The Nonprofit FAQ
| Should nonprofits use the term CEO? |
A CEO IS A CEO IS A CEO?What titles do boards use for their top staff person? Probably the most common is Executive Director, or Director in small organizations or projects with limited duration (such as an organization created to celebrate the town's 200th anniversary). Others use CEO (Chief Executive Officer), to parallel business titles. Some organizations prefer President, because they feel it gives more clout to their chief of staff when dealing with the corporate community. Others feel that President should be reserved for the president of the board of directors. (In a previous Board Cafe we mentioned how some organizations use CVO--Chief Voluntary Officer--as the title for the president of the board of directors.) Maybe the board members of the Society for Creative Anachronism have it right: they call each other Lord and Lady. From BOARD CAFE, June 9, 1998. Back issues available from http://www.boardcafe.org. If you would like to have the BOARD CAFE delivered to you free via electronic mail, send an e-mail message to Putnam Barber commented and Susan Fox, Executive Director of the Society of American Archivists, responded on 3/26/02: PB: The key in my mind is that there can be many poobahs with many titles, but without stretching the language beyond its limits, there can be only one chief executive officer. SF: I agree. In the association community there is a great deal of talk about the CEO serving as President - personally, it doesn't make any difference to me what I'm called, as long as I have a strong board, an active and engaged elected leader, and the respect of our membership. Channing Hillway (channing@rain.org) commented more generally on nonprofit job titles in NONPROFIT on June 10, 1998: What's in a name?If you have an organization, there are responsibilities that must be met to keep things going. People do the necessary work. They usually have job position titles. These titles should, in my opinion, be considered completely arbitrary and a matter of convenience and preference. There are, of course, some conventions that we follow in order to have some sort of common frame of reference, such as "Executive Director," or "Executive Secretary." But some think of the term secretary as referring to a non-supervisory and non-executive role, yet an NPO's executive secretary is usually not the secretary to an executive, as the term is sometimes used in for-profit sector, but often fulfills precisely the same responsibilities as an executive director. Do we call the money person the bookkeeper, the chief financial officer or the treasurer? First define the responsibilities of the position. List the set of objectives that spell out what the person is to do. Ask around if the position is a new one to determine if the set of expectations is realistic (we often expect too much). Then, after some thought and discussion, assign the position a title. You might choose names like we saw among the Sioux in Dances with Wolves, such as "Sits at Desk Number Three and Calls Foundations, Etc.," "Smiles Alot and Welcomes Visitors;" or you might choose a more traditional title such as "Fund Development Manager." Bottom line, define the job first and attach the title later. Posted June 10, 1998; updated and revised, 3/28/02 -- PB |