WASHINGTON (AP) - The NAACP's board is forming a search committee to find the next president and CEO for the nation's largest civil rights organization, its chairwoman said Monday. Chairwoman Roslyn Brock said during a conference call that she expects the change in leadership to be an orderly transition. Outgoing NAACP President Benjamin Jealous also used the call to elaborate on his desire to spend time with his children, a reason he cited in his announcement the previous day. His departure is effective Dec. 31. Brock says the board is disappointed Jealous is leaving after five years during which he was credited with boosting the organization's finances and increasing stability. Still, she said staff members left energized after a meeting with Jealous on Monday. "The NAACP is alive, and it's well," Brock said. We have a strategic plan in place that will guide our work for the next 50 years. Jealous said during the call that he signed a new contract last year that was negotiated to keep him at the NAACP for a maximum of three more years. He says there was a clause allowing him to leave sooner because he was wrestling with the need to spend more time with his family. He said he'd promised his daughter when she was 3 that he needed five years to do important work at the NAACP before he could return home and be fully engaged with the family. His daughter, now 8, reminded him each year of his promise. "It just became clear during the month of August that I needed to go ahead and keep my promise to my daughter," he said. Jealous said that donations increased from $23 million in 2007 - the year before he was hired - to $46 million in 2012. The group also said its donors have increased from 16,000 people giving each year to more than 132,000 under his leadership. Jealous said the improvements in the organization's finances made him feel comfortable that he'd kept his promise to the board that he'd be a successful leader. Next, the 40-year-old Jealous said he wants to teach at a university and start a political action committee focused on promoting black and Latino candidates, along with progressives of all races. News of his departure has been met with a mixture of sadness and appreciation from other civil rights leaders who admired how he helped the organization. In the year before Jealous arrived, the NAACP cut its national staff by a third because of what a spokesman described at the time as several years of falling fundraising revenues. Also that year, former NAACP President Bruce Gordon abruptly resigned after clashes with the group's 64-member board. He has also fought to abolish the death penalty at the state level, in Maryland, New Mexico, Illinois and Connecticut. Brett Zongker can be reached at bzongker@ap.org or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DCArtBeat .