Episode Notes
Executive DirectorThe individual formally in charge of final decision making at an organization, who sometimes works closely with the organization’s Board of Directors. Sometimes a Founder is an Executive Director, especially early in a nonprofit’s growth stages. Mckenzee and NonprofitA non-governmental organization whose primary purpose is something other than selling goods or services. Specialist Julia have a series of conversations about succession planning at animal sanctuaries, including what it is, how it’s done, the many, many feelings that might come up when thinking about it, and how it can be broken down into smaller, easier steps for all animal organizations!
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This Episode’s Referenced Open Sanctuary Project Resources:
- Succession Planning: A Necessary Component Of Responsible Animal Sanctuary Management | The Open Sanctuary Project
- A Founder’s Guide To Organizational Change At Animal Sanctuaries | The Open Sanctuary Project
- Recognizing And Preventing BurnoutA physical and emotion reaction to prolonged, unmanaged workplace stress. At Your Animal Sanctuary | The Open Sanctuary Project
- Creating A Strategic Plan For Your Animal Sanctuary | The Open Sanctuary Project
- Creating An Effective Set Of Contingency Plans For Your Animal Sanctuary | The Open Sanctuary Project
- How To Create And Organize Permanent Records For Your Residents | The Open Sanctuary Project
- Animal Sanctuary Organizational Record Keeping Basics | The Open Sanctuary Project
- The Open Sanctuary Project’s Animal Database | The Open Sanctuary Project
- The Open Sanctuary Project’s Contingency Planning Workbook | The Open Sanctuary Project
Episode Transcripts
Succession Planning Part 1
Julia Magnus: Welcome to another episode of the Open Sanctuary Podcast. I’m Julia and I’m chatting with my friend and executive director, Mckenzee Griffler. And today we’d love to talk to you about a topic that is really critical to long-term sanctuary sustainability, and that is succession planning. We know that this can be a difficult and emotional topic for many people, but we truly believe that careful succession planning is something that Sanctuaries should prioritize very highly. In fact, we think it’s such an important topic, we’re going to devote a few podcast episodes to it. So, in today’s podcast, what we’ll be discussing is some of the challenges that folks may face when they consider succession planning. It feels really important to bring these challenges into the open as they might not get discussed as often as they should be, which can lead to people feeling isolated with their feelings and ultimately abandoning their efforts to engage in succession planning. We want you to know if you feel this way, you’re feeling nervous about succession planning, you’re not alone, and it is okay. So, Mckenzee, why don’t we start this discussion by asking when we talk about succession planning, how do we define that? What do we mean and why is it so important?
Mckenzee Griffler: So, Julia, succession planning is something that is absolutely critical in many realms including politics, businesses, nonprofitsNon-governmental organizations whose primary purpose is something other than selling goods or services., really any kind of organization that is expected to go on beyond the operations of the founderSomeone who starts an organization. A Founder may or may not also be the Executive Director of an organization.. Essentially, it’s a process and strategy for passing on leadership roles of all kinds in an organization by identifying and developing new potential leaders who can move into leadership roles when those roles become vacant. It can also involve planning within your organization to facilitate the passing of organizational knowledge, history, protocols, policies, and a lot more throughout the organization during periods of transition. So, like you mentioned, succession Planning isn’t simply about picking a new leader for an organization when it comes time to pass the torch, but it can and should play a part in several aspects of a sanctuary’s operations, even day-to-day. And I know first thing that a lot of sanctuary people are thinking when they hear that is, you’re asking me to do another daily task. We have so many things that we need to do. Time is so limited. Can’t we just put this one off? And fortunately, it doesn’t have to be that much work at all times. Like it doesn’t have to be this crazy thing that you’re doing every single day, but it is something to think about every single day and incorporate in little bite-sized chunks. It’s really important for so many types of organizations to do this work in advance because organizational history and knowledge like fundraising strategies, donor relationships, especially large donors and foundations, effective management and approaches towards advocacy, are often unique to a group. So, a sanctuary’s existence, or at least the way that a sanctuary was successfully operating in all of these realms, can be jeopardized when mission-critical personnel are no longer able or available to do the work or when other folks within the organization don’t have access to the knowledge that former team members have had. So, ensuring that you have plans in place to do all of these things is absolutely critical to organizational sustainability.
Julia Magnus: Yeah. And as we’ve said, we know that succession planning is one of those areas that can often inspire strong feelings within organizations. Can we talk a little bit about some of the challenges or the roadblocks that you might encounter when you start thinking about succession planning?
Mckenzee Griffler: Absolutely. And this is something that I, as an executive director and founder of the Open Sanctuary Project, have had to deal with myself. Succession planning can definitely invoke a lot of feelings and concerns in the same way that say estate or will planning can for individual humans. Nobody tends to enjoy thinking about reaching a point where they might be unable to manage things that they were previously able to do or about their end of life, for example. However, as much anxiety as these thoughts can evoke, it’s really a wonderful relief sometimes to actually set plans in place to address these situations versus existing in a constant state of uncertainty when it comes to what might happen if the unimaginable occurs. But getting to the planning phase of succession planning can often involve facing a lot of hard truths head-on. And that in itself can be super challenging both structurally and emotionally. There’s probably somebody out there that has said it, but I don’t think I’ve ever said, “Hooray, I am going to start writing my will today”. Even It’s a very responsible thing, can take a lot of stress off of loved ones, it’s just not something a lot of people like to think about, especially when they have other daily tasks going on.
Julia Magnus: Yeah, absolutely. That’s definitely on the list of things I have never said. I imagine that these kinds of feelings can get particularly heightened when it comes to someone who started an organization, like you said, you started OSP. So, it does feel like particularly strong feelings can arise in that kind of situation. So we do have a resource on this question. Do you want to talk about that resource a bit?
Mckenzee Griffler: Absolutely. That resource is called a founders’s guide to organizational change. And like all of our resources that are important based on the podcast conversations we have, it is in our show notes. Basically that resource is meant for founders who often are folks who have built something from nothing using all the skills and passion at their disposal. And it’s not uncommon for founders to experience emotional challenges and difficulty drawing healthy boundaries for themselves when it comes to their labor of love. Here are some things that founders commonly experience that might resonate for some people listening to this podcast:
• They might say something like, “They need me. My staff needs me. The animals need me. The volunteers need me. So, I actually can’t leave”.
• Or, “It’s selfish to leave because if I really cared, I would just keep working. I don’t need time off”.
• Or “what if something happens while I’m not there?”. And all of these things are things that succession planning can in fact help with.
Julia Magnus: I mean, I know that these are all feelings that I have had particularly when it comes to rooster rescue because I do a small rooster rescue group and it really does feel like a 24/7 job because you’re often dealing with animals in an emergency situation and somebody needs to be available to help at all times and if you step away for one second it can feel like a life or death situation quite literally and it just gives such a heavy feeling and it’s so anxiety-inducing at times. So definitely it helped a lot to set up systems within the organization to have people take roles and swap out times they were available and times that they wouldn’t be. It really just took a load off when we started doing that.
Mckenzee Griffler: Yeah. And working at Open Sanctuary, this organization has largely been my life for the past 8 years. So you can imagine there was a lot of periods of adjustment where I had to learn how to let go of the reins a little bit and let other people share the load and take time off for myself because despite being a digital organization, it’s still very easy to get that sensation that you are always on call and you know we get a lot of inquiries and things that feel really important to respond to and we have just a lot of conversations ongoing with all sorts of people around the world and those feel like we can’t step away from those conversations and there’s the infrastructure of running a website and like all of this stuff is constantly has been humming in my mind for all this time and so I’ve definitely felt that sensation of really grasping onto the reins and feeling like I have to do everything my power to kind of just always be on, but it’s not sustainable. And so starting to walk back and starting to trust the organization that we’ve built together to manage itself and give more people the opportunity to let me take a step back has been what has allowed me to continue to do this work.
Julia Magnus: Yeah, thank you for sharing that because I think it’s so common to experience these feelings as we have with our work. They’re so real. They’re so easy to understand. Especially when it comes to sanctuary, which when you’re an organization that is directly responsible for the lives and well-being of others, that’s a lot. But these feelings also can present challenges when it comes not only to succession planning, but when it comes to founders’ overall well-being as well as the well-being of everyone else at an organization. Can we talk a little bit more about this and some of the risks that are associated with indulging these kinds of feelings and impulses and never stepping away?
Mckenzee Griffler: Absolutely. So, you might have heard of the term founder syndrome. You might have heard it on this very podcast and you might think that that sounds like a horrifying disease that creeps around looking for founders to infect. However, this term merely refers to the understandable and all too human difficulty that many founders experience when it comes time for organizational change, including the possibility of founders stepping down from their regular roles and responsibilities for which they have generally held for a long time. Founders syndrome, I think, is just something that happens to people that care a whole lot. It’s very understandable to struggle to let go of control because you might harbor feelings that you’ve been doing it all this time, so you know best and you’re afraid of losing what you’ve built and you feel responsible for everything that you’ve built, including caregiving. And you might feel the need to have the final word on any and every difficult situation that arises in order to continue to maintain that sense of control. In the beginning of a sanctuary’s organizational history, a lot of these things are necessary because you might just be the only person who is making these decisions or even has the capacity to make these decisions. But as any animal organization grows, so too will its need for other individuals, those with different strengths than those that it takes to start a sanctuary from the ground up. Because maintaining things often takes an entirely different skill set than building things. Take it from me. Some people shine at new and innovative ideas that will allow an established sanctuary to blossom and thrive. But they wouldn’t have been able to offer these innovations without the early efforts of the founder. It’s really a team effort. These are just a few of the many symptoms quote unquote of founder syndrome. But if any of this resonates to you and you’re feeling a little bit of squishiness in your heart hearing that, we definitely recommend that you check out the resource that we’ve mentioned which is called a founders’s guide to organizational change in order to see if there’s more you can relate to there and also get some additional support. We also want to point out that the resource contains a lot of delightful hypotheticals that might be able to help put things in perspective with you.
Julia Magnus: Yeah. And again, we’re absolutely not stigmatizing founders syndrome or the feelings that are associated with it. The feelings are valid. Everyone has them at times. We’re just trying to bring this into the open so we can acknowledge this and own it. To us, it’s really important that founders have empathy and care for themselves and remain open to and actively participate in the work involved in succession planning. So sometimes the very first step to this can be something as small as taking a break so you can practice letting go a little bit and allowing others to step in. Can we talk about this a bit more and how actually these small steps can benefit everyone at an organization?
