Title: Challenge of Founder’s Syndrome | Texas Commission on the Arts
Headings: Challenge of Founder’s Syndrome
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Challenge of Founder’s Syndrome
Parting is such sweet sorrow
What are founders thinking?
Should the founder remain on the board?
What can happen if a leader stays too long?
Should the founder continue after a replacement is named?
What are the most difficult issues for the founder to face?
Are there training opportunities that address founder’s syndrome?
What is the best way to confront the issue of organizational transition?
What happens if the founder wants to continue to work with the nonprofit?
Is there any way that founders can continue working with their organizations?
Is there a graceful way to send them off?

Content: Founders of nonprofits often assume that they will be on the organizational board after leaving, but that can put the incoming executive in the uncomfortable position of reporting to a former leader who continues to call the shots. When founders are asked to leave an organization’s board or staff, often they want to be a consultant to the organization, thus prolonging their departure. What can happen if a leader stays too long? Individuals with long organizational tenure can be an asset, but often become a detriment to the organization. For example, one executive director who had been on the job for nearly 40 years recruited a board with no term limits, consisting mostly of friends he had known since childhood. This situation is extremely difficult to overcome. Should the founder continue after a replacement is named? It is a good practice to discourage or limit contact between the new director and the founder. To illustrate why this is not a good practice, the founder of an opera company said she would be there for two weeks after the new person came. Four months after the new director came, the founder was still coming in every day.