Selecting the right executive director can be a make-or-break moment for our member organizations -- because our movement is only as strong as our leaders.

But many of our members just don't have the resources to invest in a professional search firm. While the Federation can't offer that level of service, we are able to help groups manage these transitions more effectively.

Why We Help
Leading a state-based equality organization is a difficult job, and almost no one comes into them with all of the different kinds of experience we'd like them to have.

Try finding someone who's a great manager, a strong fundraiser, and an inspiring speaker. Someone who has political savvy, deep connections in both political circles and the LGBT community, and the know-how for working with a board of directors. Someone who is willing to work for what we pay in the places many of our groups are based.

It’s a tall order, and good leaders are tough to find. But it’s critical that we do, in fact, find them.

While the board sets the direction for the organization, and the staff plays a key role in implementing programs -- it really falls on the executive director to pull everything together and make tough decisions when they need to be made. As the primary face and leader of the organization, the executive director is going make a big difference in whether a group can secure the funding it needs, inspire volunteers to action, build a great staff team, and persuade policy-makers to do right by our community.

When you’re looking for this broad set of skills and this deep level of expertise -- it helps to have the support of people who understand the unique challenges and opportunities inherent in state-based work. At the Federation, that’s the role we seek to play.

How We Help
We provide different levels of support depending on what our members need and our own capacity. But our support typically falls into five areas:

Consultation
Typically, one of our team will serve as a member of the search committee, which provides some outside context to the conversation that local leaders are having. We often work with search committee chairs to craft a good timeline and process for the search and to choose good interview questions that get to the most important issues for that organization.

Recruitment
We support recruitment by leveraging our connections with leaders across the movement to get their ideas for strong candidates and providing access to job postings in Gay Politics Report for free as a member benefit.

Vetting
We help vet candidates through our national networks to get more perspective than you'd find by just contacting the candidate's chosen references. In fact, you'd be surprised how often we see the same candidates coming up again and again in different states—sometimes we can save groups a lot of time based on vetting we've done in previous searches.

Candidate Evaluation
With executive leadership positions that demand so many skills and so much expertise -- it can be tough to know what’s absolutely necessary and what can be compromised.

Over the last few years, we've been paying close attention to what makes for a successful executive director for our member organizations, and we bring that lens to this work.

Because of our experience with the movement and with executive searches, we know what we’re looking for: judgement, strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, ability to ask for help, and—our favorite word—grit.

By grit, we mean we're looking for the kind of person who isn't overwhelmed by big challenges -- but instead gets excited, digs in, and rallies folks around them to find a solution, even when they may have no idea themselves of how they're going to do it.

Onboarding & Training
When we participate in executive search processes, we’re able to get to know an organization’s new leader -- providing us with the opportunity to provide additional support after the hire. Once a leader comes on board, we offer one-on-one coaching and mentoring as well as intensive training at our Executive Director Boot Camp.

Our Experience
In just the last year, we've provided support for searches at Equality Ohio, Equality NC, Equality Texas, Fairness West Virginia, Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, and South Carolina Equality. We've helped choose some really great folks to take the helm at these groups.

Each organization was facing a different situation, and our work looked different in each case. However, the feedback we're getting is that boards really value the perspective we bring, whether it's helping them figure out what's most important for them in a candidate, crafting a process that gets buy-in from all the stakeholders so the ED can start with as much support as possible, or just providing another set of eyes to review resumes.

As we've gotten more involved in searches and in supporting new executives through our leadership programs, we've seen a significant increase in their average tenure over the last two years. We hope we can claim a little bit of credit for that progress.