Mckenzee Griffler: Yeah, burnout is real. You can think and strategize and provide better care if you also take time to take care of yourself. No matter how dedicated any single individual might be to an organization working non-stop without a break or without any planned end in sight. It’s not only overwhelming and it can definitely undermine your own capacity, but also you might be inadvertently shutting others out from the opportunity to rise to the occasion and help you both by taking the burden off some of your current task and also from learning from you in the process. And wow, just saying that out loud, I’m just like, uh, I I need that message. I need to hear that. that I’ve been in the hot seat for a long time and this is still really important information to hear for anyone in a leadership position. Founders and leaders much like myself who are willing to step back and give their staff and board or in the case of micro sanctuaries maybe trusted helpers in the community the chance to experience running the organization without them creates important space for organizational growth and increased breath. Your board and staff need to be able to practice running the sanctuary in case there’s a time where you can’t do so. This also gives everyone the chance to see where organizational strategies and where protocols might need improvement. You might even find that new ideas bubble up when there’s space for them. And you might find ways to streamline tasks or processes at your organization that you might have just kind of been doing automatically, but they’re not the most efficient. And sometimes when other people are cross-trained, you and say, “Oh, wow. There’s a way we could be doing this that’s 20 times faster or just a lot better for everybody involved”. So, that cross-training aspect really becomes a critical tool in the sanctuary world. And finally, if you’re a founder and you’re able to step back and take these lessons to heart, it also sets a good example for your staff who often feel the pressure to consistently sacrifice their own needs in order to care for residents. If self-care is modeled to staff from the top, then they too can feel empowered to recharge their batteries, which can increase their capacity and abilities at your organization. You’ll have a much healthier work ecosystem as a whole, which is always a great way to promote your organizational sustainability and keep your staff around, which is very important.
Julia Magnus: And yeah, these lessons, these bear repeating so much. just you have to repeat it to yourself over and over because it is very easy to creep back into the feeling of never being able to take a break. And so this will take practice. It will take time, but it’s worth the practice and the effort to consciously take time, step back and let go and let other people have a chance. So ideally, one key first step toward succession planning can look as simple as organizational founders engaging in self-care, taking breaks, letting others step in, modeling that to their staff, and encouraging their staff to do the same for themselves. So, I know in this episode, we’re focusing heavily on what founders and organizational leaders can do as individuals to face the emotional challenges of transition and succession planning. In our next episode, we plan on moving on to succession planning at kind of a more organization-wide level. But for now, what are some other tips that we have on deck for founders and others who are facing organizational change and might have a little anxiety over that?
Mckenzee Griffler: So, if you’re listening to this podcast and you’re a founder and you’re taking this seriously, that is an incredible start because the first tip is to self-evaluate and get honest about your fears. Take time to evaluate your thoughts, your feelings, your behaviors, any squishiness that comes up. Note any red flags or even yellow flags that you might be struggling with and seek support for those things. Be open to change. Change is very hard, but it is the only constant in this universe. You got to allow room for others to pick up the torch and run with it if you want your organization to continue to exist when you’re done working at it. And in one way or another, we’re all going to have to leave the organizations behind that we are a part of. Again, practice self-care. Try to be gentle with yourself. Take breaks. Seek out a hobby and a support network outside of the sanctuary. If you have an opportunity to seek it, consider therapy to help you through periods of adjustments because it’s a show of real strength to ask for help or even just ask an objective person to help process things that you’re going through. One little side tip if you’re a little bit more techy is for whatever reason the chat GTP AI model has actually gotten very good at being a talk therapist and you can literally just say can you do some cognitive behavioral therapies from CB for me and act like my therapist and then you can just have a conversation with them and that’s free and it does really work for some people and you can just try it out anonymously. So that’s a tip if therapy seems inaccessible to you. Another tip, just start small and delegate. Give enthusiastic staff members the opportunity to handle sanctuary responsibilities and support their efforts where you can without micromanaging them. Give people an opportunity to feel things out. Give them an opportunity to see what you do and just see how they do it. You know, know when to let go. It is okay. It’s only human to feel sad or anxious and to grieve your role at the sanctuary that you built, even if you’re still doing that role. So, just let yourself feel these things. One thing that I heard once from a therapist is don’t sh on yourself, the word should, because they’re just feelings and you don’t need to judge the feelings. You can just feel your feelings. Just don’t let them stop you from taking important transitional steps. Listen carefully to feedback both about the organization and your leadership. You should be soliciting genuine feedback from your staff or volunteers and try to make positive changes where warranted. Sometimes it can be valuable to specifically ask for three positive pieces of feedback and three constructive pieces of feedback from individuals and really ask for three and three because that way people feel like they can be fully honest rather than trying to avoid causing hurt feelings and not providing honest appraisal. One note about that, I’ve always loved that. That’s like one of my favorite things to do. And sometimes what you’ll find is people will say, “Well, it was hard for me to come up with three pieces of criticism cuz you’re really great, but I noticed this one little thing. It’s not a big deal”. But then if 20 people all tell you that that one little thing as a piece of feedback, then it’s something to look at. And no one has to feel like they’re being super harsh towards you and you got an opportunity to grow. And it’s great. Right. Finally, find peer support either from those working at other animal organizations, at other nonprofits, or just friends who have an idea of what you’re going through. Talking to folks who can relate to your struggles is highly valuable, both for one’s mental health and to help find actionable solutions to difficult problems. Those are some amazing tips, not just for folks in organizational leadership who want to start succession planning, but generally it’s really good for anyone who might be feeling some anxiety, stress, or just some kind of way about this. It is a process. It will take practice. But as challenging as it can be to let your baby grow up, it’s wonderful to acknowledge that you took the tough step of starting something amazing and nurturing it to this point. And now you can give it the opportunity to fly, to flourish with the help of others who can see the potential in your organization and develop it even further.
