Feeling Like You're Not Cut Out to Be an ED? Read This First.

Christine Curtis-Carr
17 hours ago
10 min read

The Realities and Rewards of Leading a Mid-Size Nonprofit

In 2022, I stepped into nonprofit consulting, but my story began much earlier as the Executive Director (ED) of a mid-sized nonprofit in my hometown, in a field close to my heart (education). Those years were rich with purpose, supporting students and teachers, yet I quickly learned that being an ED is far more complex than simply championing a cause or serving as the organization's face. Leading a mid-sized nonprofit requires navigating the essential but often overlooked business side, including fundraising, financial management, board relations, policies, and team coordination, which can feel overwhelming, even for those well-prepared. Being the ED of a mid-sized non-profit requires both leadership skills and the ability to execute direct workflow.

If you are currently (or have ever been) an ED, does this sound familiar?

Questions like…

"I met with ten different donors last month, and I only heard back from one. I guess it was a waste of time."

"Why is that one board member ghosting me? Did I do something wrong?"

"I thought I was a decent leader, but I just lost my best employee, and they're citing burnout as the reason."

Cue the self-defeating sound effect in the background, lol. OKAY, maybe not that dramatic, but you get the picture.

For me, despite having a great team and a strong predecessor, as an ED, I often felt the immense pressure of the role. And now, as a consultant, I see those same pressures showing up with the strong EDs I partner with across the country. The number one problem? They feel responsible for everything and believe they must fix everything.

When in reality, one mindset shift, seeing yourself as a steward of your organization's resources rather than the person who must do it all, can change both how you lead and how you feel in your role.

In this post, I'm going to show you how to use your Circle of Control and embrace a stewardship mindset to break free from the cycle that I, and so many other EDs, get swept up in. This matters because once a new leader steps into this role, they often don't know how to conceptualize it, and part of that problem is the staggering lack of resources specifically written for leaders of small- to mid-sized nonprofits. So they end up burning out.

And sadly, I hear so many of them say, "I'm not cut out for this role."

That is not true. And I'm here to show you why.

four way intersection, all lights green at the same time

Why the ED Role Feels Like Too Much (Because It Kind of Is)

Being an ED of a mid-sized nonprofit can feel like standing at a four-way intersection where every light is green ALL at once, and YOU as ED can feel solely responsible for ensuring nobody crashes.

The job is multifaceted.

Is it filled with exciting, purpose-driven work? Oh, my yes!

But there are also relentless demands: managing people, money management, active fundraising, external partners, expectations, and momentum, often accompanied by cognitive overload and decision fatigue, and at times by very real feelings of isolation. For mid-sized nonprofits (and almost always for smaller ones), raising money, sometimes just to make payroll for a staff that's already undersized, is a constant weekly pressure.

And here is what makes it even harder: many leadership resources and well-meaning authors in the non-profit realm assume close to ideal conditions, clean org charts (if you have one at all), dedicated fundraising teams, an active board, clear job roles, and somewhat stable funding, and for larger non-profits, that is often the case.

But scan the "must-read" lists of books for non-profit leadership, and you'll find that only a small handful of titles genuinely speak to the real reality of a capacity-strapped ED. My personal favorite is Erik Hanberg's The Little Book of Nonprofit Leadership. It's practical, honest, and one of the few that actually meet you where you are. That is just a few books compared to hundreds that assume you have the staff, structure, and budget to implement what they teach.

Most small- and mid-size nonprofits lack the ability, time, or energy to implement this kind of structure to build their capacity. Can it be done? 100%! But it looks different, it is way messier, and the structure is often built around the people who are serving in these roles, and it almost always is built around the ED’s strengths.

In reality, good EDs juggle multiple roles simultaneously: manager, fundraiser, therapist, facilities coordinator, marketer, and chief fire-putter-outer. They might go from de-icing the parking lot to client support to strategic planning within the same hour. Add in fluctuating boards, funding restrictions, and regulatory hurdles, and it's no wonder leaders feel responsible for outcomes that at times are completely beyond their control.

