Nonprofit Executive Directors are some of the most inspiring people I know. But most have a common flaw…

You're scrappy, creative, passionate, and willing to carry weight most people would run from. You wear ALL the hats 🧢 🎩 👒 … juggling fundraising, staff care, programs, board management, and community expectations — all while trying to protect your family time, and sanity.

But here's my opinion: you're not called to do everything.

And when you try, you actually hold your organization back. 🫣 (And burn yourself out along the way 😬)

Here's what it's really costing you.

Every minute you spend patching admin tasks is a minute stolen from leading and building the future.

Every time you silently excuse your board from engagement in fundraising, you enable their passivity in the future.

Every hour you spend in the minor details of your upcoming event, is an hour you could have invested into a game-changing donor relationship.

Your organization doesn't need a superhero.

It needs a chief vision caster, culture builder, and mobilizer of people. Someone that can say "no", truly value their time, and delegate.

The most effective Executive Directors I see are those who:

Share the weight instead of shouldering it alone.

Challenge their boards to step up in engagement, giving, advocacy and fundraising.

Focus on multiplying leaders rather than micromanaging tasks.

You are incredible — and that's exactly the problem.

The fact that you've carried so much is proof of your grit and faithfulness. But breaking through the next ceiling may not come from carrying more and more. It may come from delegating, empowering and saying "no" to more and more distractions.

"People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things."— Steve Jobs