A handbook for leadership transition in social enterprise
How can a founder-led social enterprise become an organisation equipped for the future? Your experience will help create a practical, internationally relevant handbook on succession in social enterprises.
About 20 minutes · English or German · Open-source handbook planned from Q1 2027
Succession in a social enterprise is rarely only a staffing question. It touches identity and letting go, governance and financing, knowledge and relationships – and ultimately whether an organisation’s social impact can continue. Yet systematic, practice-oriented guidance and comparable experience remain limited.
From Success to Succession / Wirkung im Wandel brings together practical knowledge, qualitative experience and research perspectives. The aim is to create a handbook that supports early planning, makes different pathways visible and equips the next generation of responsible leaders.
How do founders and long-standing leaders experience letting go of responsibility, changing roles and moving into a new stage of life?
How ready and worthy is the organisation for succession? Which structures, resources and forms of collaboration are needed for a viable transition?
What are the consequences for employees, beneficiaries and wider social impact if no viable succession solution is found?
The handbook will structure experience from different succession situations and translate it into practical guidance. It will consider not only internal and external succession, but also phased transitions, integration or merger, and an orderly wind-down.
Open-source publication planned from Q1 2027
We are looking for people who have founded or led a social enterprise, taken on responsibility, or been directly involved in a succession process – whether succession is only beginning to be considered, is being prepared, has been completed or has not worked out.
Share your perspective in an online survey taking approximately 20 minutes.
Responses will be compared to identify different succession situations and recurring patterns.
If you consent, we may invite you to a confidential online interview of approximately 60 minutes.
Synthesised insights will inform practical guidance in the open-source handbook.
Consent to data processing is requested at the beginning of the survey. Personal information or case examples will only be published following additional explicit consent.
Serial Social Entrepreneur
Dr Andreas Heinecke is a serial social entrepreneur, founder of Dialogue Social Enterprise and initiator of Dialogue in the Dark. He is an Ashoka Fellow, a Global Fellow of the Schwab Foundation / World Economic Forum, and Professor of Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the European Business School.
Graduate in Social Economics
Ralf Sange is Graduate in Social Economics and doctoral candidate in Economics, senior serial social entrepreneur, Managing Director of Gründer 50plus GmbH and an Ashoka Fellow. He leads the publicly funded programme ‘Succession in Social Enterprises’ and conducts entrepreneurship research at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg.
Mindfulness facilitator & Coach
Nancy Mortifee has dedicated her career to inner development and mindfulness education. From 2014 to 2024, she led inner-development programmes at The Wellbeing Project and provided individual guidance to more than 150 social entrepreneurs. She is a mindfulness facilitator, coach and author.