Executive Coaching
Taking on a New Role
You're a new Executive Director or senior leader working to navigate the many different responsibilities of the role - from HR to financial and fundraising management, to risk management, programming, staff and board management, and more. Ambitious and highly capable, you are interested in coaching to support your growth and leadership journey.
Navigating Growth and Change
You see the larger vision for increased impact, but you need additional funding, staff, and systems in place to get there and you're already stretched thin. We can work together to explore how your leadership can evolve to support this growth, as well as identify potential resources and key capacity building areas that will be critical levers in moving your work to the next level.
Exploring a Career Transition
You're starting to feel like it's time to explore transitioning out of your role. Making a change as an Executive Director or senior leader takes significant planning and can be an emotional and multifaceted decision. We can work together to explore if this is the right time for you, along with the action steps necessary to make your transition as smooth as possible for both you and your organization.
Dreaming of a Break
You love your work, but you're tired and heading towards burnout. You've given it your all for years and you know you need a break. It's time to rest and recharge. You need to focus on yourself and everything in your life that usually gets the back burner to your work. And you are craving time to explore and feel fully alive again. What if you could make taking a sabbatical a reality?
We all need someone in our corner
We weren’t meant to do this alone, but sometimes being a leader can feel lonely or isolating. Partnering with an executive coach to work through challenges, explore opportunities, and creating space for a sounding board can make a significant difference for you and your work, as well as help you feel nourished, supported, and seen. As you make progress on your coaching goal and continue to build your strengths based leadership capacity, you will see positive ripple effects across your organization.
Example coaching goals include:
I want to:
- build my leadership presence and capacity in my new role
- have better balance and boundaries with my work
- let go more and build the leadership capacity of my team
- address a challenge and work towards a stronger relationship with a staff or board member
- build my management skillset (or fundraising, financial, board, etc.)
- take a sabbatical
- explore if I’m ready for a job transition
If you are interested in exploring how executive coaching can support you, your goals, and your organization, I’d love to connect and explore if working together may be a good fit. There are several ways to work together, and we can explore what may work best for you during your complimentary exploratory call. As a part of this, we'll dig into what you're working through and what you're hoping to get out of coaching. I'll share more on what you can expect out of your coaching engagement and answer any questions you may have. I look forward to connecting with you!
Service
Offerings
Pursuing goals and making changes takes commitment and my coaching practice is set up to support you in making large shifts. Coaching works best over time in order to build positive momentum towards your goal. Coaching engagements are structured to allow time for deep support, expansion, significant action, and sustained change. Sessions often start out as weekly and then move to biweekly or monthly.
Optional: You can add the Leadership Practices Inventory, a 360 leadership assessment, to any coaching package.
Quick Start
—
2 - 3 months, 6 sessions, strengths assessment, accountability support, email support between sessions
$1,500
Commitment Package
—
6 - 12 months, 12 sessions, strengths assessment, goal mapping, accountability support, email support between sessions
$2,950
Sustained Change
—
12-18 months, 20 sessions, strengths assessment, expanded goal mapping, accountability support, email and phone support between sessions
$4,750
Executive Director
Peer Group
for Women
Navigating Leadership: Women Nonprofit Executive Directors Peer Group
Join other leaders to process challenges, manage overwhelm, identify new goals, and move forward with greater ease.
As a nonprofit executive director, you wear many hats—balancing leadership, operations, fundraising, board relations, and more, all while supporting your team and mission. The demands of this role can feel overwhelming and isolating. Join other nonprofit leaders to share experiences, gain new perspectives, and find support from those who understand your unique challenges.
What You’ll Gain from This Group:
Sustainable strategies for managing overwhelm and achieving work-life balance.
Practical tools and frameworks to reduce stress and set achievable goals.
A strong network of peers to foster innovative thinking and professional growth.
This group offers a confidential space where you can connect openly and explore topics like sustainable leadership practices, mindfulness approaches, and personal and professional goal setting. Facilitated by Eloise Russo, a former nonprofit executive director and seasoned executive coach, this group will support you in becoming the leader you envision.
Group Details:
Meets 1x per month on the second Monday of each month from 6 - 7:15pm ET
$50 per month
Email to join: eloise@eloiserusso.com
Coaching for Positive Change
Coaching for Wholebeing Leadership
Why Executive Coaching?
Executive leadership isn’t for the faint of heart, but you don’t need to go it alone. As your executive coach, I’ll be in your corner. You may be navigating organizational growth and change, or you may have recently started a new Executive Director role or senior leadership position. Each day you find yourself juggling seemingly endless demands on your time. In the midst of it all, you want to figure out how to better carve out time for yourself outside of work, and more. Being an organizational leader can be incredibly dynamic and exhilarating, and it can also be all-consuming with few supports in place to work through challenges or to nurture your growth and development.
