This article is intellectually derived from a publication on the experience of the Carter Center after the death of its founder, and has been adapted and edited to suit the audience of the non-profit sector in ‘The Third Bank’, while preserving the literary rights of the original source.

In the non-profit sector, an organization's fragility does not only start when its funding declines, but it may also begin at the moment it realizes that its presence was based more on a person than on a message.

When charisma fades and the message remains: what can the Carter Center's experience teach us about the future of organizations after their founders?

Some entities grow under the shadow of an inspiring founder, who has a wide influence, present in image, decision, funding, and relationships, making it seem extremely difficult to separate the organization from him. However, the critical moment is not in the rise of this founder but rather is manifested on the day he is absent: does the organization survive posthumously because it has built a meaningful narrative that can sustain, or does it reveal that it was living on the charisma of one individual more than on a solid institutional structure?

This question is what makes the Carter Center's experience worthy of contemplation. The Center, long associated with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, did not face mere sorrow for an exceptional founder after his death. Alongside that, it had a complex test: how to carry on its mission without the man who endowed it with a significant portion of its symbolic presence? How to reorder its priorities at a time it was also facing pressing funding challenges? At this point, the matter was no longer related to preserving the legacy merely as a memory, but it became linked to the institution's ability to translate this legacy into a continuing life.

Nicole Kruse, the Vice President who spent over two decades fundraising for the Center, states that the institution remains committed to ensuring that Jimmy Carter’s values influence its future plans. In contrast, the importance of the experience does not stem from the Center's uniqueness alone but reveals a broader meaning that transcends the case itself.

Susanna Kislenko, who leads the Founder’s Leadership Research Lab at Oxford University, believes that founders bring to their organizations a kind of “unspoken magic,” that is the impact that is difficult to codify in regulations but manifests clearly in trust, symbolism, ability to rally support, and embodying the mission in one person. Therefore, their departure may represent a pivotal turning point in the organization’s life.

However, the most important idea here is not the impossibility of replacing the founder, rather what deserves attention is the need to maintain the qualities that initially connected people to the organization. Given that the real challenge facing new leadership is not merely replicating the founding personality, but what is truly necessary is to preserve the overall spirit of the organization, while honoring the vision that inspired its founding, and transferring it from the level of personal charisma to the level of institutional capability for continuity.

Carter's departure was not the only challenge facing the Center; in addition, it faced funding cuts from the Trump administration after his death, which Kruse described as unprecedented and unexpected changes that directly impacted the Center’s two main fields of work: peace programs and health programs. Nevertheless, the Center remained committed to having Carter’s values as part of shaping its future, not only out of emotional loyalty but as a guiding principle in a tumultuous time.

Tips for Handling the Founder’s Departure

Kislenko suggests three main steps to ensure a smoother transition after the founder's departure, starting with a point often delayed in our Arab organizations until it becomes a crisis, which is a succession plan where it is well-known that the worst thing any institution can face is to reach a point of absence without preparation or a clear vision for what comes next. Therefore, it is not enough for the board of directors to have a general desire to continue.

What is required is a clear succession strategy that is understood by those concerned, known by donors, and assures them that the new phase is not a leap into the unknown.

The second step is to involve everyone in the journey; the organization does not transition past the founder if the new vision remains confined to a narrow circle of board members or the next leader. It is essential here to have open discussions about the founder's legacy, what will continue, what may change, in addition to engaging stakeholders in understanding the upcoming direction to mitigate the void in interpretation and anxiety.

The third and most sensitive step is to evaluate the strength of the message itself; some organizations are more linked to their founder than to a clear and viable message beyond him. If the message remains strong and relevant, it should be built upon; however, if it is not, then insisting on continuity may not indicate loyalty.

Often, it may be an escape from acknowledging that the entity was fragile from the beginning. Despite the harshness of this idea, it carries a great deal of maturity. Not everything that starts well automatically has the qualifications to endure.

