This project was undertaken to provide a way to help harm reduction agencies reduce the harms that can and have happened during leadership and other major transitions.
As the harm reduction movement approaches age 40, organizations have come and gone and so have leaders. Sometimes these transitions have been seamless, clean affairs but, at times, they have been catastrophic upheavals that have levelled important agencies doing invaluable work.
All the stakeholders in this project – funders, authors, and all the people they spoke with – have seen and experienced these transitions, felt their repercussions and want to learn from our collective successes and failures. As a movement, we can then get better at making sure that inevitable changes in leadership result in stronger, more creative, vibrant and functional organizations that continue serving their missions and participants.
Please note that we do not intend this to be the final word about leadership change or transitions in organizations. This is an overview of best practices for harm reduction organizations based on the experiences of many stakeholders in the harm reduction movement including leaders, staff, volunteers and funders.
The authors started by reviewing existing literature from a variety of disciplines, including public health, social work, business, public administration and non-profit management. The project was also informed by the 2018 Capacity Building Leadership Institute (CBLI), which brought together twenty-eight harm reduction leaders to discuss leadership succession to assist the Chicago Recovery Alliance after the loss of their founding director, Dan Bigg.
Next, they held focus groups with 14 organizational leaders from around the U.S. to ask them what they needed. Based on that feedback, they convened a secondary focus group of funders to gain insight and ask them questions posed by the leaders.
After that, they invited people who had been front line staff during a transition to take a survey about their experiences, taking into consideration staff retention and experience.
Finally, the authors conducted in-depth interviews with 24 longtime leaders in the movement who had experienced transition. All the interviews were taped and all participants, except those who participated in the funders focus group, were compensated for their time and expertise.
