Nonprofit Leadership in the Rural Southeast

When nonprofits in rural places receive far less funding per capita than their urban counterparts, they get have to get by doing more with less. Nonprofit leadership in these organizations bear the brunt of that stress. The Annie E. Casey Foundation wanted to understand the state of nonprofit executive leadership in the rural Southeast, so they commissioned RSP to survey nonprofits across the region and present their findings.

We’ve included a high-level snapshot of the major findings here. You may download the full report here.

1. Executives plan to leave their jobs, but not the nonprofit sector, within five years.
2. Executives lack support in their roles as executive director.
3. Executives feel that they make significant sacrifices to lead nonprofits.
4. Executives are concerned about finding future leaders for their organizations.
5. Many nonprofits lack key capacities needed to transition well.
6. Nonprofits are doing some things that may attract the next generation of leaders, but not many.
7. Rural nonprofits differ from urban nonprofits in some intriguing ways.