Julia Magnus: So thank you Mckenzee so much for running through all those tips and also just for your personal insight on that. We really do hope that this episode proves helpful to you when it comes to navigating your feelings around succession planning. Again, the resources we mentioned in our discussion have been dropped in the show notes for your further perusal. Hopefully, you go check those out and do stay tuned because our next episode is going to be dedicated to some of the nuts and bolts of succession planning. If there are more subjects that we can cover that would be useful to you, please let us know. Contact us via our contact page at open sanctuary.org. We’re always happy to hear community feedback and welcome suggestions for new resources. As always, if you found this information valuable, please consider leaving a five-star review or a review on Spotify if you’re listening on Spotify. Also, if you like what we do and would like to support our work, we warmly welcome donations. We are a 501c3 organization, so your donations are tax-deductible and help us sustain our missionThe stated goals and activities of an organization. An animal sanctuary’s mission is commonly focused on objectives such as animal rescue and public advocacy. of providing freely accessible resources so that every sanctuary can be a success story. Thank you for listening. Thanks for your support and we look forward to talking to you next time.
Succession Planning Part 2
Julia Magnus: Welcome to another episode of the Open Sanctuary Podcast. I’m Julia, the nonprofit specialist and I’m chatting with Mckenzee Griffler, my friend and executive director. Today we’re back to talk to you again about succession planning. In our last episode on this subject, we discussed some of the challenges and the emotions that can come up with respect to succession planning. It’s almost inevitable that it will bring up feelings and that’s okay. You’re not alone. Luckily, one of the solutions to all these feelings is actually letting go, engaging with your team, and creating a succession planA formal or informal plan of what happens when a Founder, Executive Director, or other major member of an organization leaves the organization or is incapacitated. together. ing in to support one another. Ultimately, thoughtful succession planning is a team exercise that should be incorporated into multiple aspects, including some day-to-day aspects of a sanctuary’s operations, and it really can go such a long way to making everyone feel better. So, let’s dive in and talk about how you actually do it. Let me ask a starter question, Mckenzee. When should an organization start engaging in succession planning?
Mckenzee Griffler: Ideally, yesterday because honestly, The earlier you can get started with succession planning, the better it’s going to go, the easier it’s going to go, the more things you’re going to realize you have not told your team about. Succession planning should be seen as a part of contingency planning really. And it’s never too soon to envision possibilities and anticipate possible responses. The better prepared an organization is earlier on in its organizational history, the more robust that organization will be and the stronger the likelihood that a and survive or withstand a sudden change or a crisis or even come out stronger from those situations. All this being said, we understand the day-to-day work of direct animal care is very immediate and can be very all-encompassing. And we also know how quickly a routine health checkThe Open Sanctuary Project uses the term "health check" to describe health evaluations performed by caregivers who are not licensed veterinarians. While regular health checks are an important part of animal care, they are not meant to be a replacement for a physical exam performed by a licensed veterinarian. becomes a minor emergency that takes up a couple days of your time. Finding time to do anything other than these critical tasks can often be an obstacle in and itself. However, setting aside a small amount of time to regularly discuss succession planning with your entire team will ultimately be time very well spent when the need to execute your plan arises. Succession planning also provides an excellent opportunity for your team and board to reflect upon the mission of your organization and truly think about how it should evolve and grow as time passes as all organizations missions will.
Julia Magnus: Okay. So, what should succession planning look like from a governance perspective? Is it a specific policy that you want to make? How does all of it work? Are you going to build it into different systems? Tell me about that.
Mckenzee Griffler: Ideally, it’s a really good idea to have a well-maintained internal policy outlined that is dedicated specifically to the topic of succession. Making sure that your organization is familiar with this policy is really important. in the dreaded event that an emergency arises and you need to be clear on who is responsible for what decisions. But succession planning is so much more than this really critical possibility. In addition, succession planning should be part of your sanctuary strategic plan to help cement your organization’s path to sustainability and to demonstrate organizational maturity to potential donors who might want to know this kind of information, especially if you’re still operating at as the founder, executive director, as one person. A lot of donors want to know what are you going to be like in 10 years? What are you going to be like in 30 years? And if you say, “Well, I don’t know. It’s just going to keep being this. It’s going to keep being me.” A lot of donors are going to tilt their head and say, “Okay, but what about when it’s not you?” And they want to see that you’re taking care to think about these things, especially when it comes to caring for a population of individual animals who might have very long lives. And And it is not just a responsibility to your organization. It’s a responsibility to those in your care to know that they’re going to be taken care of when you can no longer do your job as the founder. And finally, succession planning should be integrated into your sanctuary’s contingency policym. So basically, if it arises that a critical team member or active founder is suddenly unable or unwilling to perform their duties, you have to know how to keep the sanctuary running. And at times like that, having a very easy to follow, everyone’s discussed it just bulleted list of things that have to happen and who’s going to do those things and what’s their phone numbers if they’re not on site is critical.
Julia Magnus: Mhm. So, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of it when it comes to crafting a succession plan. So, what are the elements that you’re going to want to sit down with your team, consider, and include in your plan?
