In doing research for this book, I reached out to a number of nonprofit leaders I admire to seek their feedback on the challenges and joys of leadership. I’m grateful they took time out of their busy schedules to provide such rich and thoughtful answers to my questions. It also gave me a lot of comfort to see that so many of the issues I grapple with as a leader were highlighted in their responses and feedback. So my thanks to Catherine Chen (Polaris), Mike Davis (Global Witness), Comfort Ero (International Crisis Group), Lucy Heady (Education Sub-Saharan Africa), Mathieu Lefevre (More in Common), Françoise Moudouthe (African Women’s Development Fund), Sophie Otiende (Global Fund to End Modern Slavery), Ken Roth (Human Rights Watch), Asif Shaikh (Jan Sahas), Dina Sherif (the Legatum Center at MIT), Andrew Wallis (Unseen), and Gilles Yabi (West Africa Citizen Think Tank).

I’ve flagged in this book the importance of having peers with whom you can share and discuss leadership challenges. In addition to those listed above, I’ve been most fortunate over the years to be able to draw on the wisdom and companionship of a wide group of friends, all of whom happen to be outstanding nonprofit leaders and/or board members. My gratitude to Ellen Agler (The END Fund), Caitlin Baron (Luminos Fund), Tom Brookes (Global Strategic Communications Council), Brandee Butler (Fund for Global Human Rights), Brendan Cox (Together Coalition), Tim Dixon (More in Common), Patrick Dunne (Boardelta), Dan Elkes (Transparentem), Hassan Elmasry (ClientEarth), Kate Hampton (Children’s Investment Fund Foundation), Tirana Hassan (Human Rights Watch), Richard Hawkes (British Asian Trust), Leslie Johnson (Laudes Foundation), Olivia Leland (Co-Impact), Ed Marcum (Working Capital), Lawrence Mendenhall (AAO), Gemma Mortensen (New Constellations), Sonal Sachdev Patel (GMSP Foundation), Minh-Thu Pham (Project Starling), Jonathan Prentice (IOM), Eloise Todd (Pandemic Action Network), Maran Turner (Freedom Now), Mabel van Oranje (Girls Not Brides, VOW for Girls), and Dan Viederman (Working Capital). My additional thanks to Dan Vexler and Maria Horning, as well as Sarah, Tim, Brendan, Mabel, Sonal, and Natasha (Dolby), for reviewing all or part of the manuscript and offering insightful feedback. And my heartfelt thanks to my dear friends Brad Haynes and Simone Burford for their friendship and moral support throughout.

I learned a lot from the two bosses I worked for during my nine years with International Crisis Group, Gareth Evans and Louise Arbour— some of it recounted in these pages. I also benefited from the wisdom of many wonderful colleagues at that truly impactful organization and made many lasting friendships. Together with the Freedom Fund, it’s the organization I’ve most enjoyed working for in my decades of professional life. My former Crisis Group colleagues are too numerous to list here, so I’ll limit myself to thanking my former bosses on behalf of all of them.

I have received significant encouragement and support for this project from the partners at Legatum, one of the Freedom Fund’s cofounders. The partners—Christopher Chandler, Mark Stoleson, and Philip Vassiliou, as well as Alan McCormick—have an abiding interest in leadership and have been enthusiastic champions of this book from its inception. And, of course, it was their decision to partner with fellow philanthropists Andrew and Nicola Forrest and Pam and Pierre Omidyar that brought the Freedom Fund into being—for which they all have my everlasting thanks.

This book became much more real when Matt Holt Books agreed to publish it. I’m very grateful to Matt Holt, editor in chief, for his faith in me, a first-time author, and this project. (I’m also awed by his encyclopedic knowledge of obscure Australian movies.) And to Katie Dickman, managing editor, whose thoughtful and skillful editing significantly enhanced the final text.

My thanks to Mojie Crigler, who provided me invaluable advice on how to go about writing a book proposal and pitch it to publishers. She also provided lots of editorial support throughout, particularly in the early stages when I was still working out how to actually write a book.

Erin Phelps, my senior adviser at the Freedom Fund, very kindly helped with a lot of the research. She also provided valuable input and guidance throughout and, in particular, offered helpful perspectives on issues ranging from impact to DEI. The book is much the better for her input.

