New report on parental leave for Chief Executives in the Not-For-Profit sector

Society has jointly published a new report with the consultancy Leaders Plus looking at the issue of CEO parental leave in the Not-For-Profit sector.

Click here to download a copy.

The report builds upon an event that we co-hosted in October last year, bringing together a group of 12 charity and social enterprise CEOs who have experience of taking parental leave. We asked them to share what worked and hadn’t worked when they went on parental leave and we collaborated with them to develop a setries of recommendations. We also consulted an additional 22 charity CEOs about their experience of parental leave through an online questionnaire, and we have since conducted further interviews with a number of other charity leaders.

Parental leave is a source of anxiety for many CEOs and their boards. All organisations rely on an element of leadership continuity, but small to medium sized charities are often particularly dependent on the knowledge, networks and expertise of their Chief Executives. As such, many charity CEOs are unsure whether they can continue a leadership career once they have a baby. We believe that top jobs must always be accessible for leaders with children. 

We thank all the CEOs and Chairs who contributed to this work for their generous support and commitment to this issue - in particular our panel, which included Elizabeth Oldfield (Theos), Polly Mackenzie (Money and Mental Health Policy Institute - and now Demos) and Kawika Solidum (BeyondMe). We are also grateful to Impact Hub Westminster for their support in hosting the original event.