When Chidi Asoluka’s son Obi gets upset, he has a way of explaining it. “My body feels sad,” he says. At school, Obi learned to stop when that happens and breathe, tracing his fingers up and down his other hand until he feels ready to keep going.
Chidi shared that story during our conversation. Many of us come into nonprofit work because something in the world makes our body feel sad, and that same feeling makes it hard to stop and rest.
That tension runs through the current numbers on nonprofit CEO leadership and burnout. New data from the Center for Effective Philanthropy shows 46% of nonprofit CEOs now say burnout is very much a concern, nearly double the year before and the highest figure in three years of tracking.
In this episode of Missions to Movements, I brought four leaders together in Atlanta to close out our CEO series: Chidi Asoluka, Carolina García Jayaram, Tammy Tibbetts, and Kenita Smith. Each of them had already shared their individual stories on the show. This time, I wanted them in one room, talking to each other about public voice, succession, burnout, recurring revenue, and the sector habits they would change if they could.
Who Are Chidi Asoluka, Carolina García Jayaram, Tammy Tibbetts, and Kenita Smith?
Chidi Asoluka leads NewComm, an education access organization now in its fourth year. He started as a classic founder doing eight, nine, even eleven things at once and has since built a team that owns large parts of the work, including a summer program led by Director of Learning Harmony Coleman. His approach centers student wellness alongside academics.
Carolina García Jayaram is CEO of the Elevate Prize Foundation, which funds and trains social entrepreneurs over two years, including how to tell their stories more effectively. She sits on the funder side of the table, and she recently wrote about nonprofit CEO leadership and burnout for the Center for Effective Philanthropy.
Tammy Tibbetts has spent nearly 17 years leading She’s the First, a small organization with a budget under $2 million that has built influence well beyond its size by publishing what it learns. Kenita Smith founded H.O.P.E. Inc., which supports single parents in college. She built the organization from the program side and now focuses on strategy, fundraising, and a monthly donor program that has become central to its stability.
Why Nonprofit CEOs Need a Public Voice Now
Nonprofit leaders used to work largely behind the scenes. That changed around the Me Too and Time’s Up era, when leaders were suddenly expected to represent every value their organization held, and social media kept them in view. “We’re much more visible than we used to be,” Carolina García Jayaram said, and leaders need preparation and support for that part of the job.
Kenita Smith agrees that a public voice is now a requirement. “I personally believe that you have to have a public voice now because of how everything is. It is so public,” she said. Her rule is to plan before speaking. If a message might upset someone, know the outcome you want for the mission and how you will handle the reaction. Winging it is where leaders get into trouble.
Carolina added that the mission is what people see, but the thinking comes from a human being, and that thinking should be allowed to change. “Thinking is iterative. Thinking is evolving,” she said. Funders can tell leaders they have their back when an idea evolves in public.
Some leaders do not want to be on camera at all. Kenita meets them where they are and looks for formats they are comfortable with, because a camera-shy leader can still have an authentic voice. Tammy Tibbetts, who was voted most shy in her high school yearbook, grew out of it once she saw how her voice could help others. Writing openly about what worked and what failed at She’s the First let a small team punch above its weight across the sector. Carolina noted that at the Elevate Prize Foundation, getting leaders to that point takes time and trust, built over a two-year training program.
Nonprofit Succession Planning and Letting Your Team Own the Vision
Kenita Smith has a succession plan that she has walked through with her team and her board. She is identifying someone inside H.O.P.E. to develop into the next CEO, with roughly six years of working side by side and a longer horizon of about 12 years before a handoff. “They may not realize they’re being groomed at the time,” she said.
Chidi Asoluka is four years in, so exit planning is further off. What he has done is give his staff ownership of real pieces of the work. Harmony Coleman owns NewComm’s summer program, and Chidi describes himself as her thought partner on it. “We now have a collective dream and not just my own,” he said.
Carolina García Jayaram has watched some Elevate Prize winners go through unnecessarily disastrous transitions, especially from founder to second leader. She wants the sector to question the assumption that a CEO has to leave the organization. A leader could move into a new role and elevate someone else into the CEO seat. “Do I have to start over somewhere else, or could I start over here in a new way?” she asked. That is something she is exploring for herself.
Tammy Tibbetts offered a small exercise for anyone wrestling with this. On LinkedIn, she put a phrase ahead of her job title: “Driving impact through collaboration.” Separating your identity from your title, especially as a founder, starts internally before anyone else sees you that way.
