Board members are often the decision-makers in executive searches — and for good reason. They set strategic direction, hold fiduciary responsibility, and ultimately own the outcome of a leadership hire. But in our two decades of working with nonprofit boards, we’ve seen the same well-intentioned mistakes made again and again.
Mistake 1: Treating the Search Like a Volunteer Recruitment
Many nonprofit board members come from backgrounds in philanthropy or community leadership. That’s a tremendous asset in governance. But it can create a blind spot: the assumption that mission alignment is enough to attract top candidates, and that the organization’s reputation will do most of the outreach work.
The most qualified senior candidates — particularly those currently in strong roles — need to be actively recruited, not just discovered. They’re not browsing job boards. They need to be found, contacted directly, and persuaded that the opportunity is worth exploring. That requires a different muscle than the one most boards are used to using.
Mistake 2: Defining the Role Based on the Last Person Who Held It
When a long-tenured executive leaves, the board’s instinct is often to describe the role in terms of what that person did. This leads to a role specification that’s really a description of one individual’s strengths, rather than what the organization actually needs going forward.
The right question isn’t “who can do what our last Executive Director did?” It’s “given where our organization is today and where we need to go, what does leadership need to look like over the next five years?”
Mistake 3: Underestimating Compensation
Boards are stewards of donor dollars, and salary conservatism is often a reflection of genuine fiscal responsibility. But in a competitive talent market, compensation significantly below market rate doesn’t save money — it just narrows the candidate pool to people who can afford to take a pay cut.
Mistake 4: Moving Too Slowly Out of Caution
Board governance moves deliberately. But in executive search, deliberateness can become a liability. Top candidates at the finalist stage are almost always interviewing elsewhere. When a search committee takes three weeks to schedule a second interview, they risk losing their preferred candidate to a faster-moving organization.
Mistake 5: Searching in Public Too Early
There’s a temptation to post the role broadly as soon as the search is launched. But publicizing a leadership vacancy too early can create internal anxiety, prompt donor questions before the board is ready, and signal sector transition before a story has been crafted. The strongest searches often begin quietly, with targeted direct outreach before any public posting.
None of these mistakes are signs of a failing board. They’re signs of a board doing its best in unfamiliar territory — and all of them are avoidable with the right search partner and honest process.
TPSG has worked exclusively in the nonprofit sector for over two decades. If your organization is navigating a leadership transition or executive search, we’d welcome a conversation.