What to Do When Your Development Director Leaves

Katie Mendez
Mar 3
4 min read

Updated: Apr 1

The reports your outgoing director always pulled? No one’s sure how to get them out of the system. The acknowledgement letters went out last week - maybe? - but no one can find the template they used. A board member wants a fundraising update and you know the goal, but you’re not sure what’s actually in the pipeline, who’s close to giving, or what conversations were already in progress. And the spring appeal that was supposed to go out two weeks ago is still sitting in someone’s draft folder.

This is what a development director transition often looks like from the inside.

When a fundraising leader moves on, you’re not managing one new challenge, you’re managing two at the same time. Keeping fundraising moving. And finding the right next hire. Most leaders toggle between the two - and neither gets done really well as a result.

The good news is there’s a path through both. Here’s how to think about each one.

Part 1: Keep Fundraising Moving

First 30 Days — Get Organized

The first priority is getting a clear picture of what’s actually in motion - and what needs to happen - and making sure the right person is responsible for each piece of it.

What’s in your pipeline right now? What donor conversations were already in progress? What campaigns need to keep moving? Are there events already in the works or coming up on the calendar? And what needs to happen daily, weekly, and monthly to keep things on track?

If you didn’t get a clean handoff, this is the moment to reconstruct what you can - and be honest about what you don’t know yet.

One action: Build a 90-day project calendar. Map everything that needs to happen in the next three months, prioritize, and assign a specific owner to each project. Don't just add these to your team’s existing list - take time to look at everyone’s existing priorities. The team is absorbing more. Something will have to give.

Month 2+ — Stay on Track

By now you have a clearer picture of what’s in motion. The goal is to keep it there.

For your team, that means staying focused and working the plan. If you’re an executive director leading the search on your own, it can be more complicated - interviews, candidate conversations, and hiring decisions will often pull your attention away from operations at exactly the moment your team needs direction.

Is the team clear enough on their priorities to keep moving without you for stretches of time? What needs your attention and what doesn’t?

One action: Don’t let weekly team meetings slip. These will keep you connected to what’s moving, what’s stalling, and where people need support - even when the search, and all your other projects, consume your calendar.

Part 2: Running a Search That Gets You the Right Hire

First 30 Days — Before You Post

Most organizations repost the old job description. Sometimes it’s three years old. Your organization has changed. Your fundraising program has changed. Does your job description reflect what you need right now, or what you needed the last time you hired?

One Action: Before you post anything, answer these questions honestly: What were the gaps in your last director’s work? What does your fundraising program need most right now - major gifts, systems, strategy, something else? What will success look like in year one?

Month 2 — Find the Right Person

Good candidates are interviewing you as much as you’re interviewing them. The questions you ask in interviews, and the information you know and share, signal what kind of organization they’d be joining.

Are you walking into candidate conversations with a clear picture of your fundraising program: the strengths, the gaps, and what you’re hiring someone to help you fix? What questions are they asking?

One Action: Pull together a state of fundraising brief - revenue by source, donor retention, pipeline health, what’s working and what needs attention. Use it to guide interviews. The best candidates will be asking about these things and you'll be glad to have the answers.

Month 3+ — An Arrival That Sticks

Most teams don’t have capacity to do a lot before a new director starts. That’s okay. A few things go a long way.

One Action: Make sure they can find what they need - files, templates, key contacts, processes. Be prepared to walk them through what happened during the gap: what got done, what didn’t, and what’s already on the calendar.

The first three to six months should give them space to get their footing. To learn the donors, understand the program, and build trust with the team, before the pressure to perform ramps up. Regular check-ins, clear priorities, and room to ask questions without judgment make for a great start.

The hire who feels supported in those early months is the one who stays.

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Need more?

The Between Development Directors Playbook walks through both work flows in detail with checklists, key questions, and a clear picture of what can wait and what can’t. It’s built for exactly this moment.

Purchase the playbook — $56

If you’re past the point where a guide is enough and need someone to step in and lead - or to help you think through the job description, shape your interview process, and make sure you’re hiring right - interim fundraising leadership is available.