all looked at each other and said, yeah, it's time to close it. Well, and you made such a good point when you were talking about There was no one to take up the work at the part time salary and probably an overage of hours, all of those things and that's I think what's come up for me the most is when I, when I do an organizational assessment, that's always part of my conversation is you need to be mindful of when it might be time to close.
I also love that you said you need to look at the. Uh, current relevancy in the community. Some, we'll, we'll have a couple of podcast episodes coming up in this season around mergers and acquisitions, which isn't something we often talk about in the non profit space, but I also think about that, you know, there's so many opportunities where an organization could merge with another one.
I just saw, uh, this is relevant to Omaha, but two immigrants serving Nonprofits who had long merged. I think they merged two years ago. They just came out with their new name and their new not their new website. And it's just so impactful to see the work continuing, but in a new and innovative way because of a merger.
So, um, I'm also hopeful to see more of that. More sunsets, more mergers as we go forward. It's needed. It's, there's a lot of great work being done out there. And. People are burning out because they're doing so much work, and if we can get organizations to work together, they can cut down on some of that and really improve their efficiencies.
I agree. I agree. I'll ask my last question, which is, um, how would you define leaving well, or what does leaving well mean to you? I just love the term leaving well because, I cringe every time I see a transition that wasn't a good leaving. But for me, leaving well is really being intentional in how you go and really not burning bridges, not taking a lot of knowledge with you that other people don't have, but really intentionally transferring that knowledge, those relationships so that that work can continue.
And I talked to somebody recently was talking about, you know, if you're an executive director thinks you can never leave your organization because they won't survive without you, there's a problem. And you need to really think about how you can leave and let that organization thrive. Yeah, I love that.
Thank you. And I, I think I want to pay back one more thing really quickly. You had mentioned around a new executive director coming in and having one of the first things they do be their own succession plan and thinking about what do they want to get accomplished during their time. I'm also seeing that trend around, maybe it's a founder ED who's been there for 10, 15, 20 years, who's leaving.
The next generation, and I'm not speaking just about age, but the next generation of leadership seems to be, in my experience so far, ready to commit to three to five years and then they're going to want to see what's next. And so it really feels palpable for folks to start thinking about succession and sustainability in a different way, especially as leadership stints might become shorter than what we might be used to in the nonprofit space.
Have you seen that at all? Um, in the work that you're doing. Yeah, definitely. I think it has been a transition. And, you know, when I'm talking with boards that want to do a search thing. Oh, we don't want to do this again. Another 3 to 5 years plan on it. You may have to. I mean, we will hopefully we will find that great person and hopefully you will support them really well.
So they don't want to leave. But yeah, that 10 year. number has changed and you're not, you know, I worked with an AD who'd been in her position for 40 years. I don't think her successor is going to be there for 40 years. And that's, and that's not what we should expect. I'm so glad we got to have this short, but really power packed conversation.
Um, all of the information to get in touch with Ingrid, uh, search her website, all of those things will be in the show notes. Thanks for joining me, Ingrid. Thank you. If you are an organizational leader, board member, or a curious staff member, take the Leaving Well Assessment to discover your organization's transition readiness archetype.
It's quick and easy, and you can find it at naomihataway. com forward slash assessment. It's Naomi, N A O M I Hattaway, H A T T A W A Y dot com forward slash assessment. To learn more about Leaving Well and how you can implement and embed the framework and culture in your own life and workplace, you can also see that information on my website.
It's time for each of us to look ourselves in the mirror and finally admit we are playing a powerful role in the system. We can either exist outside of our power, or choose to decide, to shift culture, and to create transformation. Until next time, I'm your host, Naomi Hadaway, and you've been listening to Leaving Well, a navigation guide for workplace transitions.