Equality Federation Institute’s New Executive Director Intensive is one of our longest-running leadership programs. For over a decade, we have gathered Executive Directors who are new in their role together to foster healthy and sustainable organizations and leadership practices. We aim for these new Executive Directors to build relationships with the staff at Equality Federation and across state lines with the other leaders in the room. Deepening trust with state partners allows them to share the realities of their organizations with each other, which in turn better informs the kinds of support we can offer. 

This year, we knew we had our work cut out for us to design a convening that would feel more additive than not for leaders in rapid response mode, triaging local, state, and federal developments that impact us and our communities. Could we design a convening that could meet the moment, and could these leaders carve out time for multi-day in-person convening?

As it turned out, the answer was a resounding YES! With the support and facilitation of three Equality Federation team members, Jay, Director of Leadership & Capacity Strengthening, Mel, VP of Operations, and Katie, Interim Deputy Director, 9 new Executive Directors convened in Washington, D.C. for three days of deep conversation and connection.

There are so many ways to be a leader, but sustainability is critical, especially in 2025. We centered the Intensive around sustainable leadership, including developing a shared definition and identifying the behaviors, beliefs, and systems that are either helping or negatively impacting each leader’s current sustainability. From there, we built on sustainable leadership practices to dive deep into organizational planning, leading through crisis, managing teams, fundraising and fiscal management, and knowledge management systems. We offered frameworks including start/stop/continue, network mapping, POP, organizational planning and fiscal management assessments, urgent/important matrix, and action plans to support these leaders beyond the space of the convening.

Executive Directors often talk about how isolated they feel, from the communities they’re building spaces for, from their teams, and even from their partners. It can be a lonely job to lead from the top. And yet, when they’re in a room together, there’s something magical that gets to happen. Suddenly, they have peers who intimately understand the challenges that come with the role. Year after year, participants talk about connecting with each other as the most valuable part of the New ED Intensive. From bonding over board dynamics to discussing legislative strategy, it is clear that Equality Federation is filling a much-needed gap in the movement for our leaders.

One participant shared, “This was a profoundly good use of my time, and it was extremely restorative and motivating. I'm feeling a lot of burnout, and this helped me get my spark back—thank you all so much.”

Our facilitation team felt the spark. too. Everything we do as an organization is in service of our state partners and the state-based movement we are building, but our team is dispersed across the country, working from home and only together in person three times a year. It’s easy to lose sight of who we’re doing this work for every day. In D.C. two weeks ago, the vision was clear: these leaders of our movement, on the ground in states across the country, are doing everything they can to ensure that all LGBTQ+ people can thrive, wherever they call home. And we’ll do whatever we can to make sure they are in this work for the long haul.

Taking time to be in community together has never been more critical. We need to slow down to move fast. We need to reflect, prioritize, and focus. We need to learn from and support each other. And we need to give ourselves the grace and space to sustain ourselves—not just our organizations—because we’re facing a marathon, not a sprint. These leaders showed up and stayed present throughout our time together. In doing so, each made a deep investment in and commitment to the success of our movement, each of their organizations, and each other.