Focusing on Core Priorities

At the beginning of 2025, the Carter Center lost federal grants that represented 11% of its funding, and although this type of shock affected many entities, its impact on the Center was compounded because leadership was simultaneously required to answer donors' questions about the changing funding landscape while events to celebrate Jimmy Carter's life and legacy were still ongoing.

At that point, the Center had to do more than maintain its image; it also had to explain how it would continue to operate in a less stable environment.

Kruse clarifies that the leaders were keen to remind donors of the legacy of Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn, and that the Center “makes peace, fights disease, and builds hope,” and wants to respond to the needs of the most vulnerable populations in the world, as those were the values of the Carter family. Based on this, the leadership reordered priorities and decided to focus on two strategic areas: combating river blindness, a parasitic disease, and promoting democracy worldwide.

At this point, a crucial institutional rule emerges, as organizations do not survive in turbulent times due to numerous programs; what truly benefits them is clarity of essence when funding recedes or the founder is absent or the context changes. Thus, the most important question becomes: what can we not compromise on? And what field truly represents the heart of the message? The organization that knows the answer to this question has a better opportunity for survival than one trying to maintain everything with the same momentum.

Seeking New Sources of Support

Because the reduction of federal or governmental funding weakened the Center's capacity to combat river blindness in Central and South America, it had to seek new ways to finance this path.

In this context, it joined an alliance focused on combating the disease, activated partnerships with the private sector, and had previously signed an agreement with Merck to provide 28 million doses of Mectizan, the primary treatment for river blindness.

At the same time, as federal funding for democracy support programs declined, the Center intensified its efforts to attract individual donations for this path, particularly through donor-advised funds. This aspect of the experience reveals that sustainability is not merely a question of available money but that there is another dimension related to the organization’s flexibility in rebuilding its support model when reality changes.

The institution that ties its message to a single funding source remains more fragile than one that knows how to expand its support network without losing clarity.

Hence, this summary seems very important for the Arab non-profit sector in general, and for Saudi Arabia in particular, as many initiatives often launch vigorously under the influence of a significant founder or supporter or a central personal relationship, but real maturity begins when this launch transforms into a more balanced model, so that it does not make the message hostage to one individual, nor leaves the entity's future hanging on a single source.

Looking to the Future

The Carter Center is also seeking ways to engage younger supporters.

Kruse states that the work the Center is doing surpasses generations, and that she has a great deal of hope for the younger generation because she sees them clearly understanding the strength of the message and the resilience of the values on which the Center operates. On the other hand, Kislenko believes that some values do indeed transcend time and can resonate with different generations, regardless of their varying circumstances, pointing out that after Carter’s death, many young people on social media praised him and his efforts to improve the world.

This means that the organization does not preserve its founder's legacy merely by repeating his name; instead, the truest path is its ability to present the values he carried to subsequent generations in a comprehensible and contemporary language, as the legacy that remains is not what is invoked on occasions only.

The deepest impact is what remains capable of inspiring and working after faces and contexts change, and this is the real challenge: how to keep the values alive through the organization itself, not just through nostalgia.

When the Message Remains After the Man

This experience clearly reveals that non-profit organizations are not only tested in their moments of growth, but the truest test reflects their ability to continue the journey when their founder is absent or the circumstances surrounding them decline. Charisma may provide the launch, but it is not sufficient on its own to ensure survival; what truly ensures survival is the clarity of the message, readiness of the leadership, and the institution's ability to transform the founder's legacy from personal presence to a sustainable structure.

Thus, the Carter Center's experience serves as an important reminder for every non-profit organization, including our local entities that still sometimes rely on the founder more than on the system, and the strongest institution is not merely one that has an inspiring founder.

What matters most is that it knows how to continue its mission after him, and thus the great founder is measured not only by what he started but also by what he leaves capable of living on after his absence.

This article is translated with modifications from philanthropy.com