In the way we lead.
Co-directorship Announcement Blog Post
by Sarah Yore-Van Oosterhout, Esq.
Founder; Managing Attorney, Advocacy Director
Dear Light Keepers,
Traditional hasn’t exactly been my modus operandi, just ask my parents who had to raise a rebellious resistor. I question everything. I resist things that don’t feel right. And I’ve never been okay with fitting the mold. In the same way, I founded a nonprofit law office that challenges the norms, breaks with tradition, and innovates in the nonprofit sector.
LIA is an office that makes good change and resists the norms of a white, patriarchal society. We’re not afraid of pushing boundaries and trying new things. Obviously, we advocate for change in immigration law and policy, but we also, by example, push for change in a system of arcane nonprofit norms and toxic cultures.
“No matter how supportive
our staff and board were,
the executive director seat
would always have expectations
of the impossible and unattainable.”
CARE is central to our culture, starting with care for our staff and expanding outward to the clients and community we serve. We can’t take care of our clients if we don’t first take care of each other. That starts with pay equity, family-friendly workplace, the ability to bring your authentic self to work, and, perhaps most importantly, an emphasis on self-care and healthy boundaries.
When our former executive director left LIA, we started doing some deep soul-searching and came to the realization that, no matter how supportive our staff and board were, the executive director seat would always have expectations of the impossible and unattainable. It’s no secret that there is high burnout among executive directors. They carry enormous responsibility in a silo. In the end, all decisions, successes, and failures fall on an executive director. Even within LIA’s care culture, this is a heavy burden that never decreases. It’s lonely. It’s stressful. And it’s unsustainable.
A one-finger handstand on top of a bottle
Another way to think about it is a one-finger handstand on top of a bottle.
The bottle represents everything that must pass through the executive director—the bottleneck—and that single finger is the executive director. It makes for a fascinating acrobatic feat, but the reality of even the most agile and practiced performer is diminished capacity to balance personal life, self-care, family, or unplanned hardships. It is, therefore, impossible and only leads to eventual burnout.
Continually putting new leaders in this seat, knowing we’re dropping them into an extreme balancing act with no support system to sustain the strain is not congruent with LIA’s well-known culture and values. We can’t boast a culture of care while still upholding an unhealthy and tired model of leadership that asks for endless sacrifice. Instead, we need to do what we do best: innovate and challenge the norms.
For this reason, we are excited to announce LIA will be embracing a co-directorship model.
LIA is proud to lean into this new leadership model because not only does it fit within our culture of care but it also promises sustainability and greater success in our future. This is a healthier model with shared and equitable leadership, where we capture the gifts of each co-director to maximize their impact on our mission.
Co-leadership models allow leaders to be more proactive about their own mental health and the well-being of themselves and those around them.
The co-directorship model is gaining a lot of traction in the nonprofit sector, especially in a post-pandemic America. In a MiBiz article, author Josh Spanninga quotes GVSU’s Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy, touting the benefits of co-leadership and highlighting the work of several West Michigan nonprofits that have been successfully running a co-leadership model. The Johnson Center notes that co-leadership models allow leaders to be more proactive about their own mental health and the well-being of themselves and those around them.
What’s more, co-leadership allows us to dig even deeper into our diversity, equity, inclusion, access and justice work, which invites and expands diverse leadership. Rather than looking for a single person who checks all the boxes for the traditional executive director—who, incidentally, typically looks like a white male in roughly 76 percent of nonprofits, according to the Johnson Center—co-leadership creates opportunities for diverse leaders where they would otherwise be eliminated from consideration.
During our time of leadership transition and failed executive director searches, we piloted a co-directorship model out of necessity.
During our time of leadership transition and failed executive director searches, we piloted a co-directorship model out of necessity.
After over five months, it dawned on us that co-leadership actually looked pretty good on LIA and resolved our discomfort with the traditional executive director model. We performed a gap analysis during this time and looked at everything our interim executive director was carrying and found ways to redistribute that load in a much more sustainable fashion.
David Lee is continuing in his role as Advancement Director, focusing on fundraising and marketing and communications. This is why LIA hired David in the first place and, as it turns out, he’s pretty good at his job! David supervises a small team that assists with organization finances and marketing and communications. In addition to this, David is responsible for donor relations and coming up with out-of-the-box ways to fund the excellent and necessary work we do at LIA.
Founder Sarah Yore-VanOosterhout, Esq., is taking on the role of Advocacy Director as well as Managing Attorney. In recent months, Sarah has transitioned into a supervisory role, spending very little time directly representing clients and instead sharing her skills and managing others in the office with more capacity for this kind of rigorous work. As Advocacy Director, you’ll see Sarah out in the community more, sharing her passion through education and outreach.
Maggie Haveman-Gould is taking on the role of Program Director. Maggie is the newest member of our team, but has had a mighty impact in her short tenure, transforming internal procedures and policies and creating a solid infrastructure to support our growth. As Program Director, Maggie builds the structure and supports when we need to react to immigration policy changes, incorporating client cultural components and bringing organization to the chaotic realm of an ever-changing landscape of immigration and advocacy response.
From left to right: Maggie Haveman-Gould, David Lee, & Sarah Yore-VanOosterhout, Esq.
Our team took special care to evaluate the strengths and expertise of each co-director, putting them in positions where they’ll not only succeed professionally and personally, but also drive LIA towards mission fulfillment.
We are committed to regularly evaluating the health and success of this model and those working within it. Furthermore, we are committed to cultivating new, diverse leaders who can also share in this leadership model.
The nonprofit sector, in general, because of the pandemic and because of years of philanthropic tension is at a crisis point. Now is not the time to continue with the old, familiar and tired models, those same models constructed by a white patriarchal hierarchy. Now is the time to challenge those norms and start telling a different nonprofit story of resilience and support, sharing leadership, and promoting a healthier and more effective way to work.
LIA is incredibly proud to be on the frontlines of this trend of co-leadership.
Diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and justice aren’t just things we preach, but things we practice in every facet of our work.
You can see this in our board and staff composition.
You can see it in the way we serve clients.
You can see it in the way we serve our employees.
You can see it in the way we serve our community.
And now you can see it in the way we lead.
As always, we welcome your support as we continue to do this important work. If you’re interested in supporting an organization that leads from the inside out, please consider donating or volunteering.