A sabbatical is built around trust, and trust starts with granting your chief executive a multi-year contract.
The first question I am going to ask our readers: if you are a nonprofit executive, do you have a multi-year employment contract? Not just an employment agreement, but a multi-year contract?
The next question I will ask is this: if you are a board member of a nonprofit, why are you not providing your executive with a multi-year contract? If you are an executive, why aren’t you asking for one?
Commitment can be hard. But, commitment is also critical in building a culture of trust.
by Alyssa Wilson, University of Lynchburg Bonner Intern
After a career in the K-12 school system serving as a teacher and school administrator over the course of her career, Dr. Allison Jordan decided to take a leap of faith and step into the Executive Director position at IRON (I am Responsible for Overcoming Negativity) Lives, a local non-profit organization that serves secondary students in the area.
IRON Lives focuses on positive youth development and the positive attributes of teenagers. Jordan said, “When you think about stereotypes of teenagers, you often only hear the negative. However, it’s infusing the five C’s [character, care, competence, confidence and connection] which then lead to a sixth C, contributing to community.”
I have always been an anxious person. Sometimes, anxiety is a superpower. Sometimes, it is a disability.
At the end of January 2020, when I started to prepare the organization for a possible pandemic, my anxiety was a superpower. COVID had a way of amplifying so much of what was already going on in our world and as a result, my anxiety was no different. People thought I was overreacting during this time, but there were decisions we made then that would lead to our survival later.
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