Improving Diversity on Nonprofit Boards

More than three-quarters (77 percent) of nonprofit board chairs identify as White, according to research by BoardSource, and nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of board members overall identify as White. In comparison, 75 percent of directors on the boards of Fortune 500 companies are White. (Data were not available for board chairs.)

The lack of diversity on nonprofit boards is not confined to race: 60 percent of members are 55 or older. And the volunteer nature of most board positions means boards often skew toward wealthier individuals. These dynamics can go beyond bad optics for nonprofits; they can make them disconnected from the communities they’re supposed to serve. 

“Our boards need to have credibility with the communities that we are serving so that the decisions that we are making at the governance level are reflective of the input and the needs and the hopes and dreams of those communities,” said Tara Huffman, the chief program and strategy officer of BoardSource, which provides consulting services for nonprofit boards. 

Speaking at a recent webinar hosted by NPQ, Huffman and other nonprofit leaders laid out ways organizations can make boards more dynamic and diverse, from recruitment to succession.

Casting a Net Near and Far

One reason nonprofit boards have skewed Whiter, older, and wealthier is that organization leaders tend to reach for their own contacts when seeking new members. More than 95 percent of nonprofit board chairs and CEOs say they look to their own networks to find new members, far surpassing other methods, according to BoardSource. 

“If your personal and professional network tends to be homogenous—look a lot like you, think a lot like you, come from the same places and spaces that the board members or the CEOs come from—then that helps to explain why boards would have difficulty recruiting more diverse candidates,” Huffman said.