As an experienced Executive Director, I know what it's like to hold ultimate responsibility for an organization. I know the feeling of being on-call 24/7, and what it's like to navigate crises and challenging seasons. As a former ED, I know the excitement and pressure of setting and working towards ambitious fundraising goals and strategic plans. I also know the difference that having a coach can make, and I would be honored to work with you as you navigate your own leadership journey.
The Coaching Process
After your initial exploratory call, if we’re a good fit, I often recommend an initial 8 to 12 session coaching engagement. First, we’ll explore where you are now, what’s working, and where you’re interested in making a change. Next, we’ll focus on clarifying your goal for our time together. After this, our sessions will use proven research based strategies and tools to support you and your coaching goal. You can expect to make significant progress on your goal during our coaching engagement, And finally, as your coach, I won't hesitate to jump in and work with you to get things done. It's what I do best, and one of my favorite parts of being a coach.
Beyond focusing on your coaching goal, we can also explore resources to support your personal and professional development, your interest in letting go more, or using your strengths to foster your own and others' leadership potential. I believe in wholebeing leadership, and the power of building a personalized practice to support your wellbeing so that you can show up as the impactful leader that you want to be. Let's connect and explore how executive coaching may help you in reaching your goals!
Coaching Readiness Checklist and my Coaching Framework
LEARN MORE
Download your free coaching readiness checklist to assess individual and/or organizational readiness for coaching, along with my coaching framework outlining my positive change model.
FAQs
What is your coaching philosophy?
You already have the answers and capacity within you, and my role as a coach is to support you in removing any obstacles in the way of you accessing your own internal wisdom. Key ways I do this are by providing a supportive container for deep inquiry and clarity, sharing resources and tools, and providing accountability to help you take action and achieve your goals.
I have researched many different coaching processes and tools and have landed on a coaching practice that employs proven research based methods. Key tools and methods include: appreciative inquiry, solutions orientation, goal mapping, and a wholebeing focus. In addition, one of my strengths is my love of learning, and I am always on the lookout for new research and proven practices to incorporate into my work so that you can benefit the most from our time together. I look forward to sharing more on this and answering any questions you may have during an exploratory call!
What does a coaching session look like?
Coaching sessions are typically an hour long, and are structured to support you and your goals. First, we will work to clarify the goal that you wish to focus your coaching engagement on. Next, I will create an engagement map to guide our time together to best support your goal and positive change. After that, coaching sessions will focus on moving you towards your ideal vision for the future related to your goal. Throughout your coaching engagement, we'll use a variety of tools and strategies for self-inquiry and exploration designed to support your growth, goal achievement, and sense of hope and happiness. We'll also create tangible action steps from week to week, and I will provide accountability support to bolster your consistent forward momentum.
What are the outcomes of coaching?
At the beginning of our coaching engagement, you will set a goal that you wish to work towards during your coaching engagement. As you work through the coaching process, you can expect to make significant progress on your goal. In addition, as our lives are multifaceted, you can also expect to receive coaching and support with areas outside of your key goal during our engagement together. And given my positive psychology expertise, sessions will be infused with strategies, tools, and exercises to foster your overall sense of resiliency, happiness, and thriving.
If you are feeling stuck or like like you're ready for a change but aren't sure what your goal is, we can work through this together. First, we'll explore your current state, and then explore potential versions of your desired future state. Next, by working through the coaching process, you'll gain clarity on a goal that lights you up and will support you on your path. After that, we'll work through the coaching process and you'll begin taking action and making progress towards your desired goal.
How is coaching different than therapy?
Coaching is a forward looking process that works to bridge the gap and support you in getting from point A to point B. This can be focused on personal or career exploration, health goals, leadership and career development, relationships, and more. Coaching can be incredibly impactful and is focused on positive growth and forward momentum.
Therapy and coaching are based on two different skill sets and have different scopes of practice. As a coach, I have specific training in positive psychology coaching and human flourishing. I also bring my personal and professional background to this work including my MBA, and decade of experience leading an organization among other things. I do not have a degree in social work, counseling, or therapy. There are many things which are outside the scope of my practice as a coach including: working with people experiencing depression, severe anxiety or grief, trauma, addiction, and mental health concerns. Therapy should be prioritized for any of the prior mentioned areas.
If you are interested in connecting with a therapist, a helpful tool is: Psychology Today's Therapist Search. Once a person is in a healthy place and has reached their baseline, coaching can be a great option. Coaching can support more forward looking goals, ambitions, and dreams, and some people may pursue therapy and coaching concurrently.