Nonprofit CEO Burnout: What These Leaders Are Doing About It
Carolina García Jayaram wrote about the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s burnout findings because the numbers keep rising every year they are measured. Funding cuts and a world in crisis explain part of it. The rest comes down to how the sector thinks about the problem. As Carolina put it, “We keep trying to think it’s a funding problem. I really believe it’s a mindset problem.”
Kenita Smith pointed to self-care. Leaders talk constantly about caring for staff and participants while working around the clock themselves. “The business may matriculate somewhere, but then where are you?” she asked. “And where’s your family? Where’s your children?”
Part of the answer is subtraction, which is something I teach in my coaching. Boards and supporters keep asking leaders to add programs, events, and appearances. For Kenita, making room meant hiring a program director four or five years ago and stepping back from the monthly participant calls she loved. She still feels that loss, and she now sees strategy and fundraising as the way she supports those parents today.
Chidi Asoluka thinks of NewComm as a free jazz band, where the melody holds, and each team bends notes on purpose. His job is to make sure every bend is intentional. Carolina thinks of herself as a Buddhist monk who keeps bringing her team back to the present: what is true now, what is needed now, and what tools are available. A couple of years ago, she elevated a team member to take on much of the operational work, which freed her energy for the leadership work she cares about most.
Tammy Tibbetts has seen more nonprofits publicly close for a week or a long weekend each summer, and She’s the First does the same. In nearly 17 years, only one funder has added money specifically for staff wellness: a $5,000 addition to a grant that her team divided up and used however each person chose. “Imagine if that was just standard practice for funders,” she said.
How Monthly Giving Keeps Nonprofits Funded
I believe recurring monthly support is one of the most stable revenue streams a nonprofit can build, so I asked each leader where it fits. For Kenita Smith, the logic is simple. H.O.P.E. serves parents every month, so it needs funding that arrives every month. Her monthly donor retention sits at 82%, and alongside foundations that renew year after year, those recurring gifts keep the organization running. “Without those two things being reoccurring, there would be no hope,” she said.
When I asked why she prioritized it, Kenita said, “I got tired of asking.” Recurring gifts mean fewer asks. She started the program small and cultivated those donor relationships “like there was nothing left on my to-do list.”
Tammy Tibbetts calls the She’s the First monthly donors the Front Row. The name gives them an identity, and the CEO can write them handwritten notes. Their biggest spike came in 2020, when people responded to urgent need and had time for virtual chats, and most of those donors are still giving six years later.
Carolina García Jayaram came in skeptical. In the art world, memberships demand a lot of work for a shrinking return. She sees the same pull toward community in the Elevate Prize Foundation’s Get Loud program, a monthly prize on Instagram where people give nominations and feedback instead of money. “I really think people wanna be part of something,” she said. She plans to ask Esther, who leads fundraising consultation for Elevate Prize winners, how many of them run monthly giving programs.
Overhead Ratios, Student Wellness, and Other Funder Habits to Rethink
I asked the group to name something the sector does out of habit that nobody actually chose. Kenita Smith went straight to the overhead ratio. Many funders still treat administrative spending under 15% or 20% as proof of good stewardship. Organizations stay under that line out of fear of losing grants, even when they lack what they need to run programs well. She wants organizations measured by their impact. Carolina García Jayaram added that Kenita, who runs a low general and administrative rate, could likely use a higher one.
Chidi Asoluka sees a similar habit in education funding. Much of education reform assumes that giving a young person an educational opportunity is enough. Many NewComm students come from challenging homes and neighborhoods, and funders have told Chidi they will support the academic program but not so much the wellness work. “If our students are well, they can retain this information,” he said. I’d love for that funder to ask whether they could deliver their own board meeting message the next day if the same thing were happening in their home.
Carolina sees the same problem in how foundations divide grantees by region or issue area. In its first years, the Elevate Prize Foundation ran one program for a cohort of 10 leaders from around the world. It then brought in Esther and another consultant to tailor support to each leader and organization. The tailored model sounds like more work, but Carolina says it isn’t, because the outcomes and relationships are much stronger for it.
The Leaders They Learn From and the Text They Would Send Every Nonprofit CEO
We closed with a quick round. Tammy Tibbetts is watching leaders in transition, including former Ford Foundation president Darren Walker’s move into entertainment after 12 years and the new president leading a strategy reboot there. Chidi Asoluka named jazz harpist and pianist Alice Coltrane, whose music sounds beautiful on the surface and is complex underneath, which is how he wants NewComm to work.
Kenita Smith is reading Dale C. Bronner’s The Essentials of Excellence. Carolina García Jayaram named Olivia Rodrigo, whose Daisy Chain Festival centered 10 women- and girl-focused organizations, with $10 million from Rodrigo matched by Melinda French Gates. Two Elevate Prize winners were among the 10. I sat in the second row at an event earlier this year where Melinda French Gates spoke, and as a girl mom, it brought me to tears.
When I asked what the sector needs more of, the answers were naps (Carolina), compassion and heart (Kenita), and collaboration (Tammy).
Then I asked what each of them would text every nonprofit CEO in the country tonight. Tammy Tibbetts: “Thank you for your service and your sacrifices. You have a hard job. It would be hard for anyone, so don’t doubt yourself.” Chidi Asoluka: “You’re not alone. There are other CEOs who are also facing the same list of challenges that you’re going through. Your work is to find that community.” Kenita Smith: “Trust your experiences. Sometimes you are the best practice.” Carolina García Jayaram would send a question: “What do you want me to know?”
What This Means for Your Organization Right Now
If you lead a nonprofit, start with your own calendar. Look at where your time went last month and pick one thing to hand to someone on your team, the way Chidi Asoluka handed the summer program to Harmony Coleman. Then put rest on the calendar too, whether that is a team-wide week off like She’s the First takes or a few moments to breathe between meetings.
Next, look at your revenue. If you serve people every month, your funding should arrive every month. Kenita Smith built H.O.P.E.’s monthly donor program starting with small gifts and treated those donors as a top priority, and she says the organization could not run without monthly donors and renewing foundation grants. Give your monthly donors a name and an identity, as Tammy Tibbetts did with the Front Row.
Finally, take the advice from every one of these leaders and find your people. Reach out to two other CEOs this month and set up a standing conversation. If you are a funder, ask your grantees Carolina García Jayaram’s question and listen to the answer.
Frequently Asked Questions
How common is burnout among nonprofit CEOs?
According to data from the Center for Effective Philanthropy, 46% of nonprofit CEOs say burnout is very much a concern. That figure is nearly double the previous year and the highest in three years of tracking. On Missions to Movements, Carolina García Jayaram of the Elevate Prize Foundation attributed the rise partly to funding cuts and a world in crisis, and called the deeper issue a mindset problem. Kenita Smith of H.O.P.E. added that leaders need to apply the same care to themselves that they give their teams and participants.
How can a nonprofit build a successful monthly giving program?
Kenita Smith built H.O.P.E.’s monthly donor program by starting with small recurring gifts and cultivating each donor relationship as a top priority, and she reports 82% retention. Tammy Tibbetts of She’s the First gave monthly donors a group identity, the Front Row, and the CEO writes them handwritten notes. She’s the First saw its biggest monthly giving spike in 2020, and most of those donors are still giving.
What should a nonprofit succession plan include?
Kenita Smith, founder of H.O.P.E., has a succession plan reviewed with her team and board, and she is developing an internal candidate over about six years with a longer horizon of roughly 12 years. Chidi Asoluka of NewComm prepares his organization by giving staff ownership of key parts of the work, such as the summer program led by Harmony Coleman. Carolina García Jayaram of the Elevate Prize Foundation encourages leaders to consider moving into a new role within the organization while elevating someone else to CEO. She has seen founder-to-successor transitions go badly, partly because of weak board relationships.
Why do nonprofit leaders need a public voice?
Carolina García Jayaram of the Elevate Prize Foundation says nonprofit leaders became far more visible after the Me Too and Time’s Up era and with the growth of social media. Kenita Smith of H.O.P.E. says a public voice is now a requirement and recommends planning the intended outcome before speaking on sensitive issues. Tammy Tibbetts of She’s the First found that writing publicly about what worked and what failed gave her organization, with a budget under $2 million, influence across the nonprofit sector. The Elevate Prize Foundation trains its winners for two years on telling their stories.
Why are funders being asked to rethink overhead limits?
Kenita Smith of H.O.P.E. says many foundations still judge nonprofits by whether administrative costs stay under 15% or 20%, which pushes organizations to underinvest in what their programs need. She would rather see organizations measured by impact. Chidi Asoluka of NewComm has had funders support his academic programs while showing less interest in funding student wellness. Tammy Tibbetts of She’s the First noted that only one funder in nearly 17 years added money specifically for staff wellness, a $5,000 grant addition.
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