I get a great deal of support and joy working with my senior leadership team colleagues at the Freedom Fund. They are all outstanding leaders in their own right. They contribute greatly to the quality of my leadership, ensuring the organization benefits from better and wiser decisions than I could make on my own. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Dan Vexler, our managing director for programs and my longstanding friend, who stepped in as a highly effective interim CEO while I was on sabbatical. He was ably supported by the rest of the team: Zoe Marshall, managing director for finance and administration; Amy Rahe, managing director for external relations; and Havovi Wadia, director of programs. My deep thanks to all of you.

And finally, I want to thank all of my colleagues at the Freedom Fund, past and present. From our modest beginnings, we are a team of eighty-two in twelve countries at the time of writing, and our collective work is impacting millions of lives. I have learned so much from working with this team over the years. Much of what I’ve shared in this book comes very directly from my experiences at the Freedom Fund. Certainly, it’s been a collective effort to build an inclusive and impact-focused culture and a powerfully effective organization. I’ve benefited greatly from the commitment and expertise of all those I’ve worked with at the Freedom Fund. My huge gratitude to all of you.

NOTES

PURPOSE: SET THE DIRECTION

1.Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani activist for girls’ education and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. This quote is from a speech she made at Harvard in September 2013.

2.Leeuwin Ocean Adventure Annual Information Statement 2022, Australian Charities and Not-For-Profits Commission website, accessed July 1, 2023, https://www.acnc.gov.au/charity/charities/4bc9d964-38af-e811-a961-000d3ad24182/documents/3fbf8abc-f171-ed11-81ac-002248110683.

3.Dina Sherif, email to author, December 2022.

CHAPTER 1: MISSION

1.From a speech the Indian leader (Mahatma) Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi gave on October 31, 1938, at Dera Ismail Khan, India.

2.“How We Work,” International Crisis Group website, accessed May 15, 2023, https://www.crisisgroup.org/independent-impartial-inclusive.

3.Rebecca Hamilton, Fighting for Darfur: Public Action and the Struggle to Stop Genocide (London: St Martin’s Press, 2011), 121.

4.“The International Crisis Group and the ENOUGH Project: A Complementary Relationship,” International Crisis Group website, May 4, 2007, www.crisisgroup.org/who-we-are/crisis-group-updates/international-crisis-group-and-enough-project-complementary-relationship.

5.“Vision and Mission,” Grameen Bank website, https://grameenbank.org.bd/about/vision-mission.

6.“Facts About Girl Scouts,” Girl Scouts website, accessed February 13, 2023, www.girlscouts.org/en/footer/faq/facts.html.

7.“About Us,” EDWINS website, accessed May 25, 2023, edwinsrestaurant.org/about-us/; see also Ed Pilkington, “Inside the Restaurant Serving Up Second Chances for Ex-prisoners,” Guardian, November 26, 2019.

8.Homepage, More in Common website, accessed February 13, 2023, www.moreincommon.com.

9.Peter F. Drucker, Managing the Non-Profit Organization: Principles and Practices (New York: HarperCollins 1990), 3; see also William Meehan III and Kim Jonker, Engine of Impact: Essentials of Strategic Leadership in the Nonprofit Sector (Stanford: Stanford Business Books, 2017), 27.

CHAPTER 2: IMPACT

1.Jim Collins is a leading researcher and author on business leadership. One of his best-known books is Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t (New York: Harper Business, 2001). This quote comes from his monograph on nonprofits titled Good to Great and the Social Sectors (London, England: Random House Business Books, 2006).

2.“Delivering So Much More Than a Meal,” Meals on Wheels America website, accessed February 13, 2023, www.mealsonwheelsamerica.org/learn-more/what-we-deliver.

3.“Impact Report 2019,” Change.org website, accessed February 13, 2023, static.change.org/brand-pages/impact/reports/2020/2020_Impact+Report_Change_EN_final.pdf.

4.“Our Impact,” Heritage Foundation website, accessed February 13, 2023, www.heritage.org/our-impact.

5.“Our Story,” Ali Forney website, accessed February 13, 2023, www.aliforneycenter.org/our-story.

