Lessons for Non-Profit and Start-Up Leaders: Tales from a Reluctant CEO uses the experiences of a real company, Community Connections, to bring to life the practical dilemmas that an organization founded on a mission and guided by a set of ideals must confront and solve if it is to thrive. With no business or financial background, Maxine Harris and her partner Helen Bergman grew a tiny startup into a $35 million business. Through trial and error, they learned how to manage finances, hire staff, overcome barriers, and adapt to changing business models. In Lessons for Non-Profit and Start-Up Leaders, Harris shares her insights, struggles, and mistakes with the goal of helping others who may be starting and running non-profit organizations. She spells out the ways in which creativity, tenacity, and the power of relationships helped her and her partner overcome barriers that often cause start-ups to flounder in their first years of operation. In a humorous and novel twist, the book engages the reader with a series of original fables, each tailored to introduce a business dilemma in the language of “make-believe.” Michael O’Leary provides commentary that places the stories and case studies from Community Connections into a broader context, making the lessons accessible to anyone working in the non-profit or startup sector.

"Harris, cofounder of D.C.-based nonprofit Community Connections, and O’Leary, a professor of leadership at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, team up to examine the challenges of establishing a new organization in this informative and thorough exploration. The authors take an unusual approach to their topic by starting each chapter with a fairy tale 'from our collective imagination' that colorfully illustrates a specific business hurdle, such as learning how to hire the right people, overcoming obstacles, or winning over stakeholders. These stories receive titles such as 'A Fable to Reach the Sky,' 'The Magic Ring,' and 'Crossing the Woods.' Each fairy tale is followed by a case study that shows how Community Connections dealt with the issue at hand. By using Community Connections as the sole source for their case studies, the authors impart to readers a solid understanding of how one organization met its challenges. While many business books provide examples from multiple companies in the name of breadth, seldom do readers have the opportunity to explore a sole organization in such depth." - Publishers Weekly

"Harris and O’Leary present an interesting, practical guide to the challenges of creating a new organization. They use their experience as a case study, and the book’s eight brief and easy-to-read chapters provide an experiential perspective on the issues the authors faced and the imaginative ways in which they accepted and overcame them. From their original idea to the integration of their creativity, managerial expertise, and organizational leadership, they cleverly, without the lists, charts, and formalities traditionally associated with books of this type, draw on their experiences with the Community Connections endeavor to engage readers in their story and to introduce, illustrate, and blend the application of contemporary organizational theory, principles, and practices into a model for organizational success and sustainability. Although the book is oriented around the not-for-profit business format, the principles and practices used to grow from a start-up organization to a thriving, multimillion dollar, influential company are equally applicable to all entities. Anyone with an entrepreneurial interest will find this a unique, useful introduction and overview. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals." - CHOICE

"The fables and Case Studies make Lessons for Non-Profit and Start-Up Leaders an entertaining and thought-provoking read and the lessons identified and the solutions delivered are insightful. While these solutions may not work for all situations they offer several options to consider. Overall an interesting and entertaining presentation of the challenges that Maxine faced as CEO and a useful look into how nonprofit businesses see their role." - Oz Rhodes