Why we're dropping the title "Co-founder"

At Scarlet Spark, we spend a lot of time helping animal advocacy organizations become healthier, more effective, and more sustainable. And one pattern that comes up fairly often is founder or co-founder syndrome.

When you've helped build an organization from the beginning, you've poured an enormous amount of care, time, and energy into it. You know its history. You’ve made countless decisions. People are used to looking to you for answers.

But over time, that can make it harder for an organization to grow beyond its founders.

Decisions may continue to flow through the same people even as the team grows. Staff may look to the founder(s) instead of trusting their own roles and judgment. Leadership transitions can become harder to imagine. And sometimes the identity of the organization becomes closely tied to the people who started it.

We talk with organizations about this a lot. And eventually, we had to ask ourselves: Are we reinforcing some of that same dynamic by continuing to use “Co-founder” as a title at Scarlet Spark?

We decided the answer was yes.

So, we're dropping it.

This doesn't change our history. Scarlet Spark will always have founders, and we're proud of what it took to build this organization. But being a founder describes our relationship to Scarlet Spark's history, and our purpose is bigger than a title.

Going forward, our titles will focus on the roles we currently hold, the responsibilities we have, and how we contribute to Scarlet Spark's mission.

It's a small change, but it reflects something we believe: healthy organizations should be able to grow, change, and eventually thrive without any one person being essential to their survival.

That means building real decision-making authority throughout an organization. It means allowing new leaders to shape what comes next. It means creating roles based on what the organization needs today, rather than preserving status based on who was there first. And it means planning for a future in which the organization continues long after its founders have moved on.

None of that diminishes what founders have done. They've built something that no longer depends on them. We think that's one of the greatest signs of successful leadership.

You built something that no longer needs to depend on you.

For us, dropping “Co-founder” is one small way of practicing what we encourage other organizations to do: share power, build for succession, and put the long-term health of the organization ahead of any one person's title.

Okay, enough about us. Now let's focus on you. What's a small change you can make to help your organization thrive regardless of whether you are there? 

Bonus: Good coverage and succession planning enable org stability, AND they give you more space to grow, recharge, and go spend some quality time with the animals in your life, humans included.