Mckenzee Griffler: So, I would say at the very top of this document, you should have a statement of purpose. And that is just a basic easy to understand explanation of what the succession plan is, when it should be executed, and how often it should be reviewed. This is a very simple measure to keep the whole organization on the same page of the plan’s purpose, and how to maintain its relevance throughout time. Because elements of your succession plan are likely going to change before it actually happens. And that’s a good thing because you’re allowing different outcomes to evolve as your organization evolves. People leave, people move, all sorts of things happen. And it’s just a good idea to always have the most relevant document possible for when change needs to happen. You’re also going to want to think about the different kinds of considerations that come into play when planning for the succession of various roles. In our last episode, we talked about the emotions and feelings that are come along with succession planning and in particular those that are specific to founders. In this episode, we’re going to focus more on the logistical aspects of founders transitioning, the nuts and bolts of it.
Julia Magnus: Yeah, it really feels like founder transition is probably one of the most important elements of succession planning because sanctuary founders tend to have years of knowledge, relationships, and legal responsibility for many parts of the sanctuary. And it’s particularly important if a founder is also the executive director. When a founder leaves, there can be a very stressful and fraught transition period without about thorough planning. So, our resource on succession planning actually gives a checklist of things that your organization can talk about as a team when you’re looking at a founder transitioning their role. Maybe we can run through some of those questions.
Mckenzee Griffler: Sure thing. Do they have an idea or an established timeline for when they’d like to step away from the organization? And it doesn’t have to be set in stone. It doesn’t have to be like the founders’s expiration date or anything, but have they thought about it at all? What should the structure of the organization look like without the presence of the founder? Either they’re absent indefinitely or they’ve decided to leave. What does it look like without them? If the founder is acting as the executive director, what are necessary attributes, skills, or commitments that the board should look for in replacing that position? How will the organization, land, property, and animals be treated in terms of legal considerations? Because unfortunately we live in a world where animal residents are legal property and that can get very tricky if a founder leaves an organization without a lot of documentation and a lot of planning depending on how the sanctuary is founded. Will there need to be a trust or a will established for the continuation of its mission? And this is where our frequent rejoinder comes in that we are not your lawyers but we really hope that you have a good relationship with with a legal expert in your area who understands the laws that govern where you live because it’s going to look different for every organization. Next up, what does a founder know or have access to that others will need in order to run the organization? And this one can get really tricky, but we’re talking websites, login, accounts, people, dumb little fixes, all the stuff that you might just have in your head as the founder that you haven’t actually said out loud to other people or thought about their need to access those things. It might be really helpful just to keep a secure document on your computer or on your organization’s Google Drive or wherever. Whenever one of these things comes up, just write it down what it is, how to access it, why it’s there, so that these little nuggets of wisdom and hard one fixes don’t disappear. This is something I’m working on as a founder because I have hundreds of these little things, these little websites, people that are solving minor issues that would be very bad for the organization, the Open Sanctuary Project, not to have in my absence. So, breaking it down into just a little side project can be very helpful. And we have other questions in that resource. But last one here, is there a plan set in place to reassure donors or raise extra funds in a possibly financially unstable transition period, such as implementing a fundraising legacy campaign in honor of the departing founder in order to keep the organization financially comfortable. able through what can be a challenging or uncertain transition process. Especially if the donors have a very specific personal relationship with the founder, they might, for better or for worse, see the founder kind of as the organization. So there might be a lot of uncertainty among major donors. So having a transition plan that you can transparently share with donors where appropriate and saying, you know, we’re so excited the founders moving on, the organization’s moving on, the next iteration. We’re all happy about this. We’re raising money in honor of all the work they’ve done so that we can continue this work is a really helpful strategy when you’re going through these periods.
Julia Magnus: So, it probably bears repeating at this point, but addressing all these questions as a team, as an entire team, seems really key. Obviously, you can as a founder potentially have these conversations in your own head, but if you don’t share them, then it’s not so helpful. Let’s circle back for a second to this founder as an individual. So, in our last episode, we talked about things that they can do to take care of themselves and others during a transition period, but what are some practical things that they can do that might assist their team during this discussion process to prepare for and facilitate organizational change?
Mckenzee Griffler: I think first off, treating it like a contingency planA formal or informal course of action planned for certain events, especially emergencies that a sanctuary might face. is probably the best thing to do. So, that means creating a plan that proactively deals with all of the things that you as the founder or the board are concerned might happen when you leave. For instance, are you afraid that you have been the strongest link to the community or the public image of the organization? Or are you the only person that talked to the major donors and do you insulate them from the rest of your staff or volunteers? So, you can determine a way to proactively deal with these challenges as a team. And usually what that means is giving people a little bit more of the experience of managing these things and talking to these people so that they can see the organization isn’t just the founder but I think really working through these things as a team and talking about these things and brainstorming and solutionizing can really be helpful in this space. You should also choose board members based on their commitment to the sanctuary not to you as an individual as the founder. Ideally the board will help expand the board themselves but this can be a challenge in the beginning. So carefully choose a board member or two who are truly dedicated to the mission of the sanctuary and allow them to recruit other board members. Not only will that help you during a succession planning event or just a succession in general, but it will also bring in more diverse opinions and keep the organization really running the best it can run and prevent maybe unintentional cases where the board is just rubber stamping what the founder says. Even if the founder doesn’t want that another important thing to do is clarify the roles and responsibility of the board and staff, especially in transition periods or when creating and expanding staff positions so that everybody knows exactly what they should be doing during these different periods of transition. And then nothing important gets lost or forgotten about because everything already has an assignment until somebody else can take the mantle in most of these things. And last but not least, establish checks and balances so that that one person doesn’t hold veto power over the entire border staff. No single person, not even the founder, should have veto authority or give the appearance of having veto authority. It’s just not the way that a healthy organization is run. If you feel as a founder that that should be your right, I’m sorry. If you’ve created an organization that is a nonprofit, either legally or just an ethos, it’s bigger than you and it’s important to honor that. And you’re going to have a stronger organization if you do it.
