1. Succession Planning: Building A Roadmap For The Future
Presented by
Deborah DeBare, National Network to End Domestic Violence
Adapted from WORK by
Ellen Yin-Wycoff & Michelle Dixon-Wall, Resource Sharing Project

2. Learning Goals
In this workshop, participants will learn the following:
The different models of Succession Planning.
An overview of agency-wide Succession Planning and how it can enhance the agency’s overall infrastructure and capacity.
How to develop an action plan for Succession Planning.
Add that we’ll be defining succession planning and participants will leave with tangible tools and ideas for what to do within their organization.

3. Who’s In the Room? Staff Role? Board Role?
Your organization/the Coalition?
Get a sense of who is in the room, their role, how long they have been in their jobs, and any extensive work or thinking that they have already donw regarding succession planning

4. What is Succession Planning and Why Is It Important For Your Agency?
Ask group to participate in discussion or ideas about this
List up on flip chart all the reasons, including the following:
Eases the successor’s learning curve and improves success rate
Continuity for staff and board and services
Honors the departing staff with smooth transition
Affirms org priorities
Assures public, funders, clients

5. Models of Succession Planning
Crisis Succession Planning: Thoughtful, prepared plan for key positions (like ED) when an unexpected departure occurs with minimal notice.
Departure-defined Transition Planning: Action plan developed by Board, ED, and/or management staff when key staff begins thinking about leaving the agency.
Strategic Leadership Planning: This ongoing process identifies core competencies, skills, and knowledge needed by your agency in the next 5 years along with a plan to develop/recruit those competencies in your existing staff (and board).
Crisis Succession Planning: It allows for no disruption of service by this key position.
Departure-defined Transition Planning: It focuses on communicating the transition to staff, key partners, & stakeholders, conducting an organizational assessment, building org capacity & sustainability, recruiting/hiring the successor, and celebrating the transition.
Strategic Leadership Planning:. This strategic leadership planning is usually coordinated and tied with your agency’s strategic plan. Stress ONGOING process. Not crisis Evolving with context of environment.

6. What is Succession Planning?
Succession Planning is about planning for transitions for all staff and board positions, (not just leadership positions), in order to promote the sustainability and stability of a nonprofit organization.
It focuses on solid organizational planning in preparing for any staff and/or Board transitions.
Succession planning leads to overall organizational sustainability as the organization creates and institutionalizes systems and processes to solidify its operations at all levels.
Use this slide to recap about the broad scope for different types of succession planning.

7. Succession Planning Leads To …
Institutionalizing the agency’s core values, philosophies, and history that should inform all agency’s programs, services, and functions, so it’s not dependent on individual personalities but rooted for all staff.
Easing the successor’s learning curve
Ensuring the continuity for the staff, Board of Directors, & the agency
Ensuring the smooth transition for the departing staff person
Setting priorities and communicating the agency vision and the staff’s roles/functions
Sharing the information across staff
Providing consistency/transparency of goal setting
Ensuring stability of the agency’s programs and services
Additional Recap
Include the positive impact that this has on continuity of quality service, focus on victim/survivor services

8. Succession Planning Focuses on the 3 P’s:
People
Process
Product (or services for nonprofits)
Source: Marcus Lemonis from The Profit, CNBC.
People: staff and leadership – also ALL levels of of the organization; encompasses strengthening of all staff, and the board through ongoing and regular training and orientation
Process: smooth overall operations – how the org functions on a daily basis. This includes everything from policies, procedures, funding systems, operationsl
Product: in the nonprofit arena this relates to services and programs

9. LEGACY Personal Reflections
Talk for a bit about what the work LEGACY means to everyone, what it conjures up. Then bring the conversation back to a realistic concept of what impact do you want to have had?
Ask participants to think about their relationship to the organization.
If they are imagining leaving the organization, reflect on what they want their personal legacy to be. If they imagine staying for 10 years and then leaving, think about what they want their legacy to be.
If they plan on staying forever, imaging what their legacy will be when they do eventually leave.
Don’t need to be an ED to do this exercise, it works for any staff person, or any board member, or anyone.
POSSIBLE BREAK if room is restless or needs it. (For a 90 minute workshop, there probably won’t be a break).

10. Small Group Discussion
Why Do We Need to Include Anti-Oppression & Anti-Racism Work in Succession Planning?
What are the benefits in including Anti- Oppression/Anti-Racism Work in Succession Planning?
.Break into small groups. Discussion for minutes and report back for another 7 minutes.