6.“Free Distribution or Cost Sharing? Evidence from a Malaria Prevention Experiment in Kenya,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 2010, www.povertyactionlab.org/sites/default/files/research-paper/83%20Dupas%20QJE.pdf.

7.“Tracking spending on cash transfer programming in a humanitarian context,” Development Initiatives, March 2012, devinit.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/cash-transfer-financing-final.pdf.

8.Dylan Matthews, “A Charity Dropped a Massive Stimulus Package on Rural Kenya—and Transformed the Economy,” Vox, November 25, 2019, www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/11/25/20973151/givedirectly-basic-income-kenya-study-stimulus; see also “Unconditional Handouts Benefit Recipients—and Their Neighbours Too,” Economist, November 23, 2019, www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2019/11/23/unconditional-handouts-benefit-recipients-and-their-neighbours-too.

9.“Cash Transfers Help Pakistan’s Poorest,” World Bank website, May 19, 2016, https://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2016/05/19/cash-transfers-help-pakistans-poorest.

10.“World Bank Signs $400 Million Project to Protect India’s Poor and Vulnerable from the Impact of COVID-19,” World Bank website, December 16, 2020, www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2020/12/16/world-bank-signs-usd400-million-project-to-protect-india-s-poor-and-vulnerable-from-the-impact-of-covid-19.

11.Ugo Gentilini, Mohamed Almenfi, Ian Orton, and Pamela Dale, “Social Protection and Jobs Responses to COVID-19: A Real-Time Review of Country Measures,” World Bank website, April 17, 2020, openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/33635.

12.This quote is often attributed to Albert Einstein, but it appears the correct source is sociologist William Bruce Cameron in his 1963 text Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (New York: Random House, 1963).

13.“Unlocking What Works: How Community-Based Interventions Are Ending Bonded Labour in India,” Freedom Fund website, September 2019, freedomfund.org/wp-content/uploads/Freedom-Fund-Evidence-in-Practice-Paper-Unlocking-what-works.pdf.

14.Ken Roth, email exchange with author, August 28, 2022.

15.Collins, Good to Great and the Social Sectors, 8.

16.L. Becker, J. Wolf, and R. Levine, “Measuring Commitment to Health: Global Health Indicators Working Group Consultation Report” (Washington, DC: Center for Global Development, 2006).

17.Arthur C. Brooks, “AEI’s President on Measuring the Impact of Ideas,” Harvard Business Review, March–April 2018, https://hbr.org/2018/03/aeis-president-on-measuring-the-impact-of-ideas.

18.Dan Vexler, “What Exactly Do We Mean by Systems?” Stanford Social Impact Review, June 22, 2017, https://ssir.org/articles/entry/what_exactly_do_we_mean_by_systems.

19.Nick Grono, “How Measuring Systems Change Can Open the Door to Transformative Impact,” Center for Effective Philanthropy blog, January 2023, https://cep.org/how-measuring-systems-change-can-open-the-door-to-transformative-impact/.

CHAPTER 3: STRATEGY

1.John Lewis Gaddis is Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale University. This quote is from his book On Grand Strategy (New York: Penguin Press, 2018).

2.Wendy Kopp’s senior thesis at Princeton University, as recounted in Sarah Thorp (2000), Teach For America, HBS 9-300-084, hbsp.harvard.edu/cases/. See also Bill George, Diana Mayer, and Andrew N. McLean (2007), Wendy Kopp and Teach For America (A), HBS 9-406-125, hbsp.harvard.edu/cases/.

3.Thorp, Teach For America, 7; also Wendy Kopp interview, “Creating an Education Leadership Movement with Teach For All,” System Catalysts podcast, July 4, 2023, https://www.systemcatalysts.com/episodes/creating-an-education-leadership-movement-with-teach-for-all.

4.Michael Brown of City Year, quoted in Collins, Good to Great and the Social Sectors, 16.

5.Thorp, Teach For America, 9; George et al., Wendy Kopp and Teach For America (A), 5; Bill George, Diana Mayer, and Andrew N. McLean (2007), Wendy Kopp and Teach For America (B), HBS 9-407-031, hbsp.harvard.edu/cases/.