Julia Magnus: Totally agree with that. Those are really practical, helpful tips for founders who are succession planning. So, let’s recap and look ahead. In episode one of the series, we did talk about the emotional aspects of founder transition. This episode, we covered the practical steps that founders can take to facilitate transition. In our very next episode, we’re going to talk about succession planning when it comes to other wolves at the sanctuary and the nuts and bolts of that. So stay tuned for that. Again, the resources that we mentioned in our discussion have been dropped in the show notes for your further perusal. So hopefully you go check those out. If there are more subjects that we can cover that would be useful to you, please feel free to contact us via our contact page at open sanctuary.org. We’re always happy to hear community feedback and welcome suggestions for new resources. We also welcome your feedback on this podcast. So if you found this information val Please consider leaving a fivestar review either on iTunes or on Spotify. It genuinely helps other people who might be doing this work access the podcast and therefore access our other resources. And as always, if you like what we do and would like to support our work, we warmly welcome donations. As we always say, we are blessed to be a 501c3 organization. So your donations are taxdeductible and help us sustain our mission of providing freely accessible resources worldwide. so that every sanctuary is a success story. Thank you for listening. Thank you for your support and we look forward to talking to you next time.
Succesion Planning Part 3
Mckenzee Griffler: Welcome to another episode of the Open Sanctuary Podcast. I’m executive director of the sanctuary project Mckenzee Griffler and today I am chatting with my friend and colleague Julia Magnus. Today we are back to talk to you again about succession planning. In our very first episode on the subject, we discussed some of the challenges and the emotions that can come up with respect to succession planning for founders. In our second episode, we talked about founder transition specifically and practical steps that founders can take to ease transitions. Now, We’re going to talk about other roles at the sanctuary as well as some additional tools that you can use for passing on organizational knowledge and history. First and foremost, let’s give the reminder that succession planning is a team exercise that should be incorporated into multiple aspects, including day-to-day aspects of a sanctuary’s operations. And really, this can go a long way to making everyone feel better. To dive into our third podcast, obviously founders are not the only key role at an animal sanctuary. Sometimes to a founder it might feel that way, but there’s a lot of people that are involved in making an animal sanctuary a success story. There are so many other critical roles that can be important in these organizations which are very important to have succession plans for. So why don’t we talk a little bit about succession planning around an executive director transition which might not necessarily be the founder.
Julia Magnus: Yeah, it’s important to note that in a lot of cases Executive directorsThe individuals formally in charge of final decision making at an organization, who sometimes work closely with the organization’s Board of Directors. Sometimes a Founder is an Executive Director, especially early in a nonprofit’s growth stages. may also be the founders. So all of the tips that we’ve given so far would apply in those cases, but sometimes EDs are not the founders. Regardless, they’re absolutely critical because they are ultimately responsible for the successful management, maintenance, and growth of the sanctuary. So there has to be a lot of careful succession planning considered for executive directors or the equivalent acting team member at your sanctuary. So in our resource on succession planning which we will have in the show notes, we’ve created a tick list of things that you should think about when you’re planning around succession of your ED. And it’s worth running through them here. So thing one, there should be a thorough job description of what the executive director does and what ideal qualities a replacement should have. If the executive director cannot serve or must take a leave of absence, how are their roles and duties going to be distributed amongst the rest of the organization and who will fulfill which duty specifically? Make sure that all the team members who are identified in this plan are aware of it. That’s always a very helpful step. Yeah, it sounds a little cheeky, but it’s true. You know, in addition to it being important that this is a team effort, that succession planning feels like something that everyone can carry together. It’s really important that if somebody critical to this document is mentioned that they’re aware and have consented to it because you don’t want to just drop on, you know, let’s say your next door neighbor, “Sorry, you’re in my succession plan. You got to take care of these chickens.” Yeah, that would be a surprise for sure. We don’t want the surprises. So, next thing is there should be a clear description of the role that your sanctuary’s board is going to play in overseeing the transition, which can include things like the hiring and oversight of an interim executive director, determining salary, assigning responsibilities, and whether there’s maybe a transition committee on the board.
Mckenzee Griffler: Hey, Julia, what is an interim executive director?
Julia Magnus: Well, essentially, you might elevate somebody at your organization for the interim period until the time that you find a new executive director. That might be one way to fill the gap. You may ultimately end up making an interim director a permanent director, but basically it would be the person who steps in during the transition period to fulfill the duties and roles of the executive director prior to making a permanent decision on who’s going to take that seat. And it might be somebody within your organization or it might be somebody outside of your organization. But again, an important thing to think about.
