The National Council of Nonprofits (NCN) today announced that Tim Delaney, its President & CEO, informed the Board of Directors of his intention to retire from the organization effective July 10, 2024, after 16 years in the role. Thereafter, he will spend a year as a Fellow in the Inspired Leadership Initiative at the University of Notre Dame. The NCN Board of Directors has initiated a search for his successor.
Delaney told the Board, “I cannot imagine a more fulfilling role than getting to advance and protect the vital work of America’s crown jewels – charitable nonprofits – that improve countless lives daily in ways both visible and invisible. I’m extremely grateful to my past mentors and role models who influenced my approach of leading with core values, including serving others by listening, earning trust in everything we do, respecting every person as valuable, being action oriented, and speaking truth to power. Part of that leadership approach has involved surrounding myself with people who are more talented than I am, equally committed to core values, and eager to function as a true Team with a capital ‘T’ for the greater good. Our blended concentric and interconnected rings of Teams – our outstanding staff, our strong board, and our robust network of networks – have made a lasting difference, and that’s why I am confident that the organization is ready for its next chapter.”
“Tim is an extraordinary champion for this network, the nonprofit sector, and people in local communities throughout the country,” said Liz Moore, Board Chair for the National Council of Nonprofits and Executive Director of the Montana Nonprofit Association. “His leadership over the last decade and a half has been unparalleled, and he will be deeply missed. Thanks to Tim’s vision, his tenacity, and the remarkable team he has built, NCN and the network could not be better positioned to continue making meaningful, lasting gains for the work of charitable nonprofits.”
During his tenure, Tim transformed NCN from a quiet inward-looking trade association into a robust and agile network focused externally as it champions, connects, and informs charitable nonprofits to improve lives, add vitality to communities, and enhance the health of our democracy. He led the expansion of NCN into becoming the largest network of charitable nonprofits in North America by increasing the number of member state associations of nonprofits and regional nonprofit allies, absorbing the former Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest, creating the State Policy Ally program to leverage nonprofit power in state capitals, expanding into Canada, and most recently welcoming the Leap Ambassadors Community into NCN’s network of networks.
His constant goal has been to amplify and leverage the collective voice of the American people through their local nonprofits to improve lives and communities as champions for the public good. Guided by Tim’s values-based leadership and hands-on expertise, NCN expanded its policy footprint into all three branches of government and at the local, state, and federal levels, placing it at the center of major efforts to advance and protect the work of nonprofits. From securing $50 billion for nonprofits from Congress in forgivable PPP loans that helped preserve more than 6.2 million nonprofit jobs during the worst of the pandemic to leading legislative and regulatory campaigns to reform antiquated and broken government-nonprofit grantmaking processes, NCN has fought to ensure nonprofits have the resources they need to serve their communities. NCN also has stood firmly for core values, from protecting charities, foundations, and religious congregations from divisive partisan politics by defeating attempts in Congress to destroy the long-standing Johnson Amendment to writing amicus briefs for the Supreme Court in key cases of interest to nonprofits, such as keeping the discriminatory citizenship question off the 2020 Census questionnaire.
Tim positioned NCN as a center of influence by making it the go-to source of reliable information regarding charitable nonprofits. Nonprofits, foundations, policymakers, and the media now routinely turn to NCN for trustworthy facts, insights, and sensemaking. He has been interviewed by ABC News, CBS, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, CNBC, CNN, C-SPAN, NPR, The New York Times, Nonprofit Quarterly, The NonProfit Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and many other news outlets.
Among other activities at NCN, Tim served as a National Training Fellow for the Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest, national Steering Committee member for Nonprofit VOTE, and North American representative on the Steering Committee of the international Affinity Group of National Associations. Additionally, he has delivered hundreds of keynotes and other presentations for a diverse range of groups, domestic and international, and he writes extensively about nonprofit advocacy, nonprofit operations, and public policy issues for a variety of publications. He has been honored as one of The NonProfit Times Power and Influence leaders eleven times, including being selected as its “Influencer of the Year” in 2023.
NCN’s Board of Directors has established a Transition Committee, led by Board Chair Liz Moore. More information about the transition will be shared in the coming weeks.
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Communities thrive when nonprofits succeed. For more than 30 years, the National Council of Nonprofits has mobilized the largest network of nonprofits in the United States to achieve transformative results. We champion, connect, and inform nonprofits across the country. Join our collective efforts to ensure a connected and powerful nonprofit community equipped to champion the public good. Learn more at www.councilofnonprofits.org.