The Lie Many EDs Tell Themselves

If I'm being really honest here, and if you're reading this, I'm going to assume you want the truth.

When I was an ED, I thought it was just me.

I couldn't make it all happen.

I was the problem.

I didn't have "what it took" to create lasting change for the people I served.

Ouch.

And that is the same lie many EDs tell themselves.

For the past three and a half years, as a consultant, I’ve had the honor of partnering with many EDs across the country in several ways, including grant consulting, working with collective non-profit groups, coaching, and guiding other organizations through major changes and transitions.

I have served on boards and met so many incredible ED’s this way, too. Early on in my consulting journey, I had the honor of stepping in as a short-term interim ED for another organization.

So at first, it surprised me when a highly capable ED would express self-doubt.

But now I expect it.

It sounds like this…

"Why does this keep happening?"

"I feel like I'm fixing the same problem over and over."

"I wish I could clone myself."

"Why is there so much to do all the time?"

"Every week, I have a new list of complaints to handle. I have no idea why."

"Will I ever get to do work I actually enjoy again?"

"I guess treading water is better than drowning."

“I just don’t understand.”

"Sometimes I feel like I am five or six different people depending on who I am talking with."

And it deeply concerns me. Because eventually I hear this…

"You know what? I don't think the ED role is for me."

And I 100% get it.

But it breaks my heart every time.

Because mid-size non-profits, and the EDs that lead them, are the lifeblood of our communities, they fill in the gaps for food insecurity, create safe spaces for kids, build playgrounds, create space for art, support adult literacy, create general access to basic resources, including mental health, disability equipment, and so much more.

For non-profit leaders, sometimes it feels like things would be better or more stable if your organization were bigger, but guess what, it's not your nonprofit's size that is the liability; in fact, it’s an asset. Being small to mid-sized lets you know your neighbors by name, respond quickly when a gap arises, get face-to-face time with that private donor, and show up in ways larger organizations simply can't.

And what happens when we can't keep qualified, passionate EDs in the role long-term?

We all lose out.

Our communities aren't what they could be.

And good, no great, people leave for the private sector when their skills are desperately needed right here.

But this blog post is not about the state of non-profits, nor is it ever about recruitment and retention in the sector. That is a whole other issue.

This post is written for you, the hard-working, trying-it-all Executive Director.

Deep breath.

It doesn't have to be this way for you.

Stephen Covey's circle of concern, influence, and control model

First, start simple, start here: Your Circle of Control

Can you acknowledge what is in your direct circle of control? Let me explain,

The Circle of Control comes directly from Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, one of the best-selling leadership books ever written and one that has shaped how I think about my own work for years. If you haven't read it, add it to your list.

Here's the framework. Covey describes three circles. The outermost is your Circle of Concern, which is everything you care about or lose sleep over: the economy, what funders are prioritizing this year, and whether your board members are actually reading their reports. The middle ring is your Circle of Influence, the things you can meaningfully shape through your relationships and actions, but don't fully own. And at the center sits your Circle of Control, a small but mighty space that holds only your own choices, behaviors, and responses.

Covey's first habit is "Be Proactive," and it's here where many EDs get tripped up. We think being proactive means taking charge and launching headfirst into every problem, but it doesn't mean taking charge of everything. It means taking responsibility for what is yours to own. It means noticing when you're spending energy on things you simply cannot change, what Covey describes as ‘shouting at the television’, and choosing instead to redirect that energy toward what you actually control.

Your schedule. Your boundaries. Your key relationships. Your next action. That's your circle.

When EDs recognize the limits of their control and focus on their own Circle of Control (see Covey for this framework), prioritizing goals, meeting or reallocating their budgets, and spending 70% of their time on what lights them up, setting boundaries (especially the ones with yourself), and delegating (yes, it can be done and no it doesn’t have to be perfect), they reduce stress, attract new donors, and guess what?

They become more productive.

That's right, ED: more productive!

