How to Lead Nonprofits
Turning Purpose into Impact to Change the World
“Masterful… a book I will be recommending for years to come.”
Arthur C. BrooksProfessor, Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School
A clear and compelling road map for social sector leadership.
Jim CollinsAuthor, Good to GreatAn important book for anyone looking to build nonprofit institutions that create enduring change.
Jacqueline NovogratzFounder and CEO, AcumenAn invaluable roadmap for any nonprofit executive looking to hone their skills.
Darren WalkerFormer President, Ford FoundationOverview
Nonprofit leadership is hard
This book is for nonprofit leaders who want to strengthen their leadership and increase the effectiveness of their organisations. It sets out a path to greater impact, with real-life examples and interviews with successful nonprofit leaders.
Most new nonprofit leaders are ill-prepared for the challenges they will face, and many experienced ones struggle to deliver the change they are committed to. Many turn to books on business leadership — but nonprofits are not meant to be run just like businesses. Nonprofit leaders have one key advantage: purpose is fundamental to their organisation’s work.
Purpose
Achieving outsize impact by pursuing your organisation’s purpose, and making the strategic choices that follow from it.
People
Building an inclusive culture that motivates and empowers your team, and a board relationship that supports rather than drains.
Partnership
Working with the community you serve, with funders, and with peer organisations to scale impact beyond what you can do alone.
With examples and testimony from nonprofit, NGO and charity leaders around the world, framed by Nick’s decades of experience in the sector, this is a highly usable guide to harnessing the power of purpose to shape everything your organisation does.
Praise
What nonprofit leaders say
Many go into nonprofit leadership unprepared for the twin demands of business management and measurable social impact. Finally, we have a resource that guides the way. Nick Grono’s masterful How to Lead Nonprofits is a book I will be recommending for years to come.
Arthur C. BrooksProfessor, Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School; #1 New York Times bestselling author
“In How to Lead Nonprofits, Nick Grono has accomplished the rare feat of blending intellectual clarity with practical guidance. He lays out a clear and compelling road map for social sector leadership, enlivened with vivid examples and strong writing. This work can help any nonprofit CEO who seeks to transform inspired purpose into a powerful flywheel of tangible impact.”
Jim CollinsAuthor of Good to Great and Good to Great and the Social Sectors
“This is an important book for anyone looking to build nonprofit institutions that create enduring change. Nick understands the power of using the tools of business to create outsized impact in the social sector. Based on lived experience, he powerfully outlines what it means both to build and to lead nonprofit organizations.”
Jacqueline NovogratzFounder and CEO, Acumen
“Drawing on the insights and practical knowledge garnered over his decades leading global nonprofit organizations, Nick Grono shares how nonprofit leaders can aim high and make an impact by focusing on the people and purpose that drive us. This book is an invaluable roadmap for any nonprofit executive looking to hone their skills and chart an effective path forward.”
Darren WalkerFormer President, Ford Foundation
“Nick Grono reflects on years of non-profit leadership to produce a book that is timely, thoughtful and necessary. There is a level of candor and vulnerability that makes it relatable to anyone who is in or aspires to non-profit leadership in a way that corporate leadership books don’t. At a time when the complexity of the external world reverberates through non-profits this is a book that non-profit leaders can find solace in.”
Tirana HassanFormer Executive Director, Human Rights Watch
“There is a real need for a practitioner-focused handbook for nonprofit leaders. Nick’s book more than meets this need. Informed by Nick’s decades of experience in the sector, this book provides a very practical roadmap for leaders of all types of nonprofits, given the complex range of challenges they face. I recommend this book to all leaders seeking to make a change in the world.”
Cindy McCainExecutive Director, World Food Programme
“Leading a nonprofit organization is a complex juggling act, requiring the balancing of a group’s mission with the concerns of staff, partners, and funders. Few manage the challenge better than Nick Grono. Having helped to lead two important global organizations with extraordinary effectiveness, he is well placed to offer guidance on excellence in nonprofit leadership. This book is a valuable and much-needed contribution.”
Kenneth RothExecutive Director, Human Rights Watch, 1993–2022
“There have been a lot of questions on the non-profit model and for those of us who have had to navigate it, understand its complexity but don’t always have the words to explain it. This book helps in giving clarity to leaders and those interested in learning how to succeed in leading non-profits. It will be a great companion to leaders like me.”
Sophie OtiendeCEO, Global Fund to End Modern Slavery; co-founder, Azadi Kenya
“Every leader who wants to make a real difference in the world should read this book. Nick is not only a highly successful non-profit CEO, but also always curious, keen to explore, open to improvement, and eager to learn from others. In this valuable book, he shares key learnings from his decades-long leadership experience and vast expertise in change-making with all of us — to help us make the change that is so urgently needed.”
Mabel van OranjeSerial social entrepreneur; helped found Girls Not Brides, The Elders and VOW for Girls
“As a newish CEO, this is such a precious book to have on one’s table. To see it written down, especially the sections on impact, your priority as a CEO and defining your organisation’s culture, is excellent. Every chapter blends in so well it’s hard to read one in isolation — take note, read it all! There’ll be a line in there that will provide a great ‘aha’ moment and some relief that being CEO is as rewarding as the challenges you might confront.”
Dr Comfort EroPresident and CEO, International Crisis Group
Buy
Where to buy the book
Published by Matt Holt Books, an imprint of BenBella, in July 2024.
- Hardback
- Ebook
- Audiobook
ISBN 978-1-63774-519-9 (US) · 978-1-63774-520-5 (UK)
The Nonprofit Leadership Course
Fifteen modules based on the book, with a workbook of nineteen tools. Launching Q1 2027.
About the author
Nick Grono
Nick co-founded The Purpose Network after thirteen years as inaugural chief executive of the Freedom Fund. Under his leadership the Fund raised over USD 330 million, to support over 300 frontline organisations. He is the author of How to Lead Nonprofits (2024) and a qualified executive coach.
Nick has more than twenty years of leadership experience across US and international nonprofits, and a decade before that in corporate law, government and investment banking. His past roles include CEO of the Walk Free Foundation, Deputy President of the International Crisis Group, and Chief of Staff and National Security Adviser to the Australian Attorney-General. He has served on many nonprofit boards and is currently chair of the Starling Institute and an advisory council member of the McCain Institute. He writes and speaks regularly on nonprofit leadership, is an accredited executive coach, and coaches a number of nonprofit chief executives.
He has briefed the United Nations Security Council and testified before parliamentary committees in the UK, Australia and the Netherlands. He has appeared on national and international television and radio, and written for the New York Times, The Guardian, Foreign Policy and the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Nick spent several years of his early life sailing around the world in a hundred-year-old square-rigged ship with his family and other crew. Australian by birth, he picked up Belgian and British nationalities along the way, and now lives between London and Brussels.
On Nonprofit Leadership
A Substack on the joys and challenges of leading nonprofits
Occasional emails with thoughts and observations from Nick, written for people doing the job.