Leaving Well: nonprofit leadership guidance for workplace exits and transitions

• 80: Brooke Richie-Babbage on Strategic Planning

  Brooke Richie-Babbage is a nonprofit growth strategist and social impact advisor. She is the founder and CEO of Bending Arc, a social impact strategy firm that supports the launch and sustainable growth of high-impact nonprofits, and the host of Nonprofit Mastermind Podcast. Brooke has spent the past 23 years working as a lawyer, nonprofit leader, and social entrepreneur. She has founded and led multiple successful organizations and initiatives, including the Resilience Advocacy Project (RAP), where she served as founder and Executive Director for 11 years, the Sterling Network NYC and the NetLab Initiative, both initiatives of the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, where she served as Director of Network Initiatives for six years, and the Social Justice Accelerator (SJA), an initiative of the Urban Justice Center, where she has served as SJA Director since 2019.   She has been a visiting lecturer and featured speaker at numerous graduate and law schools, including Harvard, Columbia, NYU, and Fordham. She has presented papers at conferences around the country on social entrepreneurship, non-profit leadership, and community lawyering, and co-produced and hosted the City Watch radio show on WBAI.  She served as Secretary and then Chair of the Social Welfare Committee of the NYC Bar Association, as well as the Co-Chair of the Policy Action Committee of the citywide Welfare Reform Network, and an appointed member of both the Governor’s statewide Child Care Policy Working Group and Mayor Bloomberg’s Adolescent Fatherhood Advisory Council. She has served as a member or officer of several non-profit boards, including as Board Chair for the Community Resource Exchange, and most recently as an officer for the boards of the Urban Justice Center and Nonprofit New York.  Brooke received both her JD and MPP from Harvard and her BA from Yale. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two sons.   Quotes: I think that there are two versions of your strategic plan. The internal serves as a roadmap for you and your team. It serves as a foundation for work planning, annual planning, next steps, and funding. Then there’s an external version. That goes on your website. That is your vision. That is ‘where are you taking this organization in the long term?’   There is no one way to do strategic planning. Release yourself from the tyranny of what strat planning is, and start with the question, ‘what is the organizational set of goals?’ The process can be whatever you want it to be.   Strategic planning is not a pre-structured thing. It is a set of conversations that ideally help you determine where you want to go and what you want your adventure to feel like for all the interested parties. To connect with Brooke: Brooke Richie-Babbage LinkedIn   ~   Take the Transition Readiness assessment To learn more about Leaving Well This podcast is produced by Sarah Hartley

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• 79: Shannon Curtis on Presence and Creating Joyful Community

  Shannon Curtis has been a recording artist and songwriter for the last 27 years, and has carved out a unique, community-driven DIY music career with her husband and co-conspirator, Jamie Hill, for the last 19. Her new album — 80s kids, her first-ever covers album — is due out in April 2025, and was a great excuse for her to (re)acquire an Atari 2600. She lives in Tacoma, Washington, and is in love with The Mountain, just like any good inhabitant of the Puget Sound.   “When we were forced to pause, it was an opportunity to realize that maybe we had pushed and pulled and prodded and explored every corner that we could creatively in that medium in that setting.” “I recognize that presence needs to be my goal. The idea of what is before me today to do. I don't need to take on all of the things all of the time. That's been something that I've really needed to focus on.” “One of the most powerful tools that we can use to exist and resist, is to hold onto our joy. Our joy really is a refuge and when we create experiences of joy with each other, we create a place of safety for people who are feeling threatened.” “Leaving well is being able to have the knowledge that I showed up before the leaving, that I showed up to the work, that I showed up to that part of my life with all of me in the best way that I could.”   To connect with Shannon: Website Instagram Facebook Threads Mastodon ~ Take the Transition Readiness assessment To learn more about Leaving Well This podcast is produced by Sarah Hartley  

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• 78: Julie Fogh and Casey Erin Clark on Stepping Into and Out of a Role

