by Nani Jansen Reventlow
2 July 2025
Why I’m leaving the organisation, and why that’s a good thing
“Here’s the truth. People leave. People leave jobs. We leave projects. We leave volunteer opportunities. We leave appointed and elected seats. We leave high powered roles and barely paid gigs. We leave towns and cities. We leave relationships. At the same time that all of that is true, that people leave, here’s another truth. … To be quite honest with you, we suck at this.”
– Naomi Hattaway, “People leave, a podcast style keynote about nonprofit workplace transitions”
When I started my previous organisation, the Digital Freedom Fund, I informed the Board at our first meeting that I would be leaving in five years’ time. Looking back at this moment when the time to leave had arrived, I wrote: “To me, this was a logical trajectory: the mandate to build an organisation that could support strategic litigation on digital rights came from the field, so I considered myself a custodian. I would build the institution that was needed and then hand it over to someone else. Now, five years later, the time has come to say goodbye.”
I am not sure where I got the 5-year plan from at the time, but the number seems to have followed me into the adventure that followed DFF. A year from now, five years after starting the work that led to its creation, I will say goodbye to Systemic Justice.
Since I started sharing my plans for leaving, and especially since we started recruiting for an Executive Director, I have been struck by how deeply engrained our negative connotations with departures are. There is an assumption that people leaving means something negative, even though – as Naomi Hattaway’s quote above illustrates so well – we leave situations and relationships all the time. Admittedly, not all departures will be voluntary or ones that facilitate new beginnings, but it’s interesting how quickly our minds go to departures implying a crisis of some sort.
I couldn’t be happier to be leaving, for both the organisation and myself. While I did not have as clear a timeline in mind when we started building Systemic Justice as I did when beginning the work with DFF, my aversion to the infamous “founder’s syndrome” that keeps non-profit leaders in place beyond what is good for the work always had me imagining an ejector seat button at 10 years’ time of staying on anywhere. We never made it there because Systemic Justice has reached a point of maturity where it will benefit tremendously from someone coming in with fresh energy to take it into the next phase following the foundational work and initial building. Refresh the strategy to pursue our mission, continue building out the team as well as the infrastructure and culture to support it, and further strengthen our programmes. I am super excited about the prospect of seeing the work flourish further under someone else’s leadership. My dream right now is to be invited to Systemic Justice’s 10th anniversary party, have a blast and marvel at all that has been accomplished, and slip out of the festivities with a big smile on my face.
Part of my journey over the past years has been to understand that I am not the person to take us there. I love creating new things, seeing opportunities, figuring out strategies for addressing a need or filling a gap, and then making it happen. I am, however, a deeply reluctant “manager”. As much as I derive energy from designing projects, figuring out how to make a vision come to life, as much does it cost me to navigate the day to day. I do not say this lightly: it has taken me a long time to admit this to myself as I was feeling so much guilt about beginning work and then “not seeing it through”; only doing the fun bit and then wanting to walk away. I only learned when I carefully started articulating these feelings to others that my idea of fun was some people’s nightmare, and that – fortunately – there are some really wonderful and talented people out there whose idea of fun is exactly that next phase I instinctively shy away from.
Part of what makes leaving difficult, despite all this, is the uncertainty that comes with it. This is also why I would not assign responsibility for founder’s syndrome to founders alone: none of us operate in an ecosystem that normalises transitions from a cultural or infrastructure perspective. Besides the negative cultural associations with departures mentioned above, there can be serious impact on the organisation and on the individual who is leaving from a resources perspective. There is always clear unease with funders when leadership transitions are at hand – at times this is even embedded in grant agreements, creating additional uncertainty exactly at a time when stability and steady support is crucial to facilitate a successful transition. While I think most of us would agree that the “hero worship” we struggle with within civil society and activism can pose a threat to not only the continuity of the work but also to new initiatives forming, there is little in the way our work gets funded and otherwise supported to incentivise moving away from these narratives. This also applies at the individual level: while there are many “changemaker” and other types of grants and fellowships to support people in building a new initiative, there is virtually no support for exits. It requires a leap of faith or staying in post until an alternative opportunity comes along – and that timing may not always coincide with what is best for the organisations.
While endings and beginnings may be natural, they come with all sorts of emotions and anxieties. Again, here we are not helped by the ecosystem we’re operating in, where badly managed leadership transitions are unfortunately common practice, and where the work of especially Black woman founders is all too easily erased or invisibilised. There also is an unhealthy normalisation of founders staying on as “advisers” or as part of the governance structure, never fully letting go of power. Finally, change – even the best kind – can be destabilising for team members and partners. All of this needs to be navigated with care.
To ensure that we shape the upcoming transition process at Systemic Justice in a way that is intentional in creating space for both the incoming Executive Director and me, as well as the team, Supervisory Board, and our community partners, we are currently recruiting a consultant to support us in designing and running a meaningful process that is able to hold all the dynamics and sentiments that come with the organisation entering into a new phase. My hope is that a lot of those sentiments will be joy, as I am truly excited about working with the incoming leadership to set Systemic Justice on a strong continued path in pursuit of its community-driven mission.
We’ll share about this part of the journey here in due time. As always, all feedback, recommendations and ideas are welcome!