Charities in the UK are ‘sleepwalking’ into a succession crisis and boards are not prepared for it, Charity Recruit has warned.

The warning comes amid a decade of founder CEO retirements, which is leaving many charities at risk of ‘founder’s syndrome’, where staff, donors and trustees keep measuring the new CEO against the old one.

‘Founder’s syndrome’ among other risks, was revealed from interviews between Charity Recruit divisional director, Emily Formby, and charity founders, second-generation CEOs and trustees, all of whom have lived through the handover.

Formby’s interviews focused on what goes wrong when the first chief executive steps down and revealed the same failure patterns approaching every time.

“The first chief executive builds the charity, but the second has to run it, change it and earn the trust of staff, donors and trustees, who all have a version of the founder in their heads,” Formby said.

“Every veteran I've spoken to describes the same failure patterns, and most boards are sleepwalking towards them.”

Another recurring pattern at the point of succession is the ‘operational-to-strategic gap’, Formby’s interviews revealed.

Karen Horner, who replaced a retiring founder as CEO of Tomorrow's Women, told Formby staff kept bringing her operational problems rather than letting her focus on strategy and that separating from her previous way of working was harder than the strategy work itself.

Another issue is the ‘expectation gap’, which plays out in the form of new CEOs being expected to have the same levels of ownership of the charity as the founding CEO.

Sports Fund for All founder, Kieran Conolly said the founder is the reason the charity exists, whereas the successor is employed by the board. “Expect the same round-the-clock ownership from a second CEO and you will burn them out within a year,” he said.

Formby added: “These patterns aren't subtle or new. The boards that avoid them are the ones who plan the handover 18 months out, not the ones who start thinking about it when the founder hands in their notice.”

“Good succession doesn't end at the appointment”, Formby said. “Boards that get it right delegate operational work before the title changes, and line up external mentoring for the incoming chief executive. They plan a proper induction and resist the urge to keep the founder on the board.

“The sector is heading into a decade of founder exits. If you're waiting for the retirement announcement, you're already too late.”

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