11. Who’s Responsible? Executive Director Staff Board of Directors
Recap a bit about the interconnedness of different roles in the organization. Need all 3 to be involved and in sync.

12. All these elements can be happening simultaneously.
Identify each one here briefly – the following slides provide time to discuss each process/step in more detail

13. Preparation Checklist
Mission statement, Core Values, Philosophy & History
Training plans for staff development or specific job orientation processes
Staff job descriptions and work plans
Procedures for client service plans, specifically for terminating or transitioning a client to another staff person.
Organizational Chart
Checklists for each staff position (deliverables, resources, & contacts)
Passwords for , social media, voice mail, cell phone, bank/credit cards, etc.
Key contact info or relationships with partners, funders, etc.
Share sample Succession Plan document from TSNE after going through these items.
Each agency’s specific procedures or client related plans may be different, but the core concepts translate across organizations.

14. Sample Staff Workplan Goal/Objective #1 Staff/Professional Development
Key Activities:
Anticipated Timeframe
Deliverables Produced
Completion Date
Staff/Professional Development
Key Activities:
Anticipated Timeframe
Deliverables Produced
Completion Date
Overview of staff workplan. Don’t assume all organizations use this type of workplan process.
Share my example at RICADV and then seeing other orgs where staff didn’t have a workplan.
This also means grant goals and objectives should be shared with staff every year and as part of the orientation process, so staff know their roles, not only how to do their job by “why and how” it fits in with their funding and the entire agency.
Source: NCCASA

15. Action Planning
What are the items that you have in place from the Preparation Checklist for Succession Planning? Where and how are these items kept in your organization? Who keeps them and where are they stored?
What are the missing items? Who has them or do they need to be developed? What are the next steps in the process and who needs to be responsible for them? (think of the 3 P’s)!
Do you utilize staff work plans at your agency? What are the benefits of implementing staff work plans for your agency?
For a longer workshop, small groups could start working on this, and answering the questions together. Ask them to report out on common elements or “weak points” they share, as well as a strong point or strength.
For a shorter workshop, use this slide as a recap and explain that these questions are starting points for them to take back and use in discussion with their key leadership staff, and/or board.

16. Key Organizational Assessment Questions for Succession Planning
Where does the agency want to be in the next 5 years? 10 years?
What does the agency need to get there?
What does the agency have in place not to attain the 5 year goal? The 10 year goal?
What are the gaps that need to filled?
What are the agency’s services and strengths? What supports these strengths? How are they documented or institutionalized so that new staff, board, or leadership will know?
Does everyone at the agency have all the information they need to successfully do their job? What’s missing and how can you improve the process?
What is the existing orientation training process for staff and Board? Is it informed by the mission, history, core values, and philosophy (incl. anti-oppression/anti-racism)?
These key questions can be used as a tool back at your own agencies.
What is the overlap with strategic planning here? What are the similarities and what are the differences?

17. Steps to Integrate Succession Planning
Annual Performance Review Meetings
Staff Work Planning & Supervision Meetings
Strategic Planning & Visioning Meetings
Staff and/or Board Training Sessions
Ongoing Anti-Oppression/Anti-Racism trainings for Staff and Board
Regular Board Meetings (as a check-in item)
Regular Staff Meetings
Stress that the written plan needs to be updated annually and shared with the Board Chair and Key Leadership Staff on an annual basis so that it becomes part of regular “maintenance” business.

18. Action Planning
Thinking of the 3 P’s, please respond to these questions:
What are the top 2 things or areas, you’d like to work on when you return to your agency to begin the Succession Planning for your agency?
What are the challenges that you may encounter in addressing these top 2 areas? What do you need to overcome these challenges?
How does it impact the people, process, and product (i.e., services) of your agency? How will it benefit the 3 P’s?
Give participants 15 – 20 min to discuss and 10 min to report back. If there isn’t time for this, it came be framed as the work that they need to do within their organization. Have the identify a Thought Partner to check in with, from another organization if there is no one else from their org attending, to share ideas with and think about this with.
If there is no time for small group work, ask participants to reflect for a few minutes to themselves and write down the answers to these questions.

19. For More Information
Succession Planning Toolkit for Nonprofit Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Organizations by the Nonprofit Sustainability TA (NSTA) Project, planning-toolkit-nonprofit-sexual-assault-and-domestic-violence- organizations
Deborah DeBare