"What if I am the problem?"
That question stopped the room at our Bloomingdale Township Nonprofit Leaders Forum, hosted by UCP Seguin of Greater Chicago. Partners realized that stepping in to just handle something themselves, instead of inviting a teammate to rise to it, might be quietly limiting how well they lead.
Together, we dove into the real challenges of mid-level leadership in community nonprofits. Partners left with two questions to run before jumping in: does stepping back actually give someone else room to grow, and is the risk of leaving it alone real enough to justify doing it yourself anyway. A new Time Triage tool gave partners language for telling a genuine urgent pull, a client crisis, an event, a funder ask, from something that can actually wait, and for coming back to what gets set aside instead of letting it disappear. One partner is building a real system for protecting client privacy in photos, tracking consent instead of hoping it's handled, work that touches trust as much as it touches process.
NEDSRA (https://nedsra.org) shared how a simple Annual Information Form is helping families navigate intake, and the community it's built among parents of kids with disabilities along the way. UCP Seguin of Greater Chicago (https://ucpseguin.org) walked us through the sheer scale of what it runs, residential services, day programs, assistive technology training, and more, all built around one goal: life without limits for people with disabilities.
This forum, in partnership with Good Works Results LLC (https://www.goodworksresults.com), reinforces the vital role of peer support and collective problem-solving in building stronger nonprofit leadership. Learn more at www.goodworksresults.com/nonprofitforum.
Proud to collaborate with these dedicated organizations: The Alive Center (https://alivecenter.org), Bloomingdale Township Youth Service Bureau (https://bloomingdaletownship.com), DuPage Health Coalition (https://accessdupage.org), DuPagePads (https://dupagepads.org), ICNA Relief (https://icnarelief.org), NAMI DuPage (https://namidupage.org), NuPAGE Communities (https://nupagecommunities.org), NEDSRA (https://nedsra.org), Teen Parent Connection (https://teenparentconnection.org), UCP Seguin of Greater Chicago (https://ucpseguin.org), and YWCA Chicago (https://ywcachicago.org). Thank you to the Bloomingdale Township Mental Health Board (https://bloomingdaletownship.com) for supporting this initiative.