Guide For Search Committees
We use our Results-Based Hiring® framework to help you hire a CEO who can drive the specific impact you need. Beyond the hire, we offer structured transition support and performance management consulting to create a foundation for long-term success.
We bring a proven track record of success to the most complex nonprofit and association searches. Over the past eight years, we have achieved a 100% retention rate for association CEO placements and maintain a near-perfect record with nonprofit executive director hires. Our expertise spans a wide range of governance models—including federated networks—where aligning stakeholders and strategy is critical to long-term success. We’ve partnered with organizations with budgets from $2.5MM to more than $240MM.
Beyond the placement, we offer a two-year CEO onboarding and performance management program to ensure a seamless transition and support the organization’s ongoing success under new leadership. Whether serving mid-sized nonprofits or large, complex systems, we help organizations identify leaders who not only fit the role, but endure in it—and thrive.
Our competency-driven approach is designed to adapt to the rapidly changing world of work. We begin by assessing your organization’s current strengths, challenges, and strategic goals. We use that information to develop a recruiting strategy to identify, reach out to, and attract the most qualified, mission-aligned candidates from diverse backgrounds—ensuring your organization benefits from a wide range of perspectives and experiences.
We take the time to understand the full context of your organization, not just the job description. We talk to senior staff, board members, the outgoing or interim executive, and leaders of peer organizations to surface the challenges and opportunities your next CEO or executive director will need to navigate.
We distill these findings into a briefing that helps your search committee align on what success looks like. Clients have used this analysis to restructure governance or rethink the scope of the leadership role itself. It’s common for committees to tell us, “This is what we wish we had when we developed our strategic plan.”
Onboarding and supporting the success of a new CEO is the board’s most consequential responsibility, yet it’s the only major governance task they must manage without their usual staff support. Using the depth of information gathered during the search, we help supplement institutional knowledge and provide a framework that supports meaningful progress toward the key impact areas defined by the search committee.
Staffing Advisors President Bob Corlett, with extensive experience supporting CEO and executive director transitions, provides board advisory services throughout the first two years to accelerate the new executive’s integration and ensure continuity through board transitions.
Our post-hire support program is tailored to your specific needs and governance model. A growing nonprofit faces very different challenges than an established trade association, a credentialing or certification board, a philanthropic foundation, or a federated network with distributed authority across chapters or affiliates. We work with you to develop a meeting structure and cadence that best supports your goals. Services may include: