The Thing That Got Me Fired

Issue #50
3-minute read

Fourteen years ago, I was fired from a CEO role at a nonprofit I loved.

It was painful. It still is, though it gets easier to hold with time.

I’d been their CDO for years. I was promoted to CEO. And then I was let go.

I’ve been hearing from CDOs lately. People who’ve been let go, or who are watching their relationship with leadership deteriorate, can feel what’s coming. And I keep finding myself wanting to tell them the same thing I wish someone had told me.

So this is issue 50. And this is that thing.

What I Couldn’t See Then

A McKinsey paper, “Conviction and Connection: What Makes a Great Philanthropy CEO” by Tracy Nowski and Lynn Taliento, finally gave language to what I couldn’t articulate back then.

The authors identified three capabilities that define strong nonprofit CEOs: discernment, relational intelligence, and storytelling.

And then this line:

“The people who fail at this job are the people who get ahead of their principal or trustee. When you get ahead of them, you erode trust.”

That hit me hard.

The paper is written for CEOs. But every Chief Fundraiser I know operates within the same dynamic with their CEO, board, donors, and team.

We are all of us in the business of earning belief. And the mechanism is identical whether you sit in the top chair or the one next to it.

The Only Measure That Matters

The only measure that matters is whether the people around you believe in where you’re going.

And that belief is something you earn. Slowly and in full view.

I didn’t understand that fourteen years ago.

I was moving fast, building things, convinced the work would speak for itself. I got ahead of the people who needed to believe in me before they could follow me.

After I was let go, I returned to a CDO role. Not as a consolation prize, as a decision. This is the work I was built for. The work that moves me.

I sat in the CEO seat long enough to understand what that chair requires. And I came back to this one with that knowledge intact.

I never looked back.

Today I carry the lessons into every conversation with my CEO, every board report, every donor relationship. The systems I’ve built, the team I’ve developed, the revenue we’ve grown, none of it works without the trust underneath it.

Trust isn’t the soft part of this job. It’s the whole job.

For Anyone Who Needed to Hear This

Maybe you're in a hard moment with your organization. The relationship with your CEO feels fragile. The board doesn't fully see what you've built. Maybe you've recently lost a role, and you're trying to make sense of it.

The lesson from those moments is not that you weren't good enough.

It's that trust at this level is earned differently than most of us were taught.

We were trained to perform. To produce. To show results.

Nobody told us that results without belief won’t hold.

On My Radar

I keep returning to the McKinsey piece that anchors this issue — “Conviction and Connection: What Makes a Great Philanthropy CEO.” It’s written for CEOs but reads like a field guide for anyone in senior fundraising leadership. The section on relational intelligence is worth the read on its own. Find it at McKinsey.com.

A Note at 50 Issues

Fifty executive briefs. Every Sunday. Written from inside the work, not above it. Thank you for being here.

If Chief Fundraiser Weekly has been useful to you, the best thing you can do is forward it to one CDO who needs it. No algorithm, no ad budget — just peer to peer, the way this work actually spreads.

Your Turn

Before Friday, name one relationship in your organization. Choose your CEO, board chair, major donor, or key team member. Pick one where trust is thinner than you’d like.

You don’t have to fix it this week. Just name it, and think about one thing you could do in full view to start earning it back.

Cheers,
​Christine​

PS — If you’ve been through a job loss or a hard organizational moment and you’re still processing it, hit reply and tell me where you are. I read every message and I respond.

I’m Christine Bork, Chief Development Officer at the American Academy of Pediatrics. I write Chief Fundraiser Weekly to share what I’m learning as I lead a growing team and try to do the work in a way that’s sustainable and thoughtful.

Full disclosure:

Some links in CFW are affiliate links. If you click and buy, I earn a small cut or a discount — no markup to you. I only link to things I'd tell you about over coffee anyway. The commission is just a bonus for not keeping my opinions to myself.