Date of Award

4-22-2021

Document Type

Restricted Capstone: Campus Only Access

Degree Name

Master of Nonprofit Studies

First Advisor

Dr. Abbi Haggerty

Abstract

Executive leadership transition is something that all businesses will face at least once or twice in the lifetime of operations. How an agency handles that transition is key to organizational success. Many researchers have hinted to a gap in qualified leaders as many begin to retire. Based on national studies, it was unclear how Richmond nonprofits compared to other areas statistically regarding succession planning. The research questions became: How are nonprofits in Richmond handling succession planning? Do they consider this gap of leadership deficit to be a problem? This paper will investigate succession planning through a survey conducted with Richmond CEOs to gain insight into about succession planning. The survey was sent to 115 CEOs of various Richmond nonprofits to complete electronically in a 12-day timeframe of approximately 23 questions. It was discovered that compared to national statistics presented from previous studies, Richmond nonprofits did not view leadership deficit is a primary concern and that many agencies did not currently have a plan in place though several had started the conversation. Completing this research means that while succession planning is very important the perspective of CEOs may differ from those in nationally known and used studies.

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