Latest News from BoardSource
BoardSource Announces Leadership Transition
Washington, D.C., December 9 – BoardSource announced today that Anne Wallestad will be stepping down from her position next June after nearly ten years as BoardSource’s president and CEO.
In her message to the BoardSource community, Wallestad shared:
“While I know it will be hard to say goodbye after so many years of leadership with this incredible organization, I also know that it’s the right time – for BoardSource, and for me. Serving as our CEO has been the honor of a lifetime. I am enormously proud of the organization that BoardSource has become, and I know that it has even greater things ahead.”
Under Wallestad’s leadership, BoardSource has transformed itself from an organization primarily focused on meeting the technical support needs of individual boards to a more complex and influential organization that marries technical support for boards with a strong leadership voice advocating for necessary change in social sector board leadership. This has included prominent campaigns focused on sector-wide change, including the Stand for Your Mission Campaign, which has helped boards better understand the power and importance of nonprofit engagement in public policy, and The Power of Possibility, which encourages board optimism and openness to sustained collaborations and mergers.
In recent years, the organization has taken a vocal stand on the importance of board diversity and board leadership to advance racial equity. Wallestad signaled the beginning of a much stronger programming focus for the organization on racial equity with her comments at the organization’s 2017 BoardSource Leadership Forum. That commitment and focus flowed from an organization-wide commitment to diversity, inclusion, and equity formalized by BoardSource’s board of directors in March 2017, and has grown significantly in subsequent years.
BoardSource’s latest thinking about the need for substantive change in social sector board leadership – including the need to center equity and shift power toward the communities nonprofits serve – was introduced in a Stanford Social Innovation Review article earlier this year. “The Four Principles of Purpose-Driven Board Leadership” has been widely hailed as a groundbreaking new perspective on nonprofit governance and board leadership and is prompting deep reflection about the need for change.
“There is no question this is an exciting time for BoardSource,” said Julia Wilson, chair of the board and executive director of the John Paul Stevens Fellowship Foundation. “We are thankful for Anne’s leadership and know that our next leader will be joining an organization and team that are well-positioned to create lasting change in the way that the social sector is led and governed.”
The board has engaged the Nonprofit Advisory Group to lead a national search, which will launch in January. Individuals interested in learning more about the position as potential applicants should email Rachel Burgoyne at [email protected]. Press inquiries may be directed to [email protected].