I know, I know. It sounds counterintuitive. You know why? Because now the work isn’t a one-giant-slog. When you stop white-knuckling everything, the work stops feeling like a never-ending series of emergencies. You're not running on fumes.

You aren’t serving from a place of depletion. You're leading from a place of intention.

In my experience working with EDs, the ones who make this shift slowly stop spending their best energy reacting to things they can't change and start investing it in the decisions, relationships, and actions that truly move the needle. And ED, that’s when leadership starts to feel less like survival and more like something you actually chose.

And when you start leading from that place, from what's actually yours to own, you stop trying to be the hero. You start becoming something better: a steward.

You Were Never Meant to Be the Hero

The truth is, if you let it, the role can consume you, especially if you are a high performer. The cognitive overload and decision fatigue can push leaders to abandon their vision in favor of simply keeping things afloat. You can feel like somehow, someway, you are the sole person responsible for making everyone else's dreams come true, all while magically finding a way to grow an organization that is already underfunded.

But the key to sustainable leadership and to finding joy in the role is shifting your mindset from savior to steward.

And the data backs up why this shift matters. The Center for Effective Philanthropy's State of Nonprofits 2024 report found that 95% of nonprofit leaders expressed concern about staff burnout, and half said they were more concerned about their own burnout than the year before. Because, unless, as the ED, you are being grossly negligent, this isn't a "you" problem. It's a systems problem, and the stewardship mindset is one of the most practical ways to push back against it.

Peter Brinckerhoff wrote the definitive book on this: Nonprofit Stewardship: A Better Way to Lead Your Mission-Based Organization. His premise is straightforward and, I think, a little radical for how most EDs have been taught to think: your nonprofit actually belongs to the community it serves. You are its temporary steward. Your job is to manage it with the same care and attention you would give to something that belongs to someone else because that's the reality.

It is not yours. It is theirs. And you are holding it in trust.

That reframe changes everything about how you make decisions.

I also love this line from Edgar Schein and Peter Schein's Humble Leadership: "It is not up to you alone to solve the problem, to lead to greatness, to change the world. It is up to you to create a learning environment in which you and your group can cooperate in identifying and fixing the processes that solve problems."

That's the spirit of it. Shifting from savior to steward means asking a different question each morning you walk through the door. Instead of "How am I going to fix this today?" it becomes "How can I responsibly care for and move forward what this community is counting on me to steward?"

It's a different kind of leadership. Less transactional and more relational. And in a sector that celebrates the tireless hero narrative, the ED who runs on caffeine and sheer force of will, it can feel almost radical to say: that's not my job.

But it's the truth. And I think, deep down, most EDs already know it.

handful of rocks: vision, family, love, faith, success

The Real Job Description Nobody Gave You

As an ED, you cannot fix everything, you never will, and guess what?

That is not even the gig.

Nope, the job as ED is NOT to fix everything.

The job, for as long as you are there (and you will at some point leave), is to steward the organization as best you can.

To care for it.

To care for the people and purpose you serve.

To move it forward with care.

Not to save the world alone.

You've Got This, and You Don't Have to Figure It Out Alone

If you've gotten this far, then something here is landing. I want you to know: you are not failing. You are not "not cut out for this." You are leading a wildly complex role in a sector that has asked too much of too many incredible people for too long, and you are doing it anyway, because you believe in what you're building.

The circle of control and the stewardship mindset won't make the pressures disappear overnight. But they can give you a new baseline, a place to lead from that is grounded, sustainable, and honest about what is and isn't yours to carry.

This is just the beginning of the conversation. I'm in the process of building out more resources specifically for EDs of small and mid-sized nonprofits, some free, some paid, all designed to meet you where you actually are, alongside Lauren Anderson with The Unless Group. This post is the first step. :)

If you want to stay connected as those resources roll out, the best places to find me are Instagram and LinkedIn. I share real talk, practical tools, and resources built specifically for EDs like you because you deserve support that's actually designed for the work you do.

@CurtisCarrConsulting

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