  Vital Voice Training is a communication consultancy out to revolutionize the conversation about good public speaking and leadership presence — from stressing out about your “ums and uhs” to working creatively at the intersection of you and your context. Since 2014, they’ve been bringing game-changing public speaking and communication training to individuals and organizations, specializing in building public speaking confidence, navigating difficult conversations, balancing authenticity and situational adaptivity, and bringing out their clients’ own unique charisma. Co-founders Julie Fogh and Casey Erin Clark are experienced professional actors — their approach is grounded in theater and performance, neuroscience, somatics, socio-linguistics, and organizational psychology. Their clients are leaders in the finance, venture capital, law, and tech industries, world-changing entrepreneurs, and best-selling authors, as well as in-demand keynote speakers who regularly bring their ground-breaking ideas and perspectives to stages all over the world.  Casey Erin Clark is a voice, public speaking, and communication coach, performer, author, entrepreneur, podcast host, and leader in both the entertainment and business worlds. She is a fierce advocate for gender justice and spends her days speaking, teaching, and writing about the power of women’s voices, while seizing fulfilling opportunities to perform on screen and stage. In 2014, Casey and Julie Fogh co-founded Vital Voice Training, a voice and speech coaching company on a mission to change the conversation about what leaders are “supposed” to sound like and empower everyone to own the power of their full vocal instrument and presence. Casey hails from the cornfields of southern Illinois (where she grew up singing with her family Von Trapp-style) and has a BFA in musical theater from Illinois Wesleyan University. She also coaches musical theater pros of all ages, is a member of SAG-AFTRA and AEA, performed at the 2013 Oscars with the Les Miserables movie cast, and sings with the Grammy-nominated and Tony-honored Broadway Inspirational Voices choir. Recommending romance novels and breakfast restaurants is her love language. Will perform the Lafayette speed rap from Hamilton on demand. Julie Fogh is a voice coach, podcast host, and interpersonal communications specialist who works with speakers and  leaders helping them navigate their individual tensions and blocks, revealing the personal power and unique and captivating humanity that exists in all of us. Through Vital Voice Training, Julie and her co-founder Casey Erin Clark blend the toolbox of the professional actor with their powerful frameworks for embracing one's authentic speaking voice to businesses, schools, and organizations all over the country including Thrive Capital, Facebook, Google, NASA and The Hartford. Julie was raised in Seattle and earned her BA in Theatre and Women Studies from University of Washington. She earned an MFA in acting from Northern Illinois University, a rigorous interdisciplinary curriculum that engaged with the physical body, the emotional life, imagination, use of language, character construction, non-verbal communication and the truth of the moment. She has studied with  the Moscow Art Theatre and University of Copenhagen and has studied Meisner Technique with Kathryn Gately, Michael Chekhov Technique with Deborah Robertson, and Movement and Period Style with Lloyd Williamson. She loves YA novels, introverts,  and her very vocal  rescue cat, Ashland.   Read the MM Lafleur piece   Quotes: When we walk into a room, every time we go into a meeting, we are there for a purpose. We always communicate with a purpose in mind. So we need to give ourselves the agency to ask why am I here and what am I trying to accomplish?   Our mission from the beginning of this company has been to expand our ideas of what leadership looks and sounds like. We do that in part by showing up with more of who we are, even in spaces where that is risky and where that may not always pay off. But we do it strategically, we do it bravely, and we do it consistently so that other people can also do it.   Leaving Well is the ability to really figure out for yourself and for the people that you care about how to button this chapter, how to transition, how to move forward.    To connect with Vital Voices: Website Twitter Instagram Linkedin   To connect with Casey: Twitter Instagram LinkedIn   To connect with Julie LinkedIn   ~   Take the Transition Readiness assessment To learn more about Leaving Well This podcast is produced by Sarah Hartley  

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• 77: People Leave; A Podcast Style Keynote About Nonprofit Workplace Transitions

  It’s time to reimagine workplace transitions and the way we say goodbye. Here’s the truth: People Leave. We leave towns and cities, and we leave relationships. We leave projects, volunteer opportunities, and appointed and elected seats. People leave jobs too, whether high powered roles and barely paid gigs.  Another truth is that organizations are exponentially terrible at preparing for and navigating workplace transitions.  The combination of people leaving and the reality that our workplaces are ill-equipped for those situations makes for perpetually bad exits. I’ve examined the way people leave, and through the Leaving Well framework, believe we can reimagine and create the art and practice of moving on from a place, thing, role, or job, with intention, purpose, and when possible – joy, and want to invite you into the conversation with this episode.   Main Quote:  Leaving Well is not just about avoiding dreaded PR nightmares, scheduling exit interviews, or scrambling to toggle off access to email accounts. It's so much more than the departure itself.  It's about the way we handle transitions, how we prioritize people, and how we ensure the ongoing health of our organization in the face of inevitable change.   Additional Quotes: Leaving Well benefits not only those departing, but also those staying behind. It mitigates the loss of productivity. It protects the bottom line of organizations and prevents knowledge attrition. It builds company loyalty and a positive workplace environment.   Creating a culture of leaving well does not sow seeds of restlessness. To connect with Naomi: Website LinkedIn ~ Take the Transition Readiness assessment To learn more about Leaving Well This podcast is produced by Sarah Hartley  

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• 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: Website Facebook Linkedin 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  

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