Vision in Leadership

This article comes from the Spring 2021 edition of the Nonprofit Quarterly, “Radical Leadership: Visioning Lines of Flight.”

“There’s this notion that change takes time. But in reality, a lot of change just happens in radical paradigm shifts,” explains Cyndi Suarez, Nonprofit Quarterly’s new president and editor in chief. “If you don’t know that process of transformation, then you don’t know how to harness it.”

In late-December 2020, Suarez was promoted from her role as senior editor, and kicked off 2021 by inviting the entire staff to a five-day virtual vision retreat.

Suarez says, and has demonstrated, that “a different person in leadership with a different set of assumptions can actually shift the system.” Since this leadership transition, Nonprofit Quarterly has refined the editorial line to sharpen its focus on analyzing justice as it pertains to race, the economy, climate, and health. This focus allows NPQ to delve into the ecosystems that comprise these issue areas, especially social movements, nonprofit organizations, and philanthropy. Suarez came to these frames as a result of various conversations with leaders over the past four years, in which the main theme was ecosystem sensemaking.

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