Examining the Career Trajectories of Nonprofit Executive Leaders

Abstract

Although much has been written about the need for effective nonprofit leadership and management, less attention has been paid to the unique career paths taken by professionals who occupy the highest nonprofit staff positions. This study investigated who is serving in the role of executive leader of nonprofit organizations and the variables that may affect reaching the CEO position. Data for this research included a random sample of LinkedIn profiles of local and regional leaders from 12 national nonprofit organizations. K-modes cluster analysis and multiple regression modeling revealed clues for understanding the career trajectories of current top leaders and resulted in the development of a new typology for nonprofit executive career paths. Significant factors affecting the path to the CEO role included gender, education, age, mission-focused career, and sector-specific experience. These findings inform nonprofit professional career decision making and guide boards in the executive selection process.

The Nonprofit Career Ladder: Exploring Career Paths as Leadership Development for Future Nonprofit Executives

“…Interesting to note, the demographic profile matches that found by Cornelius et al (2011) and Norris-Tirrell et al (2018) in their studies of nonprofit executives, with one notable exception: gender. Over half of our sample was male, whereas their samples were, respectively, 70% and 54% female.…”

“…Beyond the resume listing of qualifications, the career paths that led the executive to the top paid position—whether it be based on intentional decisions or happenstance opportunities—explain the nonprofit leadership pipeline. Although for-profit and public executive career paths have been empirically examined, similar inquiry about nonprofit executive careers has been limited to examining professional backgrounds or demographic characteristics without looking holistically at factors that contribute to an individual’s career development (e.g., see Norris-Tirrell, Rinella, & Pham, 2018; Suarez, 2010).…”

Non-profit leadership learning : a narrative research study exploring the transformation of experience into leadership learning

“…Extending from this is considerable variation in degrees earned by nonprofit CEOs, which further complicates academic degree programs that have worked to specialize their offerings to meet the unique needs of nonprofit organizations, but again without a shared understanding of essential curricular elements (Goldkind & Pardasani, 2013;Mirabella, 2007Mirabella, , 2013. Other researchers tempered the importance of academic degree and magnified the significance of professional experience (Norris-Tirrell et al, 2018;Suarez, 2010). Despite this disparity, researchers have generally agreed on the importance of leadership learning within the nonprofit organization (Carman et al, 2010;Hoefer et al, 2013).…”

“…Suarez (2010) found that more than 60% of leaders had previous nonprofit experience, suggesting that education alone is not enough to lead a nonprofit organization. Similarly, Norris-Tirrell, Rinella, and Pham (2018) reported that 82% of CEOs studied had experience working in the nonprofit sector prior to becoming CEO.…”

“…As the nonprofit field of research has matured, it has become apparent that all leadership learning may not be equal, and nonprofit industry knowledge and workplace experiences are also needed to be an effective nonprofit organization leader (Saidel & Smith, 2015;Suarez, 2010;Young and Grinsfelder, 2011). Specifically, researchers have looked at the career trajectories of nonprofit CEOs, and, while they found no discernable pattern nor typical trajectory, they did find that experience within nonprofit organizations was commonplace in the CEO career trajectory (Nelson, 2017;Norris-Tirrell et al, 2018;Suarez, 2010).…”