Hire an Interim Executive Leader

Leadership transitions can be challenging, but they also present an opportunity to strengthen your Local United Way! Through our partnership with Interim Executives Academy, United Way NEXT helps connect you with highly trained interim leaders who understand the United Way network and are ready to provide strategic, short-term support 💙

Ready to find an interim executive who can help move your mission forward? Learn more below!

How United Way NEXT Supports Your Search

As a United Way NEXT member, your Local United Way has exclusive access to a trusted network of highly trained interim leaders through our partnership with Interim Executives Academy. Whether your organization is facing a planned leadership transition or navigating a sudden vacancy, we’re here to help connect you with experienced professionals who understand the United Way mission and are ready to step in and lead with purpose!

This member benefit ensures that you are not navigating a leadership gap alone. From reviewing your organization’s needs to presenting qualified candidates, we work alongside Interim Executives Academy to offer a thoughtful and strategic approach to your interim search.

Why Hire an Interim Executive?

A trained interim executive does more than simply hold a seat at the table. They offer stability, momentum, and a fresh perspective during a time of change. Here’s what you can expect from engaging a graduate of the Interim Executives Academy:

  • Experienced leadership to manage daily operations and guide staff with confidence

  • A thorough organizational assessment with clear benchmarks and action plans

  • A nonprofit dashboard to monitor performance during the transition

  • Succession planning guidance to support long-term sustainability

  • A revised job description that reflects current and future needs

  • Support for your board and hiring committee during the executive search process

  • Onboarding support to help your next permanent leader succeed from day one

Interim leaders are also catalysts for transformation! They help clarify your organization's vision, address long-standing challenges, and build the internal alignment needed for your next chapter. Best of all, they bring fresh insight, calm urgency, and years of hands-on experience to lead you forward with purpose.

To learn more, we encourage you to email Carole Peters, United Way NEXT President & CEO!

About Interim Executives Academy

Formerly known as Third Sector Company, Interim Executives Academy is a nationally respected leader in leadership continuity and strategic transition management for nonprofit organizations. Since 2002, the Academy has served more than 900 organizations and trained over 700 interim executives across 40 states and provinces.

With decades of experience and a proven framework rooted in purpose and transformation, the Academy prepares nonprofit professionals to guide organizations through short-term leadership transitions with clarity, care, and strategy. Its methods are trusted by charitable causes, associations, congregations, and community-based organizations of all sizes.

The Academy Offers:

  • Interim Executive Placement to help organizations fill short-term leadership gaps with trained, mission-aligned leaders

  • Certificate Education Programs including the Interim Executives Academy, Interim Development Directors Bootcamp, and Succession Planning Bootcamp for Nonprofit Consultants

  • Continuing Education Seminars with guest lecturers, researchers, and practicing interim professionals

  • Structured Peer Advisor Program offering one-on-one support for interim leaders throughout their engagements

  • Interim Executives Marketplace, the only national job board for interim nonprofit executive positions

  • Alumni Roundtables connecting graduates across affinity groups and areas of interest

  • Professional Services Network Directory showcasing the consulting specialties of graduates

Interim Executives Academy is proud to be purposeful, methodical, transformational, and profoundly committed to the future of nonprofit leadership.

Interim Executives Academy logo with text that reads: "The National Standard for Training, Placement and Support of Interim Leaders for Nonprofit Organizations"

For more information, please email Joan Brown, Senior Strategist at Interim Executives Company or visit their website.

Interim Executive Success Stories

Kevin Lynch is Reunited with United Way

In my long career as a CEO/ED of social impact organizations, I had many experiences with the United Way, as an applicant/grantee, community partner, vendor and, going all the way back to my first professional job in 1980, as the coordinator of my company’s United Way workplace campaign (wherein all new or increased givers got to smash a whipped cream pie in our President’s face!) 

So it was with familiarity, a bit of nostalgia and great interest that I took a call last fall from the team at Third Sector Company, about the job of Interim CEO for the United Way of Central Minnesota (UWCM), in St. Cloud, Minnesota, about 75 miles from my home in Minneapolis.  This would become my second Interim CEO/ED engagement, and it surely won’t be my last. 

A couple of years earlier, after several decades leading nonprofits and social enterprises, I had found my calling as an Interim CEO, in what will likely be the final phase of my active career.  I believe it is time for a transfer of power in the nonprofit sector. As a 66 year old, straight, white, U.S.-born, native English speaking, healthy, abled, cis-gendered male, I don’t think I should be taking up a “permanent” CEO seat any longer.  As an Interim CEO, I am privileged to use my accumulated skills and experiences to help nonprofits navigate the tricky waters of executive transition to strong, diverse new leaders.
 
 In 2021, I took Third Sector’s Interim Executive Academy, a training program I would highly recommend.  I gained immense practical knowledge, and came away with three big concepts: 

  • The Interim CEO’s role is fundamentally different from a permanent one’s.  As important as the new things I needed to learn as an Interim were the old things I needed to unlearn from my decades as a permanent CEO.

  • Interim CEO work is not for everyone, and certainly not for the faint of heart.  You have to be nimble, a quick study, able to grasp the big picture, decisive, communicative, thick-skinned and direct, all while possessing a high level of emotional intelligence.

  • An interim CEO can and should effect transformational change, rather than just keeping a seat warm.

In light of many challenges following the departure of the previous CEO, UWCM chose to hire an Interim CEO. I was able to use a six pronged approach to stabilize the organization, assess its challenges and opportunities, engage the staff in key action plans, support the succession process for a new CEO, and pivot to the new leader.  I like to think I contributed to a bright future for UWCM. 

With my placement at UWCM, I was an early part of a nascent partnership between UW NEXT and Third Sector.  I think this is fortuitous for the future of United Ways.  With the generational shifts and the “great resignation” occurring throughout the nonprofit sector, hundreds of UW CEO spots will be opening in the coming years.  Much research is now showing the value of using an Interim CEO to help an organization catch its breath and recalibrate, rather than rushing headlong into a new CEO.  By partnering to place trained interims in these jobs, both UW NEXT and Third Sector are realizing their missions and serving the sector well. 

One aspect I would specifically commend is the ongoing coaching provided, via Third Sector, to its placed executive.  I was very lucky to be taken under the wing of David Nicole, an experienced United Way CEO.  While I knew quite a bit about helming an organization, I was pretty rusty on the state of United Ways today, and he patiently helped me bridge the gap. 

If you are a United Way facing a leadership transition, I would exhort you to learn more about the value of an Interim CEO.  And if you are a seasoned leader who thinks you have the temperament for interim leadership, the Third Sector Academy might just be the best time and money you could spend preparing yourself for some real fun!  The delightful Carole Peters can certainly set you up with any contacts or information you need! 

With gratitude, 
Kevin Lynch
UW NEXT Member & Interim Executive Professional

Article was originally published on 8/31/23 in the What’s NEXT? newsletter.