Mckenzee Griffler: And yeah, the next thing is if you have someone in mind already to succeed your executive director, do you have cross-training and documentation in place that’s going to help them transition comfortably and effectively versus just dropping them into the seat and there you go? Want to avoid that. Make sure that you make it as easy as possible. And this will include things like providing confidential access to mission-critical documents like permits, business licenses, applications, grant letters, your donor and funder information, keys for all the buildings and vehicles, bank account information, insurance information, passwords, and other elements that have accumulated as your sanctuary has grown. Yeah. If you know all the important things in your executive director junk drawer, and you’re like, “Well, I know what that’s for,” maybe emotionally it’s time to sit down and say, “Okay, this is actually a little spring that helps this tractor run, and we need to not lose it. It’s a backup.” It sounds so silly. It sounds really time-consuming, but if you’re not there to explain it, you don’t want it to go in the trash. You should definitely document everything. It’s also potentially a time where you might consider reinvisioning the role of the executive director. You might want to think, do you want to split that role into multiple people’s responsibilities? If your previous ED was completely overwhelmed and overworked, that might be an option to consider. So many times as a sanctuary rapidly grows, the first ED will end up taking just a great deal of work on all the responsibilities that might just be more effective if it was split between multiple teams or multiple people in the future. Just speaking as a current executive director, I have to imagine that whenever I am succeeded, whoever takes on the reins of Open Sanctuary is going to have a different outlook for it and they’re going to have a different skill set than I do and they might really divide the role into a lot of different responsibilities by a lot of people and that’s a good thing. It’s a sign that your organization is evolving and it’s changing necessarily and it’s good just to allow things the opportunity to really grow and change.
Julia Magnus: Yeah. And then also you’re going to want to think about salary. So what would the salary requirements be for a qualified replacement executive director? Some founders spend their entire time at an organization taking little to no salary despite their intense time commitments and responsibilities. So it’s very likely that if you are going to find a qualified replacement for such a person, the organization will have to build in the budget to pay the next executive director. And that is no small feat in the existing budget of many animal sanctuaries. So that’s something to really work towards especially if you are planning on having a founder executive director who’s not taking a salary who might be thinking about leaving the organization in the near future. So then finally, you’re going to want to think about who should be contacted and how in the event of a succession. Do you need to contact, for example, major donors, other sanctuaries who could help you, volunteer leaders? You probably want to have a list of folks that should know and who’s going to be responsible for contacting them.
Mckenzee Griffler: And ideally, these people, there’s already been a discussion that this is a possibility, that this is something that you’re working towards, that this is something that is a cause for celebration, and this is a new chapter in the organization. But it doesn’t always happen that way. Sometimes people have to step away for reasons that are less than pleasant. And it’s really important to keep all this information as neatly and simply documented somewhere as possible that everyone has access to. So we talked about the executive director. We know that a lot of sanctuaries have other staff positions. What should we think about when it comes to succession planning for other positions? Recently we did a podcast where we discussed a lot of possible roles that many animal sanctuaries have and a lot of them have some really critical duties. So what kind of tips do we have when it comes to succession and planning for other roles?
Julia Magnus: Yeah, depending on how your organization is structured, you may also want to craft similar succession plans for other agreed upon key positions. And these might be positions like assistant director, your finance director, your animal care director, your development director, or really anyone else who is instrumental in how your sanctuary is run and sustained. Succession planning for these positions should all have well-defined and frequently updated job descriptions so that anybody who takes over can integrate as seamlessly as possible into the organization structure and needs.
Mckenzee Griffler: And it goes without saying that these are succession plans that these roles as well as the board should have active participation in completing and you know people should really check each other’s work on these things and be like hey I noticed that you don’t mention XYZ in this document but it seems to be something that you do a lot like can you speak to that in this document and you know sometimes we do things in all sorts of positions that are so automatic ’cause it’s just the thing that we do that we don’t think about documenting them or writing them down or like if they could be done differently. So really getting feedback from others who might be shadowing you or just know your routines can be really helpful for making sure that you’re not missing anything really critical through any of these succession plan steps. Yeah. And another role that you’re going to want to think about is your board members. They’re key players at your organization. So when a board member wants to leave, it’s important to have a strategy in place to find additional members. Evaluate the current skills and experience that your board offers your organization. If somebody leaves, what knowledge and experience gaps would be ideal to fill for the future of your organization? And come up with a strategy to help identify, invite potential new members. Sometimes board members might feel obliged to stay on at your organization long after they’d wish to remain. So, having a succession plan strategy can give them peace of mind that they can continue to support the organization until they feel like they’re no longer contributing as much as they’d like. And it can give them the chance to cultivate new energy and perspectives when they want to depart. And I think founding board members might run into a similar emotional energy as founder syndrome as we discussed in the first episode in this series. Sometimes when you’re there at the beginning, you feel like I hold all these hats. I have all these relationships. I provide all this perspective. I’ve been in it this long. I got to just keep going with it. But much like a founder, executive director, a founding board member needs to know when it’s time to give somebody else the opportunity to shine and bring their own perspectives and also play their part in growing the organization into its next iteration. So, we’ve mentioned that there are multiple realms of organizational operation where succession planning can come up. Succession planning isn’t just about the transition of specific people or roles at your sanctuary. It’s also about maintaining and passing on organizational history and knowledge over time. So, let’s bring up two other related subjects that bear mentioning. The first is record-keeping. How does record-keeping help with succession planning? So, as we’ve mentioned, when key personnel transition from their roles, replacing them as individuals is not the only thing you have to think about. You also have to think about transferring their knowledge, the organizational knowledge they carry, the history that they have and even more. So having great organizational record-keeping practices is one way that you can ensure that the hard work that you put into building knowledge is preserved and maintained over time. So this includes both record-keeping with respect to your residents and record-keeping with respect to your organization. We do have resources on both of these subjects which we are going to list in the show notes. And we also want to give another shout out to Kyle Barend who helped us develop our brand new database for resident record-keeping. Using a system like this ensures that important knowledge about your residents is accessible to everyone at your organization and is not just held by one or two individuals in their head.
Mckenzee Griffler: Yeah, we want to get the information and the knowledge into something other than just our head. It can be a secure thing. Maybe it’s an envelope that you tape shut and you say, “In case of me not being here for whatever reason, here’s what you need to know. Don’t open it otherwise.” If you need to do that, that’s fine. But you got to write it down somewhere because there is just too much information in any one founder’s head that cannot be lost without incurring a lot of chaos on an organization.
Julia Magnus: Mhm. Yeah. Another really important area with respect to record-keeping, it has to do with fundraising and tracking and cultivating your relationships with donors. So, keeping records of your donor stewardship activities and which individuals at your organization have relationships with particular donors is critical because major donors typically shoulder a lot of the ongoing costs at sanctuaries. Every major donor should have at least two close relationships with people in your organization, especially beyond the founder or founders. This way, if somebody leaves the organization, especially if it’s unexpected, you can fall back upon a different relationship to manage a donor’s needs and concerns. Losing a donor in addition to a critical team member in a short period of time is a potential disaster that you really want to avoid. And honestly, this doesn’t have to be a huge scary thing. It doesn’t have to be this giant pomp and circumstance. It might be as simple as like having a different staff member send an update to that donor. Just be like, “Hey, I’m Clarice. I run the animal care. I just want to give a quick thank you for your all your support over the years. You know, here’s a tour that I led the other day and here’s some cute pictures. Thanks again. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions and just just create more touch points.” You don’t want to necessarily hold these cards so close unless you’ve got a really good reason. You don’t want to hold the cards so close that if you can’t be there, those cards disappear with you. So, really think about how much you’re kind of holding from the rest of your organization and whether that’s truly skillful or maybe just an anxiety that you need to work through. So, as we wind up this succession series, the other subject we want to bring up is contingency planning. After all, succession planning really is just a subset of contingency planning. I know that we have some tools for organizations to help in contingency planning and those are worth mentioning here. Can you explain a bit more about contingency planning and what we have to help?
Mckenzee Griffler: Sure. Because it’s an unfortunate truth that things don’t always go the way we hope they will. A number of events completely out of your control may impact your sanctuary’s operations. So, do you have an accessible plan for the unthinkable or the other unthinkable? What just came to mind when you read the unthinkable? Do you have a plan in place for that? By thinking about and crafting a set of contingency plans, which hopefully you’ll never have to implement, you’ll be taking invaluable steps to protect your residents, your organization, and yourself. And writing these things out often helps you think about other solutions for existing problems at your organization before there’s even a disaster. And so, contingency planning can be a wonderful stress-free exercise for helping you create more efficiencies and solutions in your day-to-day tasks. So, for instance, if you’re like, “Oh crap, this gate will be a real problem for this reason in case we need to do a rapid evacuation.” You might say, “Well, why don’t we just create a capital campaign around fixing that gate because that’s important.” And then it doesn’t have to be under contingency planning list anymore. And maybe you’ve created other things to be a little bit easier at your organization. So, it can be a really helpful brainstorming tool in general, not just for emergencies. Absolutely. And there’s sort of a broad set of categories that you want to think about when you’re doing contingency planning. And these would include organizational challenges, operational challenges, and resident challenges. So within these categories are a diverse set of challenges that could potentially blindside your sanctuary if you haven’t considered how you’d react to them. This is not an exhaustive list of things that you could create plans for, and your own organization may have unique challenges based on geography, climate, your legal jurisdiction, and the number of residents or types of residents that you’re caring for. But you might want to think about weather challenges. You might want to think about disease. You might want to think about geographical issues, water issues. There’s all kinds of things that you can think of and think ahead about and figure out how you might address these things. So, I want to note that similar to succession planning, it is never, never, ever too soon to start your contingency planning. So, I want to point out we do have a whole resource on the subject which we’ll add to the show notes and we have a whole contingency planning workbook that you can sit down with with your team so you can come up with your potential challenges and come up with ways together to address them. And then at the end of it, you’ll have a nice little contingency binder that you can make accessible in all the important parts of your organization, both digitally and printed out in each of your resident areas or given to each of the board members as well so that if something does happen, they can just look it up in seconds and say, “Okay, this is what’s happening. This is who we call. This is what we do.” And that can be what makes a really scary situation not so scary. Plus, everybody loves a binder. So, Julia, thank you so much for running through a couple succession planning tips for all of these roles. As we’ve said a million times, we have some deeper resources on our website that you can peruse when you’ve got the time. We know a lot of you are listening in the middle of transports or in the middle of mucking stalls. So, we know you appreciate having us kind of have a little chat with some of these things, but we really do hope that you check out our written resources on these subject matters. And we hope that this series of podcasts has been helpful for you when it comes to imagining succession planning at your animal sanctuary. And we hope that you feel a little bit better about starting the process and doing it and it feels a little bit less squishy and you feel just empowered to take one little step towards it today. If there are other subjects that we can cover for you that might be useful for you or if you have any questions about things, feel free to contact us via our contact us page at opensanctuary.org/cont. We are always happy to hear community feedback and welcome suggestions for both new resources and new podcasts. As always, when it comes to the Open Sanctuary podcast, we also value your feedback. So, if you found this podcast valuable, please consider leaving us a five-star review either on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify, which really does help other animal advocates find our information. And if you like what we do and would like to support our work, we warmly welcome donations. We are a 501c3 organization, so your donations are tax-deductible and they help us sustain our mission of providing freely accessible resources so that every sanctuary worldwide is a success story. Thank you for listening. Thank you for all of your support and we look forward to talking to you not about succession planning next time.
