Co-leadership is not a new model. To the contrary, nonprofit organizations have used co-CEO and co-executive director models to divide and conquer senior leadership responsibilities and to share power for many years. For example, a common way leaders have shared power is by having one co-leader focus on internal operational tasks, while the other co-leader focuses on external-facing responsibilities, like engaging with funders and constituents. Another classic example is found in arts organizations, where one leader might take on the artistic direction of the nonprofit while the other focuses on business operations.

Increasingly, however, nonprofits are considering leadership structures that diverge from the traditional “executive director” hierarchy. The reasons vary: the pandemic has pushed–and allowed–nonprofits to experiment with new ways of working; to consider new ways to share power and to center proximate Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) leaders; and to focus on succession planning more intentionally in innovative ways in response to the “great resignation.”

Bridgespan recently sat down with co-leaders at three nonprofits to understand their motivations behind co-leadership and to learn about how they have approached their work together. Here is what we learned.

Organization: Catholic Family Service | Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Co-Leaders: Byron Chan and Jessica Cope Williams

With the goal of enhancing collaboration across Catholic Family Service, Williams and Chan embrace (and model) productive conflict with one another.

There isn’t space for big egos in a co-leadership setting, according to Jessica Cope Williams, co-CEO at Catholic Family Service (CFS), a Calgary-based organization that provides counseling, education, and community outreach in four main program areas: mental health and well-being, parental empowerment, child health, and scholastic success. Williams says that she and her co-CEO, Byron Chan, approach the co-leadership model through a lens of shared and equal power. “Neither of us outranks the other in any way,” she explains.

In other words, they feel free to challenge each other in ways that other staff members might be reluctant to do. “Jessica and I have intentionally normalized healthy conflict, dialogue, and discussion,” says Chan. “We don’t show up to every meeting in alignment … because we want to engage our broader leadership team to get the diversity of perspectives and opinions that will lead us to the best decisions for our organization. One way to stimulate that discussion is to model it with each other.”

Williams agrees. “That’s part of why we think two leaders are better than one–because we don’t think the same way,” she says. “I think you would lose the value of this model if you had two co-CEOs who were too alike … One point of view is simply not enough to come up with solutions for the complex challenges that we face in our organization and in the world at large.”

Co-leadership also allows CFS to model the type of collaboration it wants to see internally while demonstrating an alternative type of power structure. “The collaborative aspect of co-leadership breaks down the more traditional colonial patriarchal type of decision making,” says Williams. “Since we aspire to be a sector leader in collaboration, co-leadership gives us an opportunity to model that strategy within our own organization.”

In fact, Williams notes, that the success of co-leadership at the top of CFS has inspired similar efforts at other levels of the organization. She points to two program directors involved with service delivery that have taken up the mantle of co-leadership, aligned the work of their respective divisions, and led more joint-work efforts to advance the organization’s overall strategic goals. “In the past, most of our projects had one sponsor or one team taking the lead,” says Williams. “Now we’re seeing these dyads start to form where neither work group has more power than the other.”

Organization: East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice | Commerce, CA

Co-Leaders: Laura Cortez and Taylor Thomas

As a nonprofit rooted in community organizing, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice embraces power sharing as a part of its organizational DNA – co-leadership is just one manifestation of this value.

Co-leadership has been foundational to East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice (EYCEJ) since its founding in 2001. “We have always had what we call a distributed leadership model,” says Laura Cortez, organizer and co-executive director at EYCEJ, which uses grassroots organizing and leadership building skills to help under-represented communities influence policy makers and agencies to implement environmental justice policies.

This commitment to distributed leadership is reflected in EYCEJ’s horizontal structure, with all staff being paid the same. “White supremacy has looked at different jobs as expendable or less-than. By contrast, we feel that every role and job has value,” declares Cortez. “We can see this even more during COVID with grocery workers and farm workers at the center of keeping the whole system going.”

The shift to co-leadership may be just the first step in what Co-Director Taylor Thomas says is a part of a larger plan to extend leadership and continue flattening the organizational structure at EYCEJ. “Part of that involves everyone being trained on how to do everything in the organization,” says Thomas. “We’re learning from each other, learning each other’s skills, and learning each other’s roles.”

In fact, EYCEJ had considered going beyond co-leadership and taking the radical step of becoming a leaderless organization. Ultimately, the organization determined that the legal and financial duties associated with its 501(c)(3) status precluded it taking that step. Given that, at EYCEJ, Cortez focuses on leading organizational development and Thomas focuses on leading policy development.

Thomas says that the co-leadership model enables her and Cortez to give their team members plenty of support and guidance. “We’ve found that prioritizing regular check-ins, trouble shooting, conflict resolution, and wellness creates a more holistic environment where people can really thrive and achieve their best work,” Thomas says. “We don’t believe in micro-managing, punitive actions, or being driven by funder demands,” she adds. “We’re human beings who are living under and fighting against oppressive systems—it doesn’t make sense to recreate systemic harm on a micro-level with your team and is completely contrary to our efforts to achieve justice.”

What does this all amount to? Operationally, EYCEJ has little turnover in staff. Externally, Thomas hopes the organization becomes a model for others. “We care about each other, and I think it’s because we invest so much time in our team … I’m hoping we can be a model for shifting nonprofit culture to be more holistic and supportive of the people who are doing the organizing.”

Organization: ProInspire | Washington, DC

Co-Leaders: Bianca Casanova Anderson and Monisha Kapila

For ProInspire, co-leadership started as part of a plan to support a new leader as she steps into the CEO role while providing the founder with an off-ramp that feels right for the organization. The co-CEOs feel this model has been transformational and are planning to keep it beyond the founder succession.

The seeds of co-leadership at ProInspire, a nonprofit that helps social sector leaders accelerate racial equity, began when founder and then-CEO Monisha Kapila took a sabbatical after nine years at the helm. When she came back from sabbatical, Kapila told the board she would be ready to move on in a five-year time frame. “I didn’t want to be one of those founders who stays past 15 years,” says Kapila.

With the encouragement of ProInspire’s board chair, Isabelle Moses, Kapila evaluated senior hires to see if any of them had the potential to be her successor. From the moment she hired Bianca Casanova Anderson as director, she was impressed by Bianca’s strategic vision and understanding of how to apply a race equity analysis from self to systems. Anderson started working at ProInspire in January 2020, right at the start of what Kapila calls the most challenging year ever for the organization due to impacts of the pandemic on staff, financial uncertainty, and racial justice awakening that led to a huge interest in the organization’s work. Amid the turmoil, Kapila says, Anderson demonstrated her capacity for leadership. “I felt that I would want to work for her!” exclaims Kapila.

Kapila broached the topic of succession with Anderson, who expressed her enthusiasm, but also her reluctance to serve as sole CEO. Anderson shares: “I wanted a more humane and caring leadership experience—to be a leader and have a life outside of work—than I had experienced in executive leadership before.” They discussed the potential of co-leadership to align with a vision for a more equitable and supportive model.

Moses, who had experience working with co-leadership models, supported the model, and they took the idea to the board. The board was open to the idea, but some members expressed concerns based on experiences at other organizations where challenges had arisen when co-leaders disagreed on strategic direction.

“I was clear with the board that I was planning to leave before Bianca, so that if strategic differences did arise, the board should coach me to step back and follow Bianca’s guidance,” recalls Kapila. “Since I’ll likely be leaving the organization before Bianca, we’ve structured our co-leadership around finding ways for me to support her vision going forward—even in cases where I might